Theory

Venditti, J. A., Murrugarra, E., McLean, C. R., & Goldstein, M. H. (2023). Curiosity constructs communicative competence through social feedback loops. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 65, 99 – 134. 

Carouso-Peck, S., & Goldstein, M. H.  (2021).  Evolving the capacity for socially guided vocal learning in songbirds:  A preliminary study.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 376, ID: 20200246

Carouso-Peck, S., Goldstein, M. H., & Fitch, T.  (2021).  The many functions of vocal learning:  Implications for evolution and development.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 376, ID: 20200235

Faust, K. M., Carouso-Peck, S., Elson, M. R., & Goldstein, M. H.  (2020).  The origins of social knowledge in altricial species. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 2, 225 – 246.

Carouso, S., & Goldstein, M. H. (2018). Linking vocal learning to social reward in the brain: Proposed neural mechanisms of socially guided song learning. Oxford Handbook of Voice Perception. S. Frühholz & P. Belin (Eds.). Oxford University Press.

Motz, B., Goldstein, M. H., & Smith, L. (2012). Understanding behavior from the ground up: Constructing robots to reveal simple mechanisms underlying complex behavior. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 11(1), 77 – 86.

Goldstein, M. H., Waterfall, H., Lotem, A., Halpern, J., Schwade, J. A., Onnis, L., & Edelman, S. (2010). General cognitive principles for learning structure in time and space. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14 (6), 249 – 258.

Goldstein, M. H., & Schwade, J. A. (2009). From birds to words: Perception of structure in social interactions guides vocal development and language learning. In M. S. Blumberg, J. H. Freeman, & S.R. Robinson (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Developmental and Comparative Neuroscience. Oxford University Press.

Owren, M. J., & Goldstein, M. H. (2008). Scaffolds for babbling: Innateness and learning in the emergence of contextually flexible vocal production in human infants. In D. K. Oller and U. Griebel (Eds.), The Evolution of Communicative Flexibility: Complexity, Creativity, and Adaptability in Human and Animal Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Infant development

Elmlinger, S. L., Carouso-Peck, S., Albert, R., Wilk, A. H., & Goldstein, M. H.  (in press).  The social origins of vocal sequences in songbirds and human infants. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

Murrugarra, E., & Goldstein, M. H.  (in press).  The dynamics of perception in caregiving:  How infants change the way we see the world.  Child Development.

Mason, G., & Goldstein, M. H. (in press).  Prior social feedback creates residual differences in infant attention.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

Murrugarra, E., & Goldstein, M. H.  (2025).  The influence of infantile cues on motivated perception of threats among caregivers.  Acta Psychologica, 254, 104779. 

Elmlinger, S. L., Levy, J. A., & Goldstein, M. H. (2025).  Immature vocalizations elicit simplified adult speech across multiple languages.  Current Biology, 35 (4), 871 – 881.e3.

Venditti, J. A., Elkin, R., Willliams, R. M.*, Schwade, J. A., Narayan, A., Goldstein, M. H. (2025).  Contingency enables the formation of social expectations about an artificial agent.  Infancy, 30 (1), e12614.

Murrugarra, E., & Goldstein, M. H. (2024). How we perceive the world around babies: Arousal moderates information processing of infantile cues. IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob).

Zhang, V. H., Elmlinger, S. L., Albert, R. R.; & Goldstein, M. H. (2024). Caregiver reactions to babbling organize turn-taking interactions: Facilitative effects of vocal versus non-vocal responses. Infancy 29 (4), 525-549.

Zhang, V. H., Elmlinger, S. L., & Goldstein, M. H. (2024). Developmental cascades of vocal turn-taking connect prelinguistic vocalizing with early language. Infant Behavior and Development, 75, 101945.

Kallens, P. C., Elmlinger, S.,Wang, K., Goldstein, M.H., McLeod, S. Crowe, K., & Christiansen, M. (2023). Statistical learning or phonological universals? Ambient language statistics guide consonant acquisition in four languages. Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 45(45).

Elmlinger, S.L., Goldstein, M. H., & Casillas, M.  (2023).  Immature vocalizations simplify the speech of Tseltal Mayan and US caregivers. Topics in Cognitive Science, 10.1111/tops.12632.

Elmlinger, S. L., Schwade, J. A., Vollmer, L., & Goldstein, M. H.  (2023). Learning how to learn from social feedback:  The origins of early vocal development. Developmental Science, e13296.

Elmlinger, S.L., Goldstein, M. H., & Casillas, M.  (2022).  Immature vocalizations simplify the speech of Tseltal Mayan and US caregivers.  Proceedings of the 44^th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Winner, Disciplinary Diversity & Integration Award in Cognitive Science.

Elmlinger, S. L., Park, D., Schwade, J. A., & Goldstein, M. H. (2021).  Comparing word diversity versus amount of speech in parents’ responses to infants’ prelinguistic vocalizations.  IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems.

Schroer, S. E., Schwade, J. A., & Goldstein, M. H. (2019).  A new look at infant preference for infant-directed speech.  Joint IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob).

Elmlinger, S.L., Schwade, J.A., & Goldstein, M.H. (2019) Babbling elicits simplified caregiver speech: Findings from natural interaction and simulation. IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob). Best paper award winner!

Elmlinger, S. L., Schwade, J. A., & Goldstein, M. H.  (2019).  The ecology of prelinguistic vocal learning: Parents simplify the structure of their speech in response to babbling.  Journal of Child Language, 46 (5), 998 — 1011.

Emberson, L. L., Misyak, J. B., Christiansen, M. H., Schwade, J. A., & Goldstein, M. H. (2019).  Comparing statistical learning across perceptual modalities in infancy: An investigation of underlying learning mechanisms.  Developmental Science, e12847.

Mason, G. M., Kirkpatrick, F., Schwade, J. A., & Goldstein, M. H. (2019). The role of dyadic coordination in organizing visual attention in 5‐month‐old infants. Infancy, 24(2), 162–186.

Mason, G. M., Goldstein, M. H., & Schwade, J. A. (2019). The role of multisensory development in early language learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 183, 48–64.

Albert, R., Schwade, J. A., & Goldstein, M. H.  (2017).  The social functions of babbling:  Acoustic and contextual characteristics that facilitate maternal responsiveness.  Developmental Science, 18, 1-11.e12641.

Misyak, J. B., Goldstein, M. H., & Christiansen, M. H. (2012). Statistical and implicit learning in development. P. Rebuschat & J. Williams (Eds.), Statistical Learning and Language Acquisition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Anderson, S.E., Farmer, T.A., Schwade, J., Goldstein, M., & Spivey, M. (2011). Individual differences in linguistic experience account for variability in children’s processing of complex temporarily ambiguous sentences. In I. Arnon & E. V. Clark (Eds.), Trends in Language Acquisition Research Vol. 7: How Children Make Linguistic Generalizations: Experience and Variation in First Language Acquisition. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Emberson, L. L., Lupyan, G., Goldstein, M. H., & Spivey, M. J. (2010). Overheard cell-phone conversations: Less speech is more distracting. Psychological Science, 21 (10), 1383 – 1388.

Goldstein, M. H., Schwade, J. A., Briesch, J., & Syal, S. (2010). Learning while babbling: Prelinguistic object-directed vocalizations signal a readiness to learn. Infancy, 15 (4), 362 – 391.

Goldstein, M. H., Schwade, J. A., & Bornstein, M. H. (2009). The value of vocalizing: Five-month-old infants associate their own noncry vocalizations with responses from adults. Child Development, 80 (3), 636 – 644.

Goldstein, M. H., & Schwade, J. A. (2008). Social feedback to infants’ babbling facilitates rapid phonological learning. Psychological Science, 19, 515-522.

Cargill, S.A., Farmer, T.A., Schwade, J.A., Goldstein, M.H., & Spivey, M.J. (2007). Children’s online processing of complex sentences: New evidence from a new technique. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 143-148), Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Gros-Louis, J. G., West, M. J., Goldstein, M. H., & King, A. P. (2006). Mothers provide differential feedback to infants’ prelinguistic sounds. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 30 (6), 509 – 516.

Goldstein, M. H., King, A. P., & West, M. J. (2003). Social interaction shapes babbling: Testing parallels between birdsong and speech. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100 (13), 8030 – 8035.

Goldstein, M. H., & West, M. J. (1999). Consistent responses of human mothers to prelinguistic infants: The effect of prelinguistic repertoire size. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 113 (1), 52 – 58.

Kaplan, P. S., Goldstein, M. H., Huckeby, E. R., Owren, M. J., & Cooper, R. P. (1995). Dishabituation of visual attention by infant- versus adult-directed speech: Effects of frequency modulation and spectral composition. Infant Behavior and Development, 18, 209-223.

Kaplan, P. S., Goldstein, M. H., Huckeby, E. R., & Cooper, R. P. (1995). Habituation, sensitization, and infants’ responses to motherese speech. Developmental Psychobiology, 28, 45-47.

Avian song learning and development

Faust, K. M., & Goldstein, M. H.  (2022).  Adult exploration predicts parental responsiveness to juvenile songs in zebra finch parent-juvenile interactions.  Animal Behaviour, 188, 157 – 168.

Faust, K. M., & Goldstein, M. H. (2021).  The role of personality traits in zebra finch pair bond formation: Pairing is influenced by the trait of exploration. Behavior, 158, 447 – 478. 

Carouso-Peck^, S.,  Menyhart, O., DeVoogd, T. J., & Goldstein, M. H., (2020).  Contingent parental responses guide zebra finch song learning in naturalistic social conditions.Animal Behaviour, 165, 123 – 132.

Carouso-Peck, S., & Goldstein, M. H. (2019). Female Social Feedback Reveals Non-imitative Mechanisms of Vocal Learning in Zebra Finches. Current Biology : CB, 29(4), 631–636.e3.

Baran, N. M., Peck, S. C., Kim, T. H., Goldstein, M. H., & Adkins-Regan, E. (2017). Early life manipulations of vasopressin-family peptides alter vocal learning. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 284(1859), 20171114.

Menyhart, O., Kolodny, O., Goldstein, M. H., DeVoogd, T. J., & Edelman, S.  (2015).  Juvenile zebra finches learn the underlying structural regularities of their fathers’ song.  Frontiers in Psychology, section Cognitive Science.

Schweitzer, C., Goldstein, M. H., Place, N., & Adkins-Regan, E. R. (2013). Long-lasting and sex-specific consequences of elevated egg yolk testosterone for social behavior in Japanese quail. Hormones and Behavior, 63 (1), 80 – 87.

King, A. P., West, M. J., & Goldstein, M. H. (2005). Nonvocal shaping of avian song development: Parallels to human speech development. Ethology, 111, 101- 117.

West, M. J., King, A. P., & Goldstein, M. H. (2004). Singing, socializing, and the music effect. In P. Marler, H. Slabbekoorn, & S. Hope (Eds.), Nature’s Music:  The Science of Bird Song.  Ithaca, NY:  Cornell University Press.

Popular Press

Carouso, S., & Goldstein, M. H.  (2019).  A bird’s-eye view of communication.  Scientific American online.