A new state-of-the-art language and brain lab that will conduct unique research on how people acquire and process language was officially opened on June 14, 2010.
“Languages are essential for communicating with each other,” notes Dr. Masako Hirotani, director of the new Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience: Language and Brain (CCN.LaB). “So if we can better understand how we learn to speak and understand a language, then we will be able to do all kinds of things like help stroke victims, children who are struggling to learn a language and people who are learning how to speak a second language.”
The lab features three small rooms. One contains an EEG machine that will allow researchers to study brainwave patterns when people use language. A second room is equipped with an EyeLink 1000 eye-tracker that records readers’ eye movements every millisecond. The eye-tracker is hooked up to two computers that will read and analyze the data. In a third room, researchers will record conversations that will allow them to study the acoustic nature of human speech, as well as conduct behavioural experiments using both conversations and auditory stimuli.
Hirotani, an assistant professor of linguistics and cognitive science based in SLaLS, says: “We’ll be playing detective using different techniques and sensitive equipment that marry the fields of linguistics, psychology and neuroscience in order to help solve the problem of how we acquire and process language. This could lead to breakthroughs in speech audiology and pathology, which could result in more effective reading intervention programs to help people with dyslexia and other reading disorders.”
“The Language and Brain lab will add an important and exciting dimension to a school already known for its impressive variety of research into the nature of language and its use,” says Randall Gess, director of SLaLS. “The new work on language processing and language development will complement leading work on structural properties of language ranging from the semantics of Cree to the phonetics of Inari Saami, and functional aspects of language ranging from blogging and virtual community in the Kurdish diaspora to the use of language by major powers in the climate change debates.”
Missed the opening, but still want the tour? Take a virtual tour of the lab.
The lab cost just over $344,000 and was funded by grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Ministry of Research and Innovation and four “in-kind” contributors.