Looking towards Babel: introducing the mysteries of psycholinguistics -- Babies, birth, and language: what babies learn about language, even before they are born -- Chinchillas do it too: learning to discriminate between different sounds -- Words, and what we learn to do with them: learning about words, and how to combine them -- Organizing the dictionary: phonemes, syllables, and other ways of looking up words -- Words, and how we (eventually) find them: accessing the mental representations of words -- Time flies like an arrow: understanding sentences I, coping with ambiguity -- Who did what, and to whom?: understanding sentences II, identifying who is being talked about, what they are doing, and who they are doing it to -- On the meaning of meaning: the concepts associated with 'understanding' and 'meaning' -- Exercising the vocal organs: how we produce words and sentences -- The written word: writing systems, reading, eye movements, and Socrates -- When it all goes wrong: disorders of language -- Wiring-up a brain: artificial brains and language learning -- The descent from Babel: not all languages were created equal.
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