The Birth of a Word

Abstract:: MIT researcher Deb Roy wanted to understand how his infant son learned language -- so he wired up his house with videocameras to catch every moment (with exceptions) of his son's life, then parsed 90,000 hours of home video to watch "gaaaa" slowly turn into "water." Astonishing, data-rich research with deep implications for how we learn. Deb Roy studies how children learn language, and designs machines that learn to communicate in human-like ways. On sabbatical from MIT Media Lab, he's working with the AI company Bluefin Labs. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 20-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Modularity, Domain-specificity, and the Organization of Knowledge, Fall 2001

Abstract:: This course will consider the degree and nature of the modular organization of the mind and brain. We will focus in detail on the domains of objects, number, places, and people, drawing on evidence from behavioral studies in human infants, children, normal adults, neurological patients, and animals, as well as from studies using neural measures such as functional brain imaging and ERPs. With these domains as examples, we will address broader questions about the role of domain-general and domain-specific processing systems in mature human performance, the innateness vs. plasticity of encapsulated cognitive systems, the nature of the evidence for such systems, and the processes by which people link information flexibly across domains.

Read the Fine Print

Abstract:: In the developing world, access to incubators is limited by cost and distance, and millions of premature babies die each year. TED Fellow Jane Chen shows an invention that could keep millions of these infants warm -- a design that's safe, portable, low-cost and life-saving. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 5-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.