Issn Print: 0196-0202
Publication Date: 2002/02/01
Excerpt
In this issue we have the pleasure of publishing an outstanding article by Peter W. Jusczyk and his colleague Paul A. Luce, reviewing the highlights of 50 years of speech perception research. This article was completed shortly before Dr. Jusczyk’s unexpected death at the age of 53, on August 23, 2001, while attending a scientific conference in California. A professor at Johns Hopkins University since 1996, he was an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of infant language development and speech perception. His carefully developed methodology and ingenious experimental design resulted in a fundamental body of work describing the development of various language and speech perception skills during the first 2 years of life. This work included speech perception experiments in infants as young as 1 month old and even in newborns. Furthermore, this experimental work served as the basis for a theoretical account “of how speech perception capacities evolve to support on-line word recognition in fluent speech”(Jusczyk and Luce, Ear and Hearing, this issue).
On a personal level, Peter was as unpretentious as he was bright. Many of us benefited from his advice and recommendations, which were always first-class, regardless of whether they concerned movies (“Brassed Off”), Spanish wines from Ribera del Duero (Condado de Haza), or science (too numerous to list here). There is no question that he will be sorely missed as a scientist and as a friend. The Editorial Board of Ear and Hearing expresses its deepest sympathy to his wife and collaborator Ann Marie Jusczyk, to his children Karla and Tad, and to his entire family, friends, and colleagues.
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