Ph.D, 2005: Psychological and Brain Sciences/Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University
Developmental Psychology
Doctoral thesis: Source and Goal Asymmetry in Non-Linguistic Motion Event Representations
M.A., 2001: Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
Master's Thesis: Infant Category Acquisition: The First Step
B.A., 2000: Psychology, Lehigh University
Semester abroad, Department of Psychology, University College of London,
1999
Research Area
Language development, Conceptual development, Spatial language and representation, Williams syndrome
Research Interests
Human beings talk about events. The capacity to do so requires an interface between spatial cognition and language. There must be a mapping between the non-linguistic and linguistic representations of an event, and my research explores this mapping throughout development. To do so, I study how infants, children, and adults represent spatial and non-spatial events. Do infants conceptualize events in a way that reflects the way older children and adults talk about events? How do non-linguistic representations serve as a basis for what gets mapped into language? And, how can language influence the way we represent space?
My research also explores spatial and linguistic representations of individuals with Williams syndrome, a genetic disorder resulting in various spatial deficits with relatively preserved language. Our most current project with this population focuses on whether and how spatial navigation is preserved in Williams syndrome individuals and how language can modulate spatial representations over development.
Publications
Lakusta, L., & Carey, S. (under review). Pre-linguistic encoding of goal paths and source paths in motion events. Developmental Science.
Landau, B., Hoffman, J. E., Reiss, J. E., Dilks, D. D., Lakusta, L., & Chunyo, G. (2004). Specialization and breakdown in spatial cognition: Lessons from Williams syndrome. In C. Morris, H. Lenhoff, & P. Wang (Eds.), Williams-Beuren Syndrome: Research and Clinical Perspectives. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Thomas, M., Grant, J., Barham, Z., Gsoedl, M., Laing, E., Lakusta, L., Tyler, L. K., Grice, S., Paterson, S., & Karmiloff-Smith, A. (2001). Past tense formation in Williams syndrome. Special Issue: Language and Cognitive Processes in Developmental Disorders, 16 (2), 143-176.
