At BabyLab, we explore language learning
The speed with which babies learn their mother tongue is astounding! What mechanisms underlie this feat? This is what researchers are studying at the BabyLab in Port-Royal (Paris).
The experimenter places a sticker on the children’s foreheads with instructions not to remove it.
Alex puts on a cartoon to capture their gaze and calibrate the sensor, then he launches the manipulation and records the coordinates of the eye on the screen.
The aim of the experiment is to study the role of intonation on understanding sentences and learning the gender of male / female words.
The second experiment seeks to know how children can learn verbs
As in real life when he hears adults pronounce verbs he does not know. How does he manage to decipher its meaning, what strategy, what clues does he use to understand?
The BabyLab tests 700 babies per year on average
the mechanisms that allow babies to learn their language remain very mysterious
We hope that fundamental research will help us, in the near future, to detect possible speech pathologies very early on, to refine the diagnosis and to propose more targeted re-education. “
Today’s two sessions are over. Arthur, very happy, said goodbye to everyone. Juliette, more discreet, sticks the sticker on Doudou’s forehead and leaves, holding her daddy’s hand tightly.