Clarissa Montgomery

PhD Student

LouiseKirsch

My research focuses on lexical-semantic development in young infants. In particular, I am interested in how the familiarity of a voice can contribute to word learning and understanding. Previous studies have found numerous advantages of the maternal voice in infant language learning, but I am interested in whether a familiar voice alone without any emotional or affective links could help facilitate word understanding in young infants.

Under the supervision of Pia Rämä and Bahia Guellaï, I will explore the neural mechanisms of lexical-semantic development in both monolingual and bilingual infants using electroencephalography techniques to better understand the role of voice familiarity and language environment in language learning.

Before joining the Babylab, I completed a Master’s degree in Cognitive Science (Cogmaster), and a Bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences and in Linguistics at Simon Fraser University.

Ongoing project

Linking early phonolexical acquisition and later vocabulary development

In this project, we test the proposal that a crucial milestone in language acquisition is reached when infants discover which sounds (consonants versus vowels) are more important at the lexical level in their native language, leading to an acceleration of subsequent vocabulary development.

Ticoala

Adaptation of a digital tool for assessing children’s language skills in nursery school.

Project team lead
Project team lead

Thierry Nazzi


 Project team lead
Project team lead

Ranka Bijeljac-Babić

Development of the auditory system and speech perception in infants- BabySIN 

On the one hand, the cerebral processing of different acoustic variations of sounds is studied in 3-month-old infants using the electroencephalography technique. On the other hand, the ability to perceive speech in noise in these infants is measured using an observation technique.

Project team lead
Project team lead

Laurianne Cabrera

Proccesing phonological information while learning and recognizing words

It has been proposed that consonants carry more weight than vowels in lexical processing. Given the timing of acquisition observed in French, we have proposed that this consonant bias emerges in connection with phonological and (proto)lexical acquisition, a hypothesis we are currently testing.

Project team lead
Project team lead

Thierry Nazzi

Predicting language outcomes in typical development

We explore how elementary perception and learning mechanisms are linked to language acquisition. To this end, we test infants on different perception and learning mechanisms, at different stages of their development and up to 2-3 years of age.

Project team lead
Project team lead

Thierry Nazzi

Language acquisition in atypical development

Knowing the mechanisms underlying typical language acquisition also makes it possible to explore whether or not these mechanisms are present in populations with atypical language acquisition and could be involved in their learning difficulties.

Project team lead
Project team lead

Thierry Nazzi

Lexical-semantic development

Our studies aim to understand the neural mechanisms underlying this development in monolingual and bilingual children.

Project team lead
Project team lead

Pia Rämä

Acquisition of phonological biases in lexical processing

We aim to understand how different types of sounds, as well as their arrangements within the words of a language, influence the acquisition and lexical processing of French, German, and Franco-German bilingual speakers.

Project team lead
Project team lead

Thierry Nazzi

Selected Publications