The main research objective of the language group 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. The language group also specializes in cross-language experimental research. Recent projects have investigated Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Chinese, Thai, and Korean, in addition to English.

There is also a large emphasis on speech perception research. Investigators from Hearing and Speech , 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.

Students have at their disposal an unusually broad range of research facilities.