Prof. Toben H. Mintz, Ph.D.

My general research interests are in the cognitive mechanisms that underlie language acquisition. Ongoing and completed projects investigate the mechanisms by which infants detect words in fluent speech, how infants and very young children acquire fundamental syntactic knowledge about the language they are learning, and how toddlers learn the meanings of novel words. These research programs are connected by a common question about the nature of the mechanisms that give rise to linguistic abilities, and the effects of environmental input on these mechanisms.

If you are interested in pursuing a graduate degree in my lab, you can apply to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences area or the Developmental area of the Psychology Department. I also accept graduate students through the Linguistics Department and the Neuroscience Graduate Program, as I have affiliations with both programs.

Lab website: dornsife.usc.edu/labs/langdevlab