LEAP Fellow

Sho Tsuji

IRCN Babylab, the University of Tokyo

Sho Tsuji earned a Ph.D. from the International Max Planck Research School for Language Sciences, followed by postdoctoral research at the Infant Language Center at the University of Pennsylvania and Laboratory of Cognitive Sciences and Psycholinguistics at Ecole Normale Supérieure. She is now a Principal Investigator at the IRCN Babylab, the University of Tokyo. Her research investigates the mechanisms behind young children’s amazing capacity to acquire language fast and efficiently in diverse environments. Drawing on observational, experimental, and interventional methods, she focuses on the role of the linguistic environment and social context, especially the role of the interactive nature of social situations, for advancing learning. Observational study of infants’ socio-communicative environment provides a detailed account of the cues available to infants; lab experiments probe infants’ sensitivity to such cues; and intervention studies assess the causal effect and practical impact of enriching teaching contexts with such cues.