A death in the family

[James Morgan]

Dear Colleagues,

It is with profound sadness that I write to share with you the news that 
Peter Eimas died at home last Friday, October 28. He was 67.
    Peter was senior author of one of the most widely cited papers in our 
area. The seminal work reported by Eimas, Siqueland, Jusczyk, & Vigorito 
(1971) established that infants perceive phonetic contrasts in the same 
manner as do adults and served to launch the field of infant speech 
perception. Peter's primary research concerned perception of speech at the 
phonetic level. His main aims were to describe the nature of the processing 
system during the first months of life, the manner in which it is affected 
by parental language, and how it operates so as to permit the acquisition 
of a human phonology.  Working with his student, Paul Quinn, he also 
investigated the perception and categorization of visual patterns in young 
infants, including  studies on the categorization of natural kinds and 
artifacts and on the origins of superordinate structures.
    Peter received his undergraduate degree from Yale in 1956 and his Ph.D. 
from the University of Connecticut in 1962. After serving on the faculties 
of Williams College and Rutgers, he came to Brown University in 1968. Peter 
was appointed Fred M. Seed Professor of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences 
in 1987. In poor health in recent years, Peter became an emeritus in 1997.
    His colleagues remember Peter as a keen and creative intellect with a 
sardonic wit, always eager to engage with ideas and to pursue their deeper 
philosophical implications. He was a consummate scholar, outstanding 
teacher, mentor par excellence (supervising over 20 doctoral theses), and 
an oenophile whose advice and recommendations were unfailingly trustworthy.
    A memorial service will be held at Brown; details will be forthcoming.

-- Jim Morgan