Inbal Arnon

Professor Inbal Arnon leads the Language Learning and Processing Lab at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, focusing on how language knowledge emerges through cognitive mechanisms in first and second language acquisition. Her research bridges Cognitive Science, Linguistics, and Psychology, with a special emphasis on statistical learning, Zipfian distributions, and multiword units.

• Current projects include funded studies on learnability advantages of Zipfian distributions in language
• Investigations into cross-species communication through whale song analysis
• Developmental trajectories of statistical learning in children

Her methodological approach combines computational modeling, experimental studies, and corpus analysis. Arnon’s work has been highlighted in Science, The New York Times, and Haaretz, with a particular focus on how cognitive biases shape language structure over time.

The lab maintains a diversity commitment to recruit underrepresented groups in sciences and hosts a public-facing research space at the Bloomfield Science Museum. Arnon’s team actively explores cultural transmission mechanisms and language evolution through interdisciplinary collaborations.