Research

At the Learning and Development Lab we investigate language learning with simple learning games designed to be fun and educational for children and adults. If you are interested in learning more about our research, please contact us at learninglab@georgetown.edu.

If you are interested in participating in our studies, please fill out our online interest form and we will be in touch!

Studies with Adults

We are currently running studies of how people learn miniature artificial languages, and also how they learn other types of patterns. Most of these studies are done in our lab, on a computer, but some studies are run in a large scanner (harmless!) to observe the activity of the brain as people learn.

Studies with Children

We also study how children learn miniature artificial languages and other types of patterns, in order to understand why children are so good at learning and how they are the same as or different from adult learners.

View a sample video clip from one of our language learning studies.

View a sample video clip from one of our pattern learning studies.

View our pamphlet: Wondering what your child is thinking? So are we.

For the last 34 years, Dr. Newport’s work has been funded through grants from the National Institutes of Health.