Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Language Development

Language Development

Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

The human brain perceives pitch through two primary mechanisms reflected in place theory and frequency theory. Each mechanism describes how sound waves are interpreted as specific pitches by the brain, offering insights into the intricate processes of auditory perception.
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by...

Auditory Perception

Auditory Perception

The auditory system is essential for sound perception, utilizing various critical structures. When sound waves enter the outer ear, they travel through the ear canal and cause the eardrum to vibrate. These vibrations are then transmitted to the middle ear, where three tiny bones – the malleus, incus, and stapes – amplify the sound. This amplification is crucial, as it ensures that the sound vibrations are strong enough to be conveyed to the inner ear. These vibrations then reach the...

The Nativist Approach

The Nativist Approach

The nativist approach to infant cognitive development proposes that infants are born with inherent knowledge structures that allow them to interpret the world almost immediately. This perspective contrasts with earlier developmental theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget, which emphasized a more gradual acquisition of cognitive abilities through interaction with the environment. One key concept in this approach is object permanence — the understanding that objects continue to...

Socioemotional Development during Infancy

Socioemotional Development during Infancy

Socio-emotional development in infancy is primarily shaped by early emotional responses and social connections, with temperament playing a central role. Temperament refers to the consistent patterns in an individual's emotional and behavioral responses, observable even in infancy. By examining temperament, researchers can better understand an infant's unique ways of interacting with the world, influencing subsequent personality and socio-emotional growth.
Primary Temperament Types

Auditory Pathway

Auditory Pathway

Auditory pathways constitute the complex neural circuits responsible for transmitting and interpreting auditory information from the peripheral auditory system to the brain. Sound waves are initially captured by the outer ear, funneled through the ear canal, and reach the tympanic membrane (eardrum). These vibrations are transmitted via the middle ear's ossicles to the inner ear's cochlea.
When viewed cross-sectionally, the cochlea reveals the scala vestibuli and scala tympani flanking...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Understanding variability in full-term newborns' fNIRS data: the impact of birth weight and gestational age on infants' speech perception abilities.

Neurophotonics·2026

Same author

Shape of the hemodynamic response function in deaf infants eligible for cochlear implantation.

Neurophotonics·2026

Same author

Imaging the developing brain with near-infrared spectroscopy in cochlear implanted children.

Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)·2025

Same author

The fNIRS glossary project: a consensus-based resource for functional near-infrared spectroscopy terminology.

Neurophotonics·2025

Same author

Observation of cortical state-based learning in infants in a functional near-infrared spectroscopy paradigm.

Neurophotonics·2025

Same author

A Within-Subject Multimodal NIRS-EEG Classifier for Infant Data.

Sensors (Basel, Switzerland)·2024

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 3, 2025

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Prosodic cues enhance infants' sensitivity to nonadjacent regularities.

Anna Martinez-Alvarez^1,2,3, Judit Gervain^1,2, Elena Koulaguina⁴

¹Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.

Science Advances

|April 12, 2023

Summary

Infant brains learn complex language rules by combining statistical patterns with sound cues (prosody). This helps them detect nonadjacent grammatical dependencies crucial for language acquisition.

More Related Videos

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

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

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Aug 3, 2025

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

Published on: May 15, 2019

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Infant Auditory Processing and Event-related Brain Oscillations

Published on: July 1, 2015

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

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

Area of Science:

Cognitive Science
Developmental Psychology
Neuroscience

Background:

Language acquisition relies on learning grammatical dependencies, which can span nonadjacent words.
The infant brain faces a computational challenge due to the potentially infinite number of dependencies in language input.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how infants learn nonadjacent grammatical dependencies.
To identify the cues that facilitate the detection of these dependencies by the infant brain.

Main Methods:

Examined infant sensitivity to nonadjacent regularities in language.
Investigated the role of statistical learning and prosodic cues in dependency detection.

Main Results:

Rudimentary sensitivity to nonadjacent regularities emerges early.
Robust learning requires the convergence of statistical and prosodic cues.
Prosodic cues aid in identifying the components of nonadjacent dependencies.

Conclusions:

Infant language learning is facilitated by multimodal cue integration.
Prosody plays a critical role in parsing grammatical structures.
Understanding these mechanisms sheds light on the neural basis of rule learning for language acquisition.