Evelyne Mercure

Current Research and Interests

I am generally interested in the development of functional specialisation in the brain and how this process is influenced by experience. I am using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), event-related potentials (ERPs) and near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to investigate how the brain processes social stimuli (mainly faces, language and vocalisations). My current research investigates brain development and language learning in hearing babies with a deaf mother. Despite normal hearing, these infants have a different experience of speech and language to that of infants with hearing parents. For this reason they represent a unique opportunity to study experience-dependent plasticity in brain and cognitive development.