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Updated: May 8, 2026
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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Language acquisition and cerebral specialization in 20-month-old infants
D L Mills1, S A Coffey-Corina, H J Neville
1The Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
|August 27, 2013
Summary
Infant brain activity shows specialized responses to understood words versus unknown or backward words. Language development correlates with increased left-hemisphere specialization for language processing in toddlers.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- Understanding early language acquisition is crucial for cognitive development.
- Investigating neural correlates of language processing in infants provides insights into brain organization.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine neural activity patterns in 20-month-old infants during language comprehension.
- To determine if cerebral organization for language changes with language development.
Main Methods:
- Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from infants.
- Infants listened to understood, unknown, and backward words.
- ERP responses were analyzed for differences across word types and developmental changes.
Main Results:
- Specific ERP components differentiated understood words from unknown and backward words.
- Distinct lateral and anterior-posterior specializations in brain activity were observed.
- Increasing language abilities correlated with enhanced left-hemisphere specialization in temporal and parietal regions.
Conclusions:
- Infant brains exhibit specialized neural processing for comprehended language.
- Cerebral organization for language becomes more specialized with advancing language skills.
- These findings highlight the dynamic nature of early brain development in response to linguistic input.
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