Cognitive Science Colloquium delivered by Naomi Havron:

Prediction in language acquisition

Prediction is widely considered a fundamental aspect of human cognition in general, and a mechanism underlying language acquisition more specifically. I will present a series of studies conducted with young children aged 1.5-6 years, demonstrating that they use their predictions about what speakers will say next to learn novel words; and update these predictions when processing and learning language. I will present studies on French and English, as well as show how I utilize the unique features of Hebrew morphology to further explore general language-learning mechanisms. Together, these findings motivate a novel model that explains the development of linguistic prediction by accounting for the roles of both linguistic experience and cognitive abilities.