Research Interests for Reiko Mazuka

Research Interests: Language Acquisition

The purpose of our research is to shed light on our understanding of human brain development by investigating the process of acquisition of language skills, specifically in relation to phonological development. Since the sound system of a language is one of the first things infants learn, an examination of the initial stages of phonological acquisition can provide critical insight into how the human brain is structured to learn a language. In particular, as language prosody is an essential (perhaps the critical) key by which children first make sense of the structures of their languages, our program of research is designed to utilize the latest knowledge and technologies (such as Near Infrared Spectroscopy) to ascertain the course of development by which specific prosodic phenomena are naturally acquired.

Keywords:
Acoustic Stimulation, Adult, Age Factors, Analysis of Variance, Asian Continental Ancestry Group, Attention, Auditory Cortex, Auditory Pathways, Auditory Perception, Awareness, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Cerebrovascular Circulation, Child, Child Development, Child Language, Child Psychology, Child, Preschool, Cognition, Comprehension, Concept Formation, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Cues, Discrimination (Psychology), Dominance, Cerebral, Emotions, England, executive function, Eye Movements, Fathers, Female, Fixation, Ocular, Fractals, France, Frontal Lobe, Functional Laterality, Generalization (Psychology), Habituation, Psychophysiologic, Hemoglobins, Humans, Infant, Infant Behavior, infant speech perception, infant-directed speech, Italy, Japan, Japanese, Language, Language acquisition, language comprehension, Language Development, Language Tests, Learning, Linear Models, Linguistics, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Biological, Models, Theoretical, Morphosyntax, Mother-Child Relations, Mothers, Mouth, Neuropsychological Tests, Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted, Orientation, Perception, Personality, Phonetics, Photic Stimulation, Pitch Perception, Predictive Value of Tests, prosody, Psychoacoustics, Psycholinguistics, Reaction Time, Reading, Research Design, Schizophrenia, Semantics, Siblings, Sound Spectrography, Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared, Speech, Speech Acoustics, Speech Intelligibility, Speech Perception, Speech Production Measurement, Tape Recording, Temporal Lobe, Time Factors, United States, Verbal Behavior, Visual Perception, Vocabulary, Word frequency
Current projects:
Characteristics of Japanese infant-directed speech
Acquisition of quantity-based phonemic categories
Role of linguistic markedness and input frequency on infants' acquisition of phonemic categories
Role of prosody on children and adults' sentence comprehension
Executive function and children's sentence processing
Inhibition function and sentence processing
Representative Publications   (search)
  1. Zervakis, J; Mazuka, R, Effect of repeated evaluation and repeated exposure on acceptability ratings of sentences., Journal of psycholinguistic research, vol. 42 no. 6 (December, 2013), pp. 505-525 [23179954], [doi] [abs].
  2. Bion, RAH; Miyazawa, K; Kikuchi, H; Mazuka, R, Learning phonemic vowel length from naturalistic recordings of Japanese infant-directed speech., PloS one, vol. 8 no. 2 (January, 2013), pp. e51594 [23437036], [doi] [abs].
  3. Tsuji, S; Gomez, NG; Medina, V; Nazzi, T; Mazuka, R, The labial-coronal effect revisited: Japanese adults say pata, but hear tapa., Cognition, vol. 125 no. 3 (December, 2012), pp. 413-428 [22921188], [doi] [abs].
  4. Nakamura, C; Arai, M; Mazuka, R, Immediate use of prosody and context in predicting a syntactic structure, Cognition, vol. 125 no. 3 (2012), pp. 413-428 [22901508], [doi] [abs].
  5. 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, vol. 66 no. 1 (January, 2012), pp. 265-284, Elsevier BV [doi] [abs].
  6. Sato, Y; Kato, M; Mazuka, R, Development of single/geminate obstruent discrimination by Japanese infants: early integration of durational and nondurational cues., Developmental psychology, vol. 48 no. 1 (January, 2012), pp. 18-34 [21967561], [doi] [abs].
  7. 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, vol. 39 no. 5 (November, 2012), pp. 919-956 [22182242], [doi] [abs].
  8. 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 (July, 2011), pp. 693-699 [21676090], [doi] [abs].
  9. 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 (New York, N.Y. : 1991), vol. 21 no. 2 (February, 2011), pp. 254-261 [20497946], [doi] [abs].
  10. 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, vol. 2 (January, 2011), pp. 70 [21687442], [doi] [abs].
  11. Yoshida, KA; Iversen, JR; Patel, AD; Mazuka, R; Nito, H; Gervain, J; Werker, JF, The development of perceptual grouping biases in infancy: a Japanese-English cross-linguistic study., Cognition, vol. 115 no. 2 (May, 2010), pp. 356-361 [20144456], [doi] [abs].
  12. Matsuda, Y-T; Ueno, K; Waggoner, RA; Erickson, D; Shimura, Y; Tanaka, K; Cheng, K; Mazuka, R, Processing of infant-directed speech by adults., NeuroImage, vol. 54 no. 1 (January, 2011), pp. 611-621 [20691794], [doi] [abs].
  13. 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 (November, 2010), pp. 2503-2513 [19925204], [doi] [abs].
  14. Sato, Y; Sogabe, Y; Mazuka, R, Discrimination of phonemic vowel length by Japanese infants., Developmental psychology, vol. 46 no. 1 (January, 2010), pp. 106-119 [20053010], [doi] [abs].