Dr. Hilla Jakoby
Lecturer in the Department of Communication Disorders within the M.A. program
Dr. Hilla Jakoby is a lecturer in the Department of Communication Disorders within the M.A. program at the Jerusalem Multidisciplinary College.
Dr. Jakoby graduated cum laude with a B.Sc. in Chemistry and an M.Sc. in Biotechnology and Microbiology from Tel Aviv University. During her doctoral studies at Bar-Ilan University, at the Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, her research focused on aptitude for foreign language learning. The research examined neural processing differences between individuals who succeed in learning new languages and those who experience significant difficulties, despite not being diagnosed with a language impairment. The study employed both behavioral and electrophysiological methods to identify differences in brain processing mechanisms related to speech perception and phonological working memory.
Dr. Jakoby’s postdoctoral research was conducted at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Professor Merav Ahissar’s laboratory for perception and cognition. Her postdoctoral work focused on statistical learning abilities and aptitude for foreign language learning, as well as on perceptual brain training and its effects on improving perceptual and cognitive abilities.
At the Jerusalem Multidisciplinary College, Dr. Jakoby teaches methodological courses such as Academic Reading and Writing and Advanced Research Methods, alongside courses in her areas of expertise. These include dyslexia, mechanisms of speech perception and phonological processing in the monolingual and bilingual brain, and speech perception mechanisms in infancy and their relation to language development. In addition, Dr. Jakoby serves as the coordinator of the research seminar in the M.A. program and supervises master’s-level seminar research projects.
Dr. Hilla Jakoby’s research interests focus on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying language development and language learning, with a central emphasis on statistical learning (SL) in auditory and visual modalities. One primary line of research investigates how modality-specific SL mechanisms contribute to reading and spelling abilities during the early stages of reading acquisition. A second research axis examines statistical learning in monolingual populations compared to simultaneous bilingual children and adults, addressing how developmental linguistic status across the lifespan shapes SL performance in both auditory and visual modalities.
A third line of research focuses on individual differences in statistical learning, comparing neurotypical children and children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Within this framework, Dr. Jakoby examines SL across auditory and visual modalities, as well as differences related to modes of information acquisition, specifically temporal (sequential) versus simultaneous probabilistic learning.
Beyond statistical learning, her research also addresses the relation between early language development and parent–infant/child dyad, examining how parental beliefs and expectations regarding language development influence linguistic input and developmental trajectories.
Kimel, E., Daikhin, L., Jakoby, H., & Ahissar, M. (2024). Reduced benefit from long-term item frequency contributes to short-term memory deficits in dyslexia. Memory & Cognition, 1-13.
Kimel, E., Weiss, A. H., Jakoby, H., Daikhin, L., & Ahissar, M. (2020). Short-term memory capacity and sensitivity to language statistics in dyslexia and among musicians. Neuropsychologia, 107624. [Impact factor: 2.6].
Malinovitch, T., Jakoby, H. & Ahissar, M. (2020). Training-induced improvement in working memory tasks results from switching to efficient strategies. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01824-6 [Impact factor: 3.9].
Jakoby, H., Raviv, O., Jaffe-Dax, S., Lieder, I., and Ahissar, M. (2019). Auditory frequency discrimination is correlated with linguistic skills, but its training does not improve them or other pitch discrimination tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(11), 1953-1971. [Impact factor: 5.8].
Jakoby, H., Goldstein, A., & Faust, M. (2011). Electrophysiological evidences of speech perception mechanisms in successful versus unsuccessful foreign language learners. Psychophysiology, 48(11): 1517-1531. [Impact Factor: 3.29]
Noach I., Frolow F., Jakoby H., Rosenheck S., Shimon. JW, L., Lamed R. and. Bayer E, A. (2005). Crystal Structure of a Type-II Cohesin Module from the Bacteroides cellulosolvens Cellulosome Reveals Novel and Distinctive Secondary Structural Elements. Journal of Molecular Biology, 348(1): 1-12. [Impact Factor: 4.0]
I am open to national and international research collaborations related to my research interests.
