Research report 2023 - Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
How neural maturation shapes language acquisition
Authors
Menn, Katharina
Departments
MPRG Language Cycles & Department of Neuropsychology, Max-Planck-Institut für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften, Leipzig
Summary
Our brain is not yet fully developed at birth. One manifestation of this is that it is still quite slow. Faster brain activity only matures gradually, and so does the ability to process fast signals, such as the speech signal. Isn‘t it amazing how effortlessly babies usually master language acquisition? In our new study, we were able to show that the gradual acceleration of the baby‘s brain is crucial for language acquisition.