My CV is here.
Research themes
Prediction
Research in linguistics has demonstrated that our knowledge of language is subtle, detailed, and complex. Yet, using this knowledge in real-time seems effortless. A major thread of my research investigates how we use our knowledge of language to make detailed guesses as to how a sentence will unfold given earlier parts. For instance, what kind of meanings do you expect the second half of a sentence starting with ‘Which cookies…?’ to have? How do we use grammatical knowledge to figure out what ending the verb will have, and when? Are we always good at guessing when the sentence will unfold in an ungrammatical way? I study these questions using traditional psychological measures, such as reading time responses, and electrophysiological responses (EEG, MEG).
Learning
One of the most fascinating things about language is how quickly children seem to learn it. This is especially true when we observe how wildly different languages can be from one another, and how many “options” a child has to choose between. This is even more remarkable when we consider the obstacles that children's cognitive capacities impose, and when we compare them to adult language learners. In my dissertation work with Colin Phillips, I explored the challenges faced by theories of language learning, given realistic estimations of children's input. With my collaborator Russell Simonsen, we have begun exploring how adult learner's ability to process sentences develops. With Liina Pylkkänen, I have begun studying how children's ability to understand language develops in the brain.
Languages
At heart, I'm a language nerd. I got into Linguistics because I studied Japanese and Bengali as a teenager for fun, and my excitement for linguistic phenomena drives my research and teaching to this day. I've had the privilege of teaching Field Methods classes in several languages, and continue to collaborate on fieldwork projects. Much of my research in psycholinguistics has also branched into many unexpected languages. A sampling of the languages that I have studied in my research, that pop up regularly in my teaching materials, or that I have some other special interest in:
American Sign Language (ASL), Amharic, Arabic, Basque, Bengali (Bangla), English, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Italian, Japanese, Khodmooni (Ajami), Lakota, Newari (Nepal Bhasa), Somali, Spanish, Vietnamese, Zazaki