The University of Chicago
Department of Psychology
5848 South University Avenue
Chicago, IL, 60637
Office: Green 404
Email me
Lauren Applebaum
Background
Lauren graduated from Tufts University in 2006 with a BA in Psychology and a minor in Child Development. In 2007 she graduated with an MA in the Social Sciences with a concentration in Psychology at the University of Chicago. During her yearlong master’s program, and for two years following, Lauren worked with Susan Goldin-Meadow on gesture communication systems in deaf children not exposed to a sign language. Lauren began the PhD program in 2009 and works with both Susan Levine and Susan Goldin-Meadow.
Research Interests
Lauren is interested in spatial learning and spatial language. In collaboration with the Museum of Science and Industry, Lauren and others study the use of spatial alignment in a bridge-building lab for elementary and middle school students. Lauren is also interested in the relationship between spatial language and spatial intelligence. This relationship becomes especially intriguing (and increasingly complex) when one’s language is in the manual modality, i.e. a sign language. She is currently studying the relationship between language modality (signed or spoken) and performance on spatial tasks, such as spatial perspective taking and mental rotation.
Publications/Abstracts
Applebaum, L., Coppola, M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (under review). Prosody in a communication system developed without a language model.
Applebaum, L., Spaepen, E., Gentner, D., Levine, S.C., Goldin-Meadow, S. (July 2011). “Structural alignment in learning bridge construction,” poster presented at the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Boston, MA.
Demir, O.E., Applebaum, L., Levine, S.C., Petty, K., Goldin-Meadow, S. (2011). The story behind parent-child book-reading interactions: Specific relations to later language and reading outcomes, Proceedings of the 35th Boston University Conference on Language Development. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
