Our research covers three main topics: Language acquisition, Mathematical cognition, and Social cognition. 

Research questions on language acquisition focus on different levels of speech and language processing (e.g., acoustic, phonology, prosody, lexicon) in typically and atypically (e.g., hard of hearing infants using hearing devices, infants born prematurely) developing infants and children. We explore the perceptual and learning mechanisms supporting language acquisition at birth, the early auditory processing capacities, the developmental links between acquisition of phonology and lexicon, the development of the lexical-semantic organization, and the origins of pragmatic language abilities. We also investigate the impact of simultaneous bilingualism on early language acquisition. 

Our research on mathematical cognition covers two domains: number, and geometry. In these two domains, we are interested in the perceptual foundations of mathematics: infants’ and children’s ability to perceive quantities and shapes, and to reason about these quantities and shapes. We are also interested in the propensity to use an oriented mental space to represent non-spatial information, such as ordered sequences – as it applies to the domain of number, but also to other domains.

Finally, related to social cognition, we explore the foundations and early development of social learning through observation and communication. We examine how infants and children learn from and about their social partners to uncover the mechanisms that enable and shape human social learning and cultural diversity. This includes investigating processes like action and social relation representations, metacognition, theory of mind, communication skills, trust, and naïve epistemology.

Photos © Hubert RAGUET / INCC / CNRS Images