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Associate
Professor
Department of
Psychology
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06268-1020
Office : 151 Bousfield
Email : heather.bortfeld@uconn.edu
Phone : (860) 486-0919
Fax : (860) 486-2760
Volunteer your infant's ear!
Research
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I am interested in how
language experience influences linguistic and conceptual knowledge in
infants, young children, and adult native and non-native speakers. My
research can be characterized as following three distinct lines, all
addressing experiential and contextual influences on language
development and use. One line focuses on how cues in the verbal signal
help preverbal infants pull words out of fluent speech. A second line
concerns what infants and young children know about the relationship
between the form of a sentence and its meaning in the world. A third
line examines the interactive nature of communication and how
processing biases both influence and are influenced by this
interaction. Data from research on all three of these topics highlight
the role of experience in guiding the development of perceptual and
conceptual knowledge and the importance of context in shaping this
experience.
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