CLIC Speaker Abstracts

Julie Gros-Louis (Department of Psychological and Brain Studies, Indiana University): "The Origins of Communication: Social Influences on Development" February 27, 2008, 5pm. Place: Haines Hall 352.

Traditionally, researchers have considered vocal development to be an innate process toward the development of communication. Therefore, early stages of vocal production in both songbirds and prelinguistic infants ("babbling") have been considered to simply be 'motor practice' for development of mature acoustic forms. However, initial studies in infants and other species suggest social influences on development, indicating that it should be viewed as part of a broader developmental ecology. I present converging lines of evidence from studies in songbirds and himan infants that provide a systems view of communicative development. My research shows that social partners and their responses initiate developmental trajectories that influence the advancement of communicative skills. In particular, results indicate that differential feedback shapes the acoustic structure of vocalizations in addition to providing information about vocal usage and function. Therefore, interactive and contingency-based learning in social contexts should be considered an important developmental mechanism.