Paul Okyere Omane
Postdoctoral Researcher
I am a postdoctoral researcher studying language acquisition and processing in bi- and multilingual infants and toddlers, particularly those from underrepresented communities and those learning understudied languages. My research project focuses on cross-linguistic approaches to early lexical acquisition and processing in both native and non-native languages.
Ongoing projects
A neuroscientific study of the structure of the bilingual lexicon: the impact of linguistic distance, word type and word relationships on the developing brain
Our aim is to study the lexico-semantic organisation in bilingual infants, in order to explore the internal structure of the bilingual lexicon.
Project team lead
Pia Rämä
MINDlang
Multilingual language and thought: cross-linguistic and neurocognitive trajectories of conceptualization across the lifespan.
Project team lead
Eva Soroli
Statistical learning in 10-month-old infants using acoustically degraded speech – TP-VOC
We’re trying to understand the role of acoustic information in speech in statistical learning and the detection of patterns in language.
Project team lead
Laurianne Cabrera
Infant entrainment to artificial voices
In this project, we are testing how infants react to hearing voices that either sound more artificial (machine-like), more human (human-like), or even more familiar (voice clone of the infant’s mother). Funded by SSHRC Canada (2025-2027)
Project team lead
Henny Yeung
Global speech
This project aims to unveil the general auditory mechanisms involved in the early development of speech perception by using both behavioural and neurophysiological tools with infants.
Project team lead
Laurianne Cabrera
Neural study of bilingual lexicon structure: impact of language distance, word type, and relatedness in the developing brain
Our aim is to investigate lexical-semantic organisation in bilingual infants, as a lens into the internal structure of bilingual lexicon. More specifically, we aim to investigate how lexical-semantic organisation – both thematic and taxonomic – in the bilingual brain is shaped by language distance and cognate status of words.
Project team lead
Pia Rämä
Early speech perception and processing of phonological information in lexical acquisition in French- and Akan-learning infants and toddlers
This cross-linguistic project explores how French and Akan-learning toddlers process phonological information (consonants, vowels, tones) when learning words in their native and non-native languages.
Project team lead
Paul Okyere Omane
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.
Project team lead
Thierry Nazzi
Ticoala
Adaptation of a digital tool for assessing children’s language skills in nursery school.
Project team lead
Thierry Nazzi
Project team lead
Ranka Bijeljac-Babić
Prosodic grouping biases from birth to adulthood in monolingual speakers
This project studies how adults and young children use variations in intensity, duration and intonation to group syllables into word units.
Project team lead
Thierry Nazzi
Selected Publications
Omane, P. O., Benders, T., & Boll-Avetisyan, N. (2024). Vowel harmony preferences in infants growing up in multilingual Ghana (Africa).Developmental Psychology, 60(8), 1372–1383. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001776
Omane, P. O., Benders, T., & Boll-Avetisyan, N. (2025). Exploring the nature of multilingual input to infants in multiple caregiver families in an African city: The case of Accra (Ghana). Cognitive Development, 74, 101558. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2025.101558
Omane, P.O., Isaiah, A.A., Duah, R.A., & Nazzi, T. (2025). Sustaining language acquisition research in Africa: A commentary on Scaff, Loukatou, Cristia, and Havron (2025). Developmental Science, 28, e70063. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70063