2005 LECTURE SERIES

How Children Shape Languages: Language Acquisition and Emergence

Dr. Elissa L. Newport
University of Rochester
Tuesday, Feburary 1, 2005

Young children are much better than adults at learning new languages. In this lecture, Dr. Newport will discuss her remarkable studies of young, emerging sign languages around the world and her studies of children learning languages in a laboratory setting, showing that children are a prime force in developing and expanding languages as they are in the process of being formed.

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How Could Brain Science Transform our Lives in the 21st Century

Dr. Richard Morris
The University of Edinburgh
Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Brain science has reached a level of maturity where our understanding of how the brain works is poised to have a growing impact on our lives. Drawing on examples from research on memory, Dr. Morris will illustrate where neuroscientists are today, where they think they are going, and how a balance of basic science and needs-driven research will impact education, the development of new medical treatments and brain-style computing.

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Remembering Trauma

Dr. Richard J. McNally
Harvard University
Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Are traumatic experiences engraved on the mind, never to be forgotten? Or does the mind protect itself by banishing them from awareness? In this lecture, Dr. McNally will debunk myths about traumatic memory, and describe his own research on people who report having recovered memories of either abuse during childhood or abduction by space aliens.

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