Very young children learn words at a tremendous rate. Now researchers at the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis have for the first time seen how specific brain regions activate as 2-year-olds remember newly learned words — while the children were sleeping. The work is published Oct. 19 in Current Biology.
Much of what scientists know about human learning, visual attention and memory comes from laboratory studies involving artificial tasks, like watching and recalling words or colored shapes flashed on a computer monitor. Two UC Davis research teams, with support from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, will study the development of learning in a wide range of ages — from infancy to young adulthood — in more naturalistic settings.