Research

My research interests span psycholinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, ERPology and social cognition. Broadly, my work falls into four main themes:

ERPology Link to heading

Over the last 60 years, ERP methodology has developed so as to be unrecognizable from the original research of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. With these methodological developments have come significant changes in our understanding of best practice in the use of the technique. Substantial efforts have been made to encourage best-practice data acquisition, pre-processing and analyses (see my ERP resources page for links to external papers that have been invaluable to me as I have learnt (and continue to learn) how to best conduct ERP studies. Despite this, there remain considerable inconsistencies that undermine our ability to consolidate findings on a host of topics.

My ERPology work predominantly concerns the development of frameworks to support objective evaluation of the methodological quality of existing ERP research, and the creation of resources to guide ERP researchers (particularly those new to the field) to adopt best practice techniques.

ERP Indices of Speech Processing Link to heading

My projects pertaining to the ERP indices of speech processing predominantly seek better our understanding of certain ERP brainwaves and their proposed functional/neurobiological accounts. My current work within this theme explores distinctions drawn between brainwaves associated with phonological and semantic processing. Specifically, I am keen to explore the extent to which early, language-related ERP components can selectively be associated with specific linguistic processes (i.e., phonological mapping), or whether these effects represent more general predictive coding error responses (see this paper, which outlines an account that particularly interests me). Extending on this in broader terms, I am also interested in whether ERP negativities with specific language-oriented functional interpretations are indeed language-specific, or common to other structured domains such as music. One overarching aim of my work within this research theme is to better improve our understanding of the electrophysiological timeline speech processing - equivalent to that for visual language processing.

Bilingualism Link to heading

I have a sustained interest in bi-/multilingualism, language co-activation, and language-experience evoked neuroplasticity. I am particularly interested in research into understudied languages, and working to reduce the euro-centric bias continually present in linguistic research. Research - overwhelmingly on IndoEuropean languages - has extensively shaped our understanding of the cognitive systems that underpin bi-/multilingualism. More recently however, the importance of moving away from the notion of bilingualism as a homogenous experience has been highlighted, with literature pointing towards the differing effects on language processing and cognition of contrasting language contexts and backgrounds (Bak, 2016). The diverse range of linguistic experiences that comprise bilingualism can mean that current models of word recognition and speech comprehension, upon which our understanding of language processing lies, often present with narrow and restrictive accounts (Weber & Sharenborg, 2012). The generalisation of cognitive processes underpinning bilingualism, as represented by language models, discounts the possibility that the acquisition of a second language may have different cognitive implications across different environments, groups, and contexts. My work into bi-/multilingualism seeks to investigate phenomena in understudied languages, contributing to a growing body of literature that expands our current understanding of how language functions.

Social Cognition Link to heading

Perhaps my most research research interest pertains to our understanding of how the brain responds to manipulation of linguistic vs pragmatic/social information. At present I am particularly interested in exploring how a listener forms stereotypes/assumptions about a speaker based on voice (e.g., conclusions as to socioeconomic status, race, sexuality, gender), and how the processing of such information overlaps temporally with linguistic information mapping. The use of ERPs to explore attitudes/stereotypes is a largely unexplored field, and offers immense potential for investigations into explicit/implicit attitudes, as well as a baselines upon which to explore neurodiverse integration of speaker social information (i.e., in ASD populations).

My work within this field is generally at its initial stages, but predominantly seeks to I. improve our understanding of whether social information processing occurs in parallel, or subsequently to that of linguistic information, and II. explore how ERP methods can be utilised to explore social information mapping.