The main research objective of this research area is to bridge the gap between theoretical, computational, psychological and neuroscientific models of language, and students are encouraged to pursue close connections between these different approaches. Research topics include language acquisition (from infancy to kindergarten and beyond), adult language processing, neurolinguistics, neurocognitive disorders, and computational modeling. This research area also specializes in cross-language experimental research. There is also a large emphasis on speech perception research. Investigators from Hearing and Speech Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Linguistics, and Biology use behavioral, computational, and brain imaging techniques to study how speech is represented and processed in children and adults, in healthy and pathological conditions.