Patricia Kuhl

Patricia K. Kuhl is an American developmental psychologist and speech-language/hearing scientist whose work has shaped understanding of how infants perceive speech and acquire language. She is a professor at the University of Washington and co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS). Kuhl is widely known for research on early phonetic learning, showing how babies’ brains tune to the sounds of their native language during the first year of life. Her studies have also examined how social interaction supports language learning in infancy. Through interdisciplinary methods spanning psychology, neuroscience, and speech science, she has helped clarify the biological and experiential foundations of human communication.