First Language Acquisition

The program First Language Acquisition investigates the acquisition of phonological representations in the lexicon and the role of these representations in perception and production. Phonological representations mediate between the acoustic signal and meaning in speech perception and between meaning and the articulatory output in speech production. Thus, phonological representations in the brain lay the foundation for successful communication. Yet, the nature of phonological representations that are built up during language acquisition is far from clear. This program aims at unravelling this.