(Photo credit: National University of Singapore)

I am on the Psychology faculty at the National University of Singapore. I conduct research on early language and cognitive development.

 

 

Representative Publications 

Singh, L., Killen, M. & Smetana, J. (2023). Global science requires greater equity, diversity, and cultural precision. APS Observer, 36 (5). Closing article for APS Global Spotlight Series on cultural diversity in psychological science.

Singh, L., Barokova, M., Baumgartner, H. A., Lopera, D., Omane, P., Sheskin, M., … Frank, M. C. (in press). A unified approach to demographic data collection for research with young children across diverse cultures. Developmental Psychology.

Singh, L., Kalashnikova, M., & Quinn, P.C. (2023). Bilingual infants readily orient to novel visual stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Online version ahead of print.

Singh, L., Cristia, A., Karasik, L.B., Rajendra, S.J., & Oakes, L.M. (2023). Diversity and representation in infant research: Barriers and bridges towards a globalized science. Infancy, 28(4), 708-737.

Singh, L., & Quinn, P.C. (2023). Effects of face masks on language comprehension in bilingual children. Infancy, 28(4), 738-753.

Singh, L., & Cheng, Q.Q. (2023). Words in Context: Compensation for phonological assimilation in monolingual and bilingual toddlers. First Language, 43(3).

Singh, L., & Cheng, Q.Q., Yeung, J. W-J (2023). Socio-economic status predicts native speech discrimination in the first year of life. Developmental Science, 26(4), e13351.

Singh, L., Yeung, J-Y, Cheng, Q.Q., & Heng, E. (2023). The home literacy environment mediates effects of socio-economic status on infant vocabulary development. Developmental Science, 26(4), e13349.

Singh, L., Göksun, T., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R.M. (2023). Sensitivity to visual cues within motion events in monolingual and bilingual infants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 227, 105582.

Singh, L., Rajendra, S., & Mazuka, R. (2022). Diversity and representation in studies of infant perceptual narrowing. Child Development Perspectives, 16 (4), 191-199.

Singh, L. (2022). Navigating equity and justice in international collaborations, 1, 372-373, Nature Reviews Psychology.

Singh, L. (2022). From information to action: A commentary on Kidd and Garcia (2022). First Language.

Liu, L., Lai, R., Singh, L., Kalashnikova, M., Wong, P.C.M., Kasisopa, B., Chen, A., Burnham, D.B. (2022). The tone atlas of perceptual discriminability and perceptual distance: Four tone languages and five language groups. Brain and Language, 229, 105106.

Singh, L., Phneah, K.T., Wijayaratne, D.C., Lee, K., & Quinn, P.C. (2022). Effects of interracial experience on the race preferences of infants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 216, 105352.

Vissar, I., Bergmann, C., Byers-Heinlein, K., Dan Ben., R., Duch, W., Forbes, S., Franchin, L., Frank, M.C., Geraci, A., Hamlin, J.K., Kaldy, Z., Kulke, L., Laverty, C., Lew-Williams, C., Mateu, V., Mayor, J., Moreau, D., Nomikou, I., Schuwerk, T., Simpson, E.A., Singh, L., Soderstrom, M., Sullivan, J., van den Heuvel, M.I., Westermann, G., Yamada, Y., Zaadnoordijk, L., & Zettersten, M. (2022). Improving the generalizability of infant psychological research: The ManyBabies model. Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 45, e35.

Singh, L., Cheng, Q.Q., Tan, S.H., Tan, A., & Low, Y.L. (2022). Language acquisition in a multilingual society: English vocabulary norms and predictors in Singaporean children. Child Development, 93(1), 288-305

Singh, L. (2021). Evidence for an early novelty orientation in bilingual learners. Child Development Perspectives, 15, 110-116.

Singh, L. Tan, A., & Quinn, P.C. (2021). Infants recognize words spoken through opaque masks but not through clear masks. Developmental Science, 26, e13117.

Singh, L., & Tan, A. R. Y. (2021). Beyond perceptual narrowing: Monolingual and bilingual infants discriminate Hindi contrasts when learning words in the second year of life. Developmental Psychology, 57, 19-32.

Byers-Heinlein, K., Bergmann, C., Black, A., Carbajal, M. J., Fennell, C. T., Frank, M. C. Gervain, J., Gonzalez-Gomez, N., Hamlin, J.K., Kline, M., Kovacs, A.M., Lew-Williams, C., Liu, L., Polka, L., Singh, L., Soderstrom, M., & Tsui, A. S-M. (2021). A multi-lab study of bilingual infants: exploring the preference for infant-directed speech. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 4, 1-30.

Singh, L., Moh, Y., Ding, X.P., Lee, K., & Quinn, P.C. (2021). Cognitive flexibility and parental education differentially predict implicit and explicit racial biases in bilingual children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 204, 105059.

Byers-Heinlein, K., Tsui, R. K-Y, van Renswoude, D., Black, A., Barr, R., Brown, A., Colomer, M., Durrant, S., Gampe, A., Gonzalez-Gomez, N., Hay, J.F., Hernik, M., Jartó, M., Kovács, A.M., Laoun-Rubenstein, A., Lew-Williams, C., Liszkowski, U., Liu, L., Noble, C.,…Singh, L. (2021). The development of gaze following in monolingual and bilingual infants: A multi-laboratory study. Infancy, 26, 4-38. 

Singh, L., Quinn, P.C., Qian, M.K., & Lee, K. (2020). Bilingualism is associated with less racial bias in preschool children. Developmental Psychology, 56, 888-896.

Singh, L., Tan, A.R.Y., Lee, K., & Quinn, P.C. (2020). Sensitivity to race in language comprehension in monolingual and bilingual infants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 199, 104933.

Singh, L. & Wewalaarachchi, T.D. (2020). Effects of age and bilingualism on sensitivity to native and non-native tone variation: Evidence from spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese learners. Developmental Psychology, 56, 1642-1656.

Singh, L. (2020). Bilingual preverbal infants are more sensitive to morally relevant social behavior than monolingual infants, Journal of Cognition and Development, 21(5), 631-650.

Byers-Heinlein, K., Bergmann, C., Davies, C., Frank, M. C., Hamlin, K., Kline, M., Kominsky, J., Kosie, J. E., Lew-Williams, C., Liu, L., Singh, L., Waddell, C., Zettersten, M., & Soderstrom, M. (2020). Building a collaborative psychological science: Lessons from ManyBabies 1. Canadian Psychology, 61, 349–363.

ManyBabies Consortium (2020). Quantifying sources of variability in infancy research using the infant-directed speech preference. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 3, 24-52.

Role: Co-author. Lead author: Michael C. Frank.

Wewalaarachchi, T.D., & Singh, L. (2020). Vowel, consonant and tone variation exert asymmetrical effects on spoken word recognition: Evidence from six-year-old monolingual and bilingual learners of Mandarin. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 189, 104698.

Singh, L., Quinn, P.C., Xiao, N.G., & Lee, K. (2019). Monolingual but not bilingual infants demonstrate racial bias in social cue use. Developmental Science, 22, e12809. 

Singh, L. (2019). Does infant speech perception predict later vocabulary development in bilingual infants? Journal of Phonetics, 76, 100914.

Singh, L., & Seet, S.K. (2019). The impact of foreign language caregiving on native language acquisition. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 185, 51-70.

Singh, L., Burnham, D.B., Hay, J., Liu, L., & Mattock, K. (2019). Editorial: Lexical tone perception in infants and young children: Empirical studies and theoretical perspectives (Special Topic on Lexical Tone Perception in Infants and Young Children: Empirical studies and theoretical perspectives). Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1195.

Singh, L., Fu, C., Seet, X.H., Tong, A., & Best, C.T.  (2018).  Developmental change in tone perception in Mandarin monolingual, English monolingual and Mandarin-English bilingual infants: Divergences between monolingual and bilingual learners. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 173, 59-77.

Singh, L., Morini, G., Golinkoff, R.M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2018). A commentary on Werker (2017): Limitations of the laboratory and the role of variability in language learning (Invited commentary). Applied Psycholinguistics, 39, 746-753.

Singh, L. (2018). Bilingual infants demonstrate advantages in learning words in a third language. Child Development, 89, e397-e413.

Singh, L., Tay, Z.W., Fu, C.S.L., & Golinkoff, R.M. (2018). Novel word learning in bilingual and monolingual infants: Evidence for a bilingual advantage. Child Development, 89, 183-198.

Singh, L. (2018). He said, she said: Effects of bilingualism on cross-talker word recognition in infancy. Journal of Child Language, 45, 498-510.

Burnham, D., Singh, L., Mattock, K.M., Woo, P.J., & Kalashnikova, M. (2018). Constraints on tone sensitivity in novel word learning by monolingual and bilingual infants: Tone properties are more influential than tone familiarity. Frontiers in Psychology (Special Topic on Lexical Tone Perception in Infants and Young Children: Empirical studies and theoretical perspectives), 8, 2190.

Singh, L., Loh, D., & Xiao, N. (2017). Bilingual infants demonstrate perceptual flexibility in phoneme discrimination but perceptual constraint in face discrimination. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1563.

Singh, L., Tan, A., & Wewalaarachchi, T.D. (2017).  Lexical tone variation and spoken word recognition in preschool children: effects of perceptual salience. Journal of Child Language. 44, 924-942.

Choi, W., Tong, X., & Singh, L. (2017). The relationship between lexical tone and lexical stress: evidence from a cross-language mediation model. Frontiers in Psychology (Special Topic on Lexical Tone Perception in Infants and Young Children: Empirical studies and theoretical perspectives), 8, 492.

Wewalaarachchi, T.D., Wong, L.H. & Singh, L. (2017). Vowels, consonants and lexical tones: Sensitivity to phonological variation in monolingual Mandarin and bilingual English-Mandarin toddlers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 159, 16-33.

Ma, W., Zhou, P., Singh, L. & Gao, L. (2017). Spoken word recognition in young children: Age-dependent effects of segmental and suprasegmental variation. Cognition. 159, 139-155.

Escudero, P., Mulak, K., Fu, C.F. & Singh, L. (2016). More limitations to monolingualism: Bilinguals outperform monolinguals in implicit word learning. Frontiers in Psychology (Special Topic on Phonology in the bilingual and bidialectal lexicon), 7, 1218. 

Singh, L., Lee, Q., Goh, W.G. (2016). Processing dependencies of segmental and suprasegmental information: Effects of emotion, lexical tone and consonant variation. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31, 989-999.

Wewalaarachchi, T.D., & Singh, L. (2016). Effects of suprasegmental phonological alternations on early word recognition: Evidence from Tone Sandhi. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 627.

Singh, L., Poh, F., & Fu, C.S.L. (2016). Limits on monolingualism? A comparison of monolingual and bilingual infants’ abilities to integrate lexical tone in novel word learning. Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers in Psychology (Special Topic on Phonology in the bilingual and bidialectal lexicon), 7, 667.

Singh, L., & Quam, C.M. (2016). Can bilingual children turn one language off? Evidence from perceptual switching. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 147, 111-125. 

Cristia, A., Seidl, A., Singh, L., & Houston, D. (2016). Test-retest reliability in infant speech perception tasks. Infancy, 21, 648-667.

Singh, L., & Fu, C.S.L. (2016) A new view of language development: The acquisition of lexical tone. Child Development, 87, 834-854.

Singh, L., & Chee, M. (2016). Rise and fall: Effects of tone and intonation on spoken word recognition in early childhood. Journal of Phonetics, 55, 109-118.

Singh, L., Goh, H.H., & Wewalaarachchi, T.D. (2015). Spoken word recognition in early childhood: Comparative effects of vowel, consonant and lexical tone variation. Cognition, 142, 1-11.

Singh, L., Fu, C.S.L., Rahman, S.A., Hameed, W., Sanmugam, S., Agarwal, P., Binyan, J., Chong, Y.S., Meaney, M.J., & Rifkin-Graboi, A (2014). Back to basics: A bilingual advantage in infant visual habituation. Child Development, 86, 294-302.

Shirong, C. Pang, W.W., Low, Y.L., Sim, L.W. Sam, C.S., Bruntraeger, M.B., Wong, E.Q., Fok, D., Broekman, B., Singh, L., Richmond, J., Agarwal, P., Qiu, A. Saw, S.M., Yap. F., Godfrey, K.M., Gluckman, P.D., Chong, Y-S., Meaney, M.J., Kramer, M.S., & Rifkin-Graboi, A., (2015). Infant feeding effects on early neurocognitive development in Asian children. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 101, 326-336.

Singh, L., & Harrow, M.L. (2014). Influences of semantic and prosodic cues on language processing in Autism. Journal of Speech, Language & Hearing Research, 57, 1764-78.

Singh, L. (2014). One world, two languages: Cross-language semantic priming in bilingual toddlers. Child Development, 85, 755-766.

Singh, L., Tam, J.H., Chan, C., & Golinkoff, R.M. (2014). Influences of vowel and tone variation on emergent word knowledge: A cross-linguistic investigation. Developmental Science, 17, 94-109.

Singh, L., & Foong, J. (2012). Influences of lexical tone and pitch on word recognition in bilingual infants. Cognition, 124, 128-142.

Singh, L., Reznick, J.S., & Liang, X. (2012). Infant word segmentation and childhood vocabulary development: A longitudinal analysis. Developmental Science, 15, 482-495.

Singh, L., Liederman, J., Mierzejewski, R., & Barnes, J. (2011). Rapid re-acquisition of native phoneme contrasts after disuse: You do not always lose what you do not use. Developmental Science, 14, 949-959. 

Nadig, A., Lee, I., Singh, L., Bosshart, K. & Ozonoff, S. (2010). How does the topic of conversation affect verbal exchange and eye gaze? A comparison between typical development and high-functioning autism. Neuropsychologia, 48, 2730-2739.

Singh, L., Nestor, S.S., Parikh, C., & Yull, A. (2009). Influences of infant-directed speech on early word recognition. Infancy, 14,654-666.

Singh, L., Nestor, S.S., & Bortfeld, H. (2008). Overcoming effects of variation on infant word recognition: Influences on word familiarity. Infancy. 13, 57-74.

Singh, L. (2008) Influences of high and low variability on infant word recognition. Cognition, 106, 833-870.

Singh, L., White, K., & Morgan, J.L. (2008). Building a word-form lexicon in the face of variable input: Influences of pitch and amplitude on early spoken word recognition. Language Learning and Development, 4, 157-178.

Singh, L., Morgan, J., & White, K. (2004). Preference and processing: The role of speech affect in early spoken word recognition. Journal of Memory and Language, 51, 173-189.

Singh, L., Morgan, J. L., & Best, C. T. (2002). Infants’ listening preferences: baby talk or happy talk? Infancy, 3, 365-394.

Rescorla, L., Mirak, J., & Singh, L. (2000). Vocabulary growth in late talkers: Lexical development from 2;0 to 3;0. Journal of Child Language, 27, 293-311. 

Rozin, P., & Singh, L. (1999). The moralization of cigarette smoking in the United States. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 8, 321-337.