Neuroscience of Multilingualism

Neuroscience of Multilingualism brings together faculty from the Main Campus and the Medical Center who employ empirical and theoretical approaches from the fields of neuroscience, cognitive psychology, theoretical and applied linguistics, and language disorders to investigate the neural and cognitive substrates of language learning and bilingualism in children and adults. Their research is both theoretical and empirical, and includes behavioral, ERP (event-related potentials) (Sanz, Ullman), fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) (Newport, Supalla, Ullman), and neuroanatomical meta-analysis methods (Ullman). They use a variety of paradigms, including word learning, artificial and miniature language learning (Sanz, Ullman, Newport), as well as paradigms with natural languages (e.g., Spanish (Sanz, Ullman), English (Newport, Ullman), and American Sign Language (Newport, Supalla). With IMS as a hub, this interdisciplinary strand will perform both basic research and research with clinical (translational) and educational applications.