Colloquia, Workshops, Dialogues And Tutorials
2025-2026
Fall
COGSCI Kickoff!
Date: September 29th, @4pm-6pmLocation: Five and Dime
Dr. Marisa Casillas, University of Chicago, Department of Comparative Human Development
Date: October 21st, 4:00pm
Location: Swift Hall 107
Website: Marisa Casillas, Assistant Professor
Title: What makes some words harder to learn?
Abstract:
How and when children learn words is shaped by a variety of cognitive (internal) and environmental (external) factors. Clear and consistent patterns in learning have led us to, e.g., conclude that abstract and relational concepts take longer to acquire than concrete ones (internal), and that frequency in child-directed speech straightforwardly predicts many aspects of learning (external). However, a paucity of comparative data from diverse developmental contexts has prevented us from drawing strong conclusions about the universality of these biases in word learning. Given that children's early home language environments are hugely variable across the world's communities, *and* given that languages show minimal evidence for universal structural traits, the key theoretical issue for developmental language science is to capture the experiences and mechanisms that give children the flexible adaptability to become an adept local language learner. To ground our discussion of learning relational words, I'll discuss my lab's recent work on how children learn nouns, verbs, and kinterms in the US, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, and China. I'll use these examples to consider what kinds of adaptations children may make during learning and briefly discuss how we might try and model this adaptive system for learning word meanings.
Faculty Flash Talks
Date: November 11, 2025 @ 4:00pm
Location: Swift Hall 107
Faculty Speakers:
Monita Chatterjee , Communication Sciences and Disorders
Jiayi Lu, Department of Linguistics
Winter
Dr. Mark Steyvers, University of California, Irvine, Department of Cognitive Sciences
Date: February 17th, 4:00pm
Location: Swift Hall 107
Website: Mark Steyvers, Professor and Chair
Title: TBA
Abstract:
TBA
Spring
Dr. Jessica Grahn, Western University, Psychology Department
Date: May 5th, at 4:00pm
Location: Swift Hall 107
Website: Jessica Grahn, Professor
Title: TBA
Abstract:
TBA