Barbara Landau

Professor of Psychology

Director, Cognitive Science Program

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1982
blandau@udel.edu

Department of Psychology
Phone: (302) 831-1088: Office

Office: Room 238 Wolf Hall: (302) 831-3645: Fax

Research Interests

My work focuses on language learning, spatial representation, and the relationships between the two. Central questions include: What are the semantic and syntactic representations that guide language learning in children? What is the nature of our representations of space--in particular, objects and locations? How are these spatial representations recruited during the process of language learning? To what extent are linguistic representations "special," separate from non-linguistic representations?

In thinking about these problems, we use a variety of methods, and study a variety of populations. Currently, our specific areas of research include studies on the acquisition and representation of object names (simple terms for everyday objects as well as "natural kind" terms), the acquisition and representation of locational terms, and the relationships between spatial language and spatial cognition. In addition to studying acquisition of English in normally developing children and normal adults, we are also studying cross-linguistic differences in how spatial language is encoded and acquired, and the disruption of normal space-language relationships in neurologically impaired individuals--specifically, children and adults with Williams Syndrome. Please read more about our individual projects on our lab web page. You will find a list of publications below.

Selected Publications

On Language Learning and Cognition:

• Landau, B., & Gleitman, L. R. (1985). Language and experience: Evidence from the blind child. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Gleitman, L. R., & Landau, B. (Eds.) (1994). Acquisition of the lexicon. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Wright, C. E., & Landau, B. (in press). Language and Action: Current challenges to cognitive theory. To appear in J. Hochberg & J. E. Cutting (Eds.), Handbook of perception and cognition. Perception and cognition at century's end: History, philosophy, theory. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.

On the Acquisition and Representation of Object Names:

• Landau, B., Smith, L. B., & Jones, S. (1988). The importance of shape in early lexical learning. Cognitive Development, 3, 299-321.
• Landau, B., Jones, S., & Landau, B. (1992). Perception, ontology, and naming in young children: Commentary on Soja, Carey, & Spelke. Cognition, 43, 85-91
• Landau, B., Smith, L., & Jones, S. (1992). Syntactic context and the shape bias in children's and adults' lexical learning. Journal of Memory and Language, 31.
• Landau, B. (1994). Object shape, object name, and object kind: Representation and development. In D. L. Medin (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation, Vol. 31. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
• Landau, B. (1994). Where's what and what's where? The language of objects in space. In L. R. Gleitman & B. Landau (Eds.), Acquisition of the lexicon. Special Issue, Lingua, 92, 259-296. Reprinted by Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Landau, B., & Shipley, E. (1996). Object naming and category boundaries. In A. Stringfellow (Ed.), Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development. Brookline, MA: Cascadilla Press.
• Smith, L., Jones, S., & Landau, B. (1996). Naming in young children: A dumb attentional mechanism? Cognition, 60(2), 143-171.
• Landau, B., Smith, L., & Jones, S. (1997). Object shape, object function, and object name. Journal of Memory and Language (in press).

On the Acquisition and Representation of Place Terms:

• Landau, B., & Jackendoff, R. (1993). "What" and "where" in spatial language and spatial cognition. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16(2), 217-238, 255-265. (Target article and response to commentaries.)
• Landau, B. (1996). Multiple geometric representations of objects in languages and language learners. In P. Bloom, M. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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