Barbara Landau

Biographic Data

ID743215
NAMEBarbara Landau
GIVEN NAMESBarbara
FAMILY NAMELandau
SIGNATURELANDAU B
AFFILIATIONSJohns Hopkins University
ORCID0000-0002-4583-7846
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS20
TOTAL CITATIONS37
WORKS AS AUTHOR20
WORKS AS EDITOR0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1982
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX4

  • The neural basis of emotional prosody processing

    Open AccessCarolyn D Gershman, Elissa L Newport et al.ARTICLEBrain and Language2026

    In most healthy adults, core language functions (e.g. sentence processing) rely predominantly on the left hemisphere (LH), whereas emotional prosody processing (EP) relies predominantly on the right (RH). After LH injury, adults exhibit lasting impairments of sentence processing. In contrast, infants with similar injury can acquire processes typically subserved by the damaged LH by utilizing the homotopic regions of the intact RH. This suggests e…

  • A Phone in a Basket Looks Like a Knife in a Cup

    Open AccessAlon Hafri, Michael Bonner et al.ARTICLEOpen MIND2024

    When a piece of fruit is in a bowl, and the bowl is on a table, we appreciate not only the individual objects and their features, but also the relations containment and support, which abstract away from the particular objects involved. Independent representation of roles (e.g., containers vs. supporters) and “fillers” of those roles (e.g., bowls vs. cups, tables vs. chairs) is a core principle of language and higher-level reasoning. But does such…

  • How Does English Encode ‘Tight’ Vs. ‘Loose-fit’ Motion Events? It’s Complicated

    Barbara Landau, Emma E Davis et al.ARTICLELanguage Learning and Development2024

    Linguistic encoding of spatial events has long provided a forum for examining how languages encode space, how children learn their native encodings, and whether cross-linguistic differences affect non-linguistic representations of space. One prominent case concerns motion events in which objects are moved into tight or loose-fit relationships of containment or support. Seminal findings from Bowerman showed that young children learning Korean regu…

  • The Ins and Outs of spatial language

    Open AccessMyrto Grigoroglou, Barbara Landau et al.ARTICLEJournal of Memory and Language2024

    Research on the language of space has uncovered a complex set of conceptual and linguistic factors affecting the nature, use and acquisition of spatial vocabularies across languages. Here we highlight the important but understudied role of pragmatic factors in how spatial relations are encoded across ages and languages. We focus on Containment ( in/out ) and Support ( on/off ) terms that can denote both static locations (‘places’: be in/out of X …

  • Seeing and Believing

    Emma E Davis, E Emory Davis et al.ARTICLELanguage Learning and Development2021

    Perception verbs and mental verbs have significant overlap in their syntax and semantics; both reference mental representations when taking embedded clauses, as in I see that Maria was here and I think that Maria was here. Some have suggested that perception is more accessible for young children than mental states, raising the question of whether perception verbs could serve as a semantic model for the acquisition of mental verbs via their shared…

  • How does a blind person see? Developmental change in applying visual verbs to agents with disabilities

    Open AccessGiulia Elli, Giulia V Elli et al.ARTICLECognition2021

  • Evidence for a Core Representation for Support in Early Language Development

    Laura Lakusta, Maria Brucato et al.ARTICLELanguage Learning and Development2020

    Configurations of support include those that exhibit Support-From-Below (cup on table), as well as those involving Mechanical Support (e.g., stamp on envelope, coat on hook). Mature language users show a “division of labor” in the encoding of support, frequently using basic locative expressions (BE on in English) to encode Support-From-Below but lexical verbs (e.g., stick, hang) to encode cases of Mechanical Support. This suggests that Support-Fr…

  • Spatial language difficulties reflect the structure of intact spatial representation

    Open AccessAgata Bochyńska, Mila Vulchanova et al.ARTICLECognitive Psychology2020

  • Starting at the end

    Open AccessLaura Lakusta, Barbara LandauARTICLECognition2005

  • Object name Learning Provides On-the-Job Training for Attention

    Open AccessLinda B Smith, Susan S Jones et al.ARTICLEPsychological Science2002

    By the age of 3, children easily learn to name new objects, extending new names for unfamiliar objects by similarity in shape. Two experiments tested the proposal that experience in learning object names tunes children's attention to the properties relevant for naming—in the present case, to the property of shape—and thus facilitates the learning of more object names. In Experiment 1, a 9-week longitudinal study, 17-month-old children who repeate…

  • The Acquisition of the Lexicon

    Linda B Smith, Linda Smith et al.ARTICLELanguage1997

    The nature of the mental lexicon, Edwin Williams and Beth Levin discovering the word units, Anne Cutler et al categorizing the world, Susan Carey and Frank C. Keil categories, words and language, Ellen M. Markman et al the case of verbs, Cynthia Fischer, D. Geoffrey Hall et al procedures for verb learning, Michael R. Brent et al

  • Where's what and what's where

    Open AccessBarbara LandauARTICLELingua1994Cited by: 4References: 49

  • “What” and “where” in spatial language and spatial cognition

    Open AccessBarbara Landau, Ray JackendoffARTICLEBehavioral and Brain Sciences1993

    Fundamental to spatial knowledge in all species are the representations underlying object recognition, object search, and navigation through space. But what sets humans apart from other species is our ability to express spatial experience through language. This target article explores the language of objects and places , asking what geometric properties are preserved in the representations underlying object nouns and spatial prepositions in Engli…

  • Count nouns, adjectives, and perceptual properties in children's novel word interpretations

    Linda B Smith, Susan S Jones et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychology1992Cited by: 13References: 1

    Three-year-old children were shown a novel exemplar toy and asked to judge test items that differed from the exemplar in shape, coloration, or material substance. In the count noun condition, children judged whether test items had the same novel name as the exemplar. In the adjective condition, children judged whether a test hern could be described by the same novel adjective as the exemplar. The results of 3 experiments indicated that children s…

  • A partial solution to the homonym problem

    Open AccessAmy S Kohn, Barbara LandauARTICLEJournal of Psycholinguistic…1990References: 18

  • Function morphemes in young children's speech perception and production

    Louann Gerken, Barbara Landau et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychology1990Cited by: 13References: 3

  • The importance of shape in early lexical learning

    Open AccessBarbara Landau, Linda B Smith et al.ARTICLECognitive Development1988

  • Geometric complexity and object search in infancy

    Barbara Landau, Elizabeth S Spelke et al.ARTICLEDevelopmental Psychology1988Cited by: 2References: 5

    In four experiments we investigated the role of geometric path type in infants ' ability to make spatial inferences about the location of a hidden object after they themselves had been moved through space. Nine-month-old infants were moved along geometrically simple paths of rotation (Experiments 1 and 2) or translation (Experiment 3) or along geometrically complex paths of combined rotation and translation (Experiment 4). In all but the fourth e…

  • Language and Experience

    John Neil Bohannon, Barbara Landau et al.ARTICLELanguage1986

  • Will the real grandmother please stand up? The psychological reality of dual meaning representations

    Open AccessBarbara LandauARTICLEJournal of Psycholinguistic…1982Cited by: 5References: 1