Research
Funding
Makes Cognitive Development Insights Possible
Scientists in the Learning, Research and Development Center (LRDC) collaborate across disciplines and departments to study brain regions and processing systems that affect reading and language learning, using a range of analytic techniques and imaging methods.
Participating neuroscience and literacy research faculty include:
- Julie Fiez, a “Pitt Research Super Connector” who works with a large number of partners across disciplines, studies the neural bases of reading and learning to read. Fiez’s work focuses on the role of interconnected brain systems, including the cerebellum and the executive control system, using behavioral, functional neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and intracranial recording methodologies. In collaboration with Health Sciences researchers, she has also studied adults with acquired dyslexia due to brain injury caused by a stroke, and adults undergoing epilepsy monitoring.
- Charles Perfetti studies literacy development across languages and writing systems. He uses multiple behavioral and brain-based measures to achieve an in-depth view of the universal and language-specific processes of reading.
- Natasha Tokowicz uses behavioral methods and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to study bilingual and language learning processes. Her research has identified difficulties in learning a second language due to translation ambiguity.
- Bridging psychology, linguistics, and neuroscience, Tessa Warren and colleagues in the Department of Communication Science and Disorders are investigating reading and language comprehension of people with aphasia. Warren uses eye movements to track the word-by-word processes that lead to success in reading comprehension.
LRDC is a leader in neuroscience research on reading and language learning, with a team of interdisciplinary experts committed to pursuing new insights on the neural processes for these critical, complex skills.