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People >Faculty 
Iris Berent • See curriculum vitae (pdf) • See Laboratory website • See publications
My research examines the nature of linguistic competence, its origins, and its interaction with reading ability. I seek to identify the constraints that shape the language system and determine the extent to which this system is specialized for the processing of linguistic information. I am particularly interested in two questions: (a) Are people equipped with a grammar—a computational system that operates on linguistic variables (abstract categories such as Noun and Syllable, as opposed to specific instances, such as the noun dog and the syllable blif)? (b) Does the grammar include universal constraints on language structure? To assess the computational properties of the language system, I examine whether people can learn restrictions on linguistic variables, such as constraints on reduplication (e.g., ABB vs. ABB). My work also seeks to identify the class of grammars that are learnable by humans. To this end, I examine whether speakers (adults, children and infants) of diverse languages (e.g., English, Hebrew, Korean, Russian, Spanish) possess universal grammatical constraints on structures that they have never heard before. I seek to identify such constraints, examine their source—whether they reflect specific restrictions on language structure, or properties of nonlinguistic systems (e.g., audition, motor control)—and their modulation by linguistic experience. My work also explores the link between linguistic competence and reading ability and disability.
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Research