Duke University 417 Chapel Drive Box 90086 Durham, NC 27708

(919) 660-5702 (office) (email)

Education

PhD	Cornell University	1990
MS	University of Edinburgh	1984
MA	Nagoya University	1983

Areas of Research

Language Acquisition

Areas of Interest

infant speech perception
phonological development
prosody of Japanese
role of executive function on language acquisition
individual differences in infants' abiliy to learn language

Professional Experience / Employment History

RIKEN Brain Science Institute

Laboratory Head, Laboratory for Language Development, 2004 - present

Recent Grant Support

• Laboratory for Language Development, 2009/04-2014/03.      
• An analysis of infant-directed speech by an integration of computational modeling and acoustic analysis., 2009/04-2011/03.      

Conferences Organized

editirial board, Japanese Society for Language Studies, 2008 - present  

editorial board, Syntax, 2007 - present  

Professional Service

DGS

Director of the Graduate Studies, Department of Psychology:Social & Health Sciences, 2001 - 2004  

Other Dept Service

Member, Third Year Review Committee for Makeba Wilbourn, January 2011  

Professional Activities

Organizing member, Study Group for Assistance for Developmental Disorder, IEICE, January 2009  

Editorial Activities

editorial board, Language Learning and Development, 2004 - present  

editorial board, Korean Journal of Cognitive Science, 2002 - present  

editorial board, Japanese Journal of Cognitive Science, 2002 - 2005  

Selected Recent Invited Talks

Acquiring versus Learning a Language (In Japanese), International Symposium on Stress, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, November, 2011  

Looking into human brain and human mind by studying infants' language acquisition (In Japanese), 2011 RIKEN Science Lectures, Tokyo, Japan, November, 2011  

Developmental changes in brain responses during speech processing (In Japanese), Auditory Perception Division Meeting, Acoustical Society of Japan, Tokyo Japan, July, 2011  

Investigating language acquisition through the prosodic development of Japanese, Max Plank Institute for Psycholinguistics, Njimegen, The Netherland, May, 2011  

Fronteers in Language Acquisition Research: Cues that facilitates association between sound and meaning in early vocabulary development (In Japanese), The 22nd annual meeting of Japan Society of Developmental Psychology, Tokyo Gakugei University, Tokyo, Japan, March, 2011  

Gaining insight into Japanese prosody from studying infant-directed speech (In Japanese), 2011 Spring meeting of Acoustical Society of Japan, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, March, 2011  

Investigating language acquisition through the prosodic development of Japanese, Center for Infant Studies, Department of Psychology, Stanford University.University, Stanford, CA, February, 2011  

Investigating language acquisition through the prosodic development of Japanese, Infant Studies Center, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Bancouver, Canada, February, 2011  

Investigating language acquisition through the prosodic development of Japanese, Center for Infant Studies, Department of Psychology, Stanford University.University, Stanford, CA, February, 2011  

Introduction to Infant Speech Perception Research (In Japanese), The 19th Phonetics Seminar of the Phonetic Society of Japan, Saitama, Japan, 7 January 2011  

Investigating language acquisition through the prosodic development of Japanese, Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science seminar series, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, August, 2010  

Learning the sound system of Japanese: What does it tell us about language acquisition?, The 20th International Congress on Acoustics (ICA2010), Sydney, Australia, August, 2010  

Universal and language specific ways of Infant Directed Speech: Linguistic, psycholinguistic, and brain imaging study of Japanese infant directed speech, MARCS Auditory Laboratory Colloquim, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia, August, 2010  

Looking into the mechanism of language acquisition through the window of "Motherese", 35th meeting of Kansai Linguistic Society of Japan, Kyoto, Japan, June, 2010  

Learning the melody of a language: Investigation into language acquisition through the prosody of Japanese, Invited Special Session, General Conference of The Institute of Electronics, Information communication engineers (IEICE), Sendai, Japan, March, 2010  

Language specific ways of infant-directed speech., Emory University, 2009  

Sound, meaning, and characters in reading: The relationship between characters and sounds in reading Japanese (In Japanese; Gengo wa oto to imi, yomi wa oto to imi to moji: Nihongo no yomi ni okeru moji to oto no kankei), Yokohama, Japan, 2009  

The science of language acquisition: The front-line of infant language acquisition research combining psychological, linguistic, brain science and engineering methodologies (In Japanese; Akachan no gengo kakutoku wo kagaku suru―gengo gaku,shinri gaku,nou, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, 2009  

Universal and language specific ways of infant directed speech: linguistic psycholinguistic, and brain imaging study of Japanese infant directed speech, University of Michigan, 2008  

Exaggerated Prosody in Infant-directed Speech?: Intonational Phonological Analysis of Japanese Infant-Directed Speech, University of North Carolina, November, 2007  

For whom does Motherese exist?, Saitama, Japan, June, 2007  

"Hahaoya tokuyuu no hanashikata (Motherese) wa otona no Nihongo to doochigau ka -- RIKEN Niongoboshikaiwa koopasu"(In Japanese: How do mothers speak differently to infants? -- RIKEN Mother-Infant Conversation Corpus --)., Onsei Symposium: Co-sponsored by Acoustic Society of Japan, The Institute of Elecgtronics, Information and Communication Engeneers, Information Processing Society of Japan, December, 2006  

Can Japanese speakers really not tell ebzo" from "ebuzo"? ", Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland, College Park, October, 2006  

Publications

Journal Articles

1. Mazuka, R., Cao, Y., Dupoux, E., & Christophe, A, The development of a phonological illusion: A cross-linguistic study with Japanese and French infants., Developmental Science, vol. 14 no. 4 (2011), pp. 693-699
2. Minagawa-Kawai, Y., van der Lely, H., Ramus, F., Sato, Y., Mazuka, R., & Dupoux, E, Optical brain imaging reveals general auditory and language-specific processing in early infant development, Cerebral Cortex, vol. 21 no. 2 (2011), pp. 254-261
3. Ito, K., Jincho, N., Minai, U., Yamane, N., & Mazuka, R, Intonation facilitates contrast resolution: Evidence from Japanese adults and 6-year olds, Journal of Memory and Language (in press)
4. Sato, Y., Kato, M., & Mazuka, R, Development of single/geminate obstruent discrimination by Japanese infants: Early integration of durational and non-durational cues, Developmental Psychology (in press)
5. Minai, U., Jincho, N., Yamane, N., & Mazuka, R, What hinders child semantic computation: Children's universal quantification and the development of cognitive control, Journal of Child Language (in press)
6. Sato, Y., Mori, K., Koizumi, T., Minagawa-Kawai, Y., Tanaka, A., Ozawa, E., Wakaba, Y. & Mazuka, R, Functional lateralization of speech processing in adults and children who stutter, Frontiers in Psychology: Language Sciences, vol. 2 (2011), pp. 1-10
7. Yoshida, K.A., Iversen, J.R., Patel, A.D., Mazuka, R., Nito, H., Gervain, J., & Werker, J.F, The development of perceptual grouping biases in infancy: A Japanese-English cross-linguistic study, Cognition, vol. 115 no. 2 (2010), pp. 356-361
8. Matsuda, Y-T., Ueno, K.-I., Waggoner, A., R, , Erickson, D., Shimura, Y., Tanaka, K., Cheng, K., & Mazuka, R, Processing of infant-directed speech by adults, NeuroImage, vol. 54 no. 1 (2010), pp. 611-621
9. Sato, Y., Sogabe, Y., & Mazuka, R, Development of hemispheric specialization for lexical pitch-accent in Japanese infants, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, vol. 22 no. 11 (2010), pp. 2503-2513
10. Sato, Y., Sogave, Y., & Mazuka, R., Discrimination of phonemic vowel length by Japanese infants, Developmental Psychology, vol. 46 no. 1 (2010), pp. 106-199
11. Mazuka, R., Jincho, N., & Oishi, H., Development of executive control and language processing, Language and Linguistic Compass, vol. 3 no. 1 (2009), pp. 59-89
12. R. Mazuka, Acquisition of linguistic-rhythm and prosodic bootstrapping hypothesis (In Japanese; Gengorizumu no kakutoku to inritsu ni yoru bootosutorappingukasetsu", Japanese Journal of Phonology, vol. 13 no. 3 (2009), pp. 19-32
13. J. Gervain, M. Nespor, R. Mazuka, R. Horie, J. Mehler, Bootstrappiing word order in prelexical infants: a Japanese-Italian cross-Linguistic study, Cognitive Psychology, vol. 57 (2008), pp. 56-74
14. Jincho, N., Namiki, H., Mazuka, R., Effects of verbal working memory and cumulative linguistic knowledge on reading comprehension, Japanese Psychological Research, vol. 51 no. 1 (2008), pp. 12-23
15. R. Mazuka, Infant speech perception and language acquisition (In Japanese;Nyuuji no onsei chikaku to gengo kakutoku), Life Science (In Japanese; Seitai no Kagaku), vol. 59 no. 5 (2008), pp. 448-449
16. M. Imai & R. Mazuka, Revisiting language universals and linguistic relativity: language-relative construal of individuation constrained by universal ontology, Cognitive Science, vol. 31 (2007), pp. 385-414
17. Sato Y., Mazuka R., Brain Responses in the Processing of Lexical Pitch-Accent by Japanese Speakers, Neuroreport, vol. 18 no. 18 (2007), pp. 2001-2004
18. R. Mazuka, The rhythm-based prosodic bootstrapping hypothesis of early language acquisition: Does it work for learning for all languages?, Journal of the Liguistic Society of Japan, vol. 9 no. 132 (2007), pp. 1-13
19. R. Mazuka, "Nyuuji no onsee-chikaku-gakushuu ni okeru kobetsu gengo no eikyou -- Hayashi ronbun e no komento--" (In Japanese: Influence of individual languages for infants' speech perception development. -- response to Hayashi paper --), Japanese Psychological Review, vol. 49 no. 1 (2006), pp. 75-77
20. R. Mazuka, "Gengo-nai no kobetsu reberu tokusei to gengo kakutoku no mekanizumu" (In Japanese: The role of language specific characteristics for the mechanisms for language acquisition), Baby Science, vol. 5 (2006), pp. 37-38
21. Choi, Y., Mazuka, R., Akahane-Yamada, R., Korean and Japanese children’s production of English /l/ and /r/, in Papers from the Workshop on Acquisition of East Asian Languages, edited by Nakayama, M. (2001), Kuroshio Publisher, Tokyo, Japan
22. Mazuka, R., Friedman, R., Linguistic relativity in Japanese and English: Is language the primary determinant in object classification?, Journal of East Asian Linguistics (2000)
23. Mazuka, R., Itoh, K., & Kondo, T., Processing down the Japanese garden-path sentences, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, vol. 26 no. 2 (1997), pp. 207-228
24. Misono, Y., Mazuka, R., Kondo, T., Kiritani, S., Effects and limitations of prosodic and semantic biases on syntactic ambiguity resolution of Japanese sentences, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, vol. 26 no. 2 (1997), pp. 229-245

Books

1. Mazuka, R., The Development of Language Processing Strategies: A cross-linguistic study between Japanese and English (1998), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
2. Mazuka, R., Nagai N. (Eds.), Japanese Sentence Processing (1995), Lawrence Erlbaum

Chapters in Books

1. Jincho, N., & Mazuka, R, Individual differences in sentence processing: Effects of verbal working memory and cumulative linguistic knowledge, in Processing and producing head-final structures, Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, 38, edited by H. Yamashita, Y. Hirose, & J. L. Packard, vol. 38 (2011), pp. 49-65, Springer
2. Choi, Y.-O., & Mazuka, R., Acquisition of prosody in Korean, in Handbook of Eastasian Psycholinguistics, Volume III, Korean, edited by Lee, C.-M., Simpson, G., & Kim, Y.J., vol. III (2009), pp. 255-268, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-83335-6
3. R. Mazuka, T. Kondo, & A. Hayashi, Japanese mothers’ use of specialized vocabulary in infant-directed speech: infant-directed vocabulary in Japanese, in Origin of Language Reconsidered, edited by N. Masataka (2008), pp. 41-77, Springer Verlag
4. R. Mazuka, Age of acquisition and critical period in language acquisition (In Japanese; Gengo kakutoku ni okeru nenrei kooka ha rinkaiki ka), in Brain Science and Communication (Gengo to shiko o umu no), edited by A. Iriki (2008), pp. 39-58, University of Tokyo Press
5. T. Kondo, R. Mazuka, & K. Kakehi, Role of lexical properties in Japanese sentence processing, in Handbook of East-Asian Psycholinguistics: Volume II, Japanese, edited by M. Nakayama, R. Mazuka & Y. Shirai (2006), pp. 226-232, Cambridge University Press
6. M. Nakayama, Y. Shirai & R. Mazuka, Introduction, in Handbook of East-Asian Psycholinguistics: Volume II, Japanese, edited by M. Nakayama, R. Mazuka & Y. Shirai (2006), pp. 1-10, Cambridge University Press
7. Mazuka, R., Itoh, K., Kondo, T., Cost of scrambling in Japanese sentence processing, in Papers from International East Asian Psycholinguistics Workshop, edited by M. Nakayama (2002), CSLI, Stanford, California
8. Mazuka, R., Can a grammatical parameter be set before the first word? Prosodic contributions to early setting of a grammatical parameter, in Signal to Syntax: Bootstrapping from Speech to Grammar in Early Acquisition, edited by J. Morgan, & K. Demuth (1996), Lawrence Erlbaum

Commentaries/Book Reviews

1. Y. Sato, & R. Mazuka, Relation between prenatal learning and post-natal language development: Comments on Morokuma, S., Fukushima, K., Nakano, H., and Wake, N. "Evaluating central nervous system fetus' behavior" (In Japanese), Baby Science no. 7 (2008), pp. 16-17

Edited Volumes

1. Arita, S., Goto Butler, Y., Hauser, E., Horie, K., Mazuka, R., Shirai, Y., & Tsubakita, J, Papers from the Tenth Annual Conference of th Japanese Society for Language Sciences: Studies in Language Sciences 10 (2011), Kuroshio Publishers, Tokyo, Japan
2. M. Nakayama, R. Mazuka & Y. Shirai, Handbook of East-Asian Psycholinguistics: Volume 2 Japanese (2006), Cambridge University Press

Other

1. Arai, M., Nakamura, C. & Mazuka R, An anticipatory effect of syntactic priming in processing of structurally ambiguous sentences, 2011 IEICE Technical Report (2011), pp. 83-86
2. Utsugi, A., Koizumi, M., & Mazuka, R, Subtle differences between the speech of young speakers of `Accentless'and Standard Japanese dialects: An analysis of pitch peak alignment, Proceedings for the 17th The 17th International Congress of Phonetic Science (2011), pp. 2046-2049
3. Jincho, N., Oishi, H., & Mazuka, R, Effects of vision and language on attention during sentence comprehension-A Visual world study, IEICE Technical Report, vol. TL2011-16 no. 2011-8 (2011), pp. 49-52
4. Miyazawa, K., Miura, H., Kikuchi, H., & Mazuka, R, The Multi Timescale Phoneme Acquisition Model of the Self-Organizing Based on the Dynamic Features, Proceedings for Interspeech 2011 (2011), pp. 749-752
5. R. Mazuka, Learning the melody of a language: Investigation into language acquisition through the prosody of Japanese, Proceedings of 2010 IEICE General Conference (2010), pp. SS35-38
6. R. Mazuka, Learning the sound system of Japanese: What does it tell us about language acquisition?, Proceedings of 20th International Congress on Acoustics (2010), pp. 1-8
7. Arai, M., & Mazuka, R, Linking syntactic priming to language development: a visual world eye-tracking study, Technical Report of The institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, vol. 110-163 no. (TL2010-18) (2010), pp. 43-48
8. Oishi, H., Jincho, N., & Mazuka, R, The involvement of inhibition function during garden-path recovery in sentence processing, Technical Report of The institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, vol. 110-163 no. (TL2010-18) (2010)
9. Utsugi, A., Koizumi, M., & Mazuka, R, A robust method to detect dialectal differences in the perception of lexical pitch accent, Proceedings of the 20th International Congress on Acoustics (2010), pp. 825-832
10. Hayashi, A., & Mazuka, A., Infants’ speech perception between 5- and 13-months, Proceedings of Technical Committee of Psychological and Physiological Acoustics, Acoustical Society of Japan (2010), pp. 1-6
11. Miyazawa, K., Kikuchi, H., Shinya, T., & Mazuka, R., The dynamic structure of vowels in infant-directed speech. –Riken Japanese Mother-Infant Conversation Corpus --(In Japanese; Tainyujihatsuwa no boin no jikan kozo, Riken Nihongo boshikaiwa kopasu o mochita bunseki., The Institute of Electronics, Information and communication engineers (IEICE), Technical Report, vol. SP2009 no. 73 (2009), pp. 67-72
12. R. Mazuka, Role of linguistic rhythm for language acquisition. (In Japanese;Gengokakutoku no kiban wo nasu rhythm ninchi), Gekkan Gengo (Japanese monthly magazin, "Language"), vol. 38 no. 6 (2009), pp. 58-65, Taishukan Publishing Company (Tokyo)
13. Kitahara, M., Nishikawa, K., Igarashi, Y., Shinya, T., & Mazuka, R, Charactiristics of pitch accents in infant-directed speech -An analysis of Riken Japanese Mother-Infant Conversation Corpus (In Japanese; Tai nyuuji hatsuwa ni okeru pitchi akusento no seishitsu ni tsuite; riken nihongo boshi kaiwa koopasu o tsukatta bunseki, The Institute of Elecgtronics, Information and Communication Engeneers Technical Report, vol. NLC2008 no. 46 (2008), pp. 133-136
14. Y. Igarashi, & R. Mazuka, Exaggerated Prosody in Infant-directed Speech?: Intonational Phonological Analysis of Japanese Infant-Directed Speech, Proceedings for Boston University Conference for Language Development, vol. 32 (2008)
15. Tajima, K., Tanaka, K., & Mazuka, R, Does Japanese motherese help children acquire Japanese rhythm? -- Distributional analysis of moraic phonemes in infant-directed speech -- (In Japanese; hahaoya tokuyuu no hanashi kata wa nihongo rizumu no kakutoku ni yakudatsuka? --tainyuuji onsei ni okeru tokushuhaku onso no bunseki kara, The Institute of Elecgtronics, Information and Communication Engeneers Technical Report, vol. SP2008 no. 37 (2008), pp. 99-104
16. Kondo, T., Jincho, N., Mazuka, R., & Hayashi, A, Influences of phonological length prosody in silent reading (In Japanese; Yomi no katei ni okeru onincho oyobi inritu no eikyo), The Institute of Electronics, Information communication engineers (IEICE) Technical Report, vol. TL2007 no. 8 (2007), pp. 41-46
17. Y. Igarashi & R. Mazuka, "Hahaoya tokuyuu no hanashikata (Motherese) wa otona no Nihongo to doochigau ka -- RIKEN Niongoboshikaiwa koopasu"(In Japanese: How do mothers speak differently to infants? -- RIKEN Mother-Infant Conversation Corpus --), The Institute of Elecgtronics, Information and Communication Engeneers Technical Report, vol. 2006 (2006), pp. 31-35
18. R. Mazuka, Y. Igarashi, & K. Nishikawa, Input for learning Japanese: RIKEN Japanese Mother-infant Conversation Corpus, IEICE Technical Report, vol. TL-2006-16 (2006), pp. 11-15