The Language Group in the NACS program spans faculty in the Departments of Linguistics, Hearing and Speech Science, English, Biology, and Computer Science, making one of the largest groups of researchers on the psychology of language in the United States.

The main research objective of the language group is to bridge the gap between theoretical, computational, psychological and neuroscientific models of language, and students are encouraged to pursue close connections between these different approaches. Research topics include language acquisition (from infancy to kindergarten and beyond), adult language processing, neurolinguistics, neurocognitive disorders, and computational modeling. The language group also specializes in cross-language experimental research. Recent projects have investigated Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Chinese, Thai, and Korean, in addition to English.

There is also a large emphasis on speech perception research. Investigators from Hearing and Speech , Electrical and Computer Engineering, Linguistics and Biology use behavioral, computational, and brain imaging techniques to study how speech is represented and processed in children and adults, in healthy and pathological conditions.

Students have at their disposal an unusually broad range of research facilities.

Language acquisition:

• An infant language lab
• A language acquisition lab for toddlers
• An on-campus preschool

Neurolinguistic research:

• High-density EEG
• The KIT-UMD MEG Lab, for 160-channel biomagnetic recording

Psycholinguistic research:

• Fixed and head-mounted eye-tracking
• Speech recording and analysis
• A number of other behavioral paradigms

The language group is genuinely cohesive, and meets regularly for colloquia, seminars and reading groups. There are also close ties between the language and speech group and the auditory neuroscience group in the NACS Program, and the two groups co-organize a regular discussion group on the neuroscience of hearing and speech perception.

Prospective students should visit individual faculty, laboratory and departmental web sites for further information on individual research projects, course offerings, facilities, etc.

Anderson, Samira, Hearing and Speech Sciences

My research program is primarily interested in the effects of aging and hearing loss on the ability to understand speech in complex environments and in the plasticity of the aging auditory system. The lab uses electrophysiological and behavioral methods to evaluate auditory processing.

Bolger, Donald J., Human Development

The core of my research focuses on key issues of reading from a neurobiological, cognitive, and educational perspective. The primary goal of my research is to understand brain development with respect to reading and language and how impairment and remediation are reflected in cortex. From school-based and cross-sectional paradigms to adult training tasks, my work combines innovative and complex methodologies in functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and event-related potentials (ERP) with developmental and behavioral research.

Braun, Allen, National Institutes of Health

The Language Section utilizes multimodal neuroimaging techniques to a variety of interrelated ends: To use state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques, including PET, functional MRI, high density EEG, to characterize cerebral activity in the normal brain and in patients with neurological disorders affecting voice, speech and language. To provide tools necessary to translate these relatively nonspecific findings into the domain of neurochemistry though the development of novel ligands. To explore the use of neuroimaging techniques as adjuncts in genetic studies. To utilize neuroimaging methods in studies of the evolution of language.

Coleman, Linda K., English

Rhetoric and Composition; Linguistics

Depireux, Didier, Institute for Systems Research

With grant support from DoD, we measure the changes, at the level of the activity of single neurons over many weeks, correlated with the induction of tinnitus (ringing in the ears) following noise trauma. Specifically, the research uses behavioral measures to verify the emergence of tinnitus post-trauma, chronic electrode arrays to measure and compare the activity of large populations of single neurons before and after induction of tinnitus, and post-mortem immunocytochemical methods to uncover permanent changes in the brain. The Ear Lab wants to explore new drug delivery or stimulation methods that might prevent the induction of, or provide relief from, tinnitus, a common affliction that has received very little scientific attention until recently.

Dien, Joseph,

Dr. Joseph Dien is a senior research scientist in the Cognitive Neuroscience area at CASL. His area of expertise is hemispheric asymmetry, with a focus on the interactions between attention, emotion, and language. His research is guided by the Janus model (Dien, 2008), that the left hemisphere is focused on anticipating the future and the right hemisphere is focused on responding to the (recent) past. He uses both event-related potentials (ERPs) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine these issues. He has also been publishing methodology papers on the use of advanced multivariate statistics for improving the source localization of ERPs.

Faroqi Shah, Yasmeen, Hearing and Speech Sciences

At the Aphasia Research Center we study language production and comprehension of individuals with aphasia using methods such as language analysis, reaction time measures, grammaticality judgments, and treatment efficacy. In particular, we are interested in the following issues: What neural mechanisms are involved in the processing and production of verb inflections and sentences (both in normal and aphasic individuals, using magnetoencephalography)? Why do some individuals with aphasia experience difficulty in producing verb inflections? Do these individuals have parallel deficits in comprehending verb inflections? What variables, if any, influence the production of verb inflections in aphasic individuals? Do aphasic individuals experience difficulties in encoding and/or expressing temporal information? Why do some aphasic individuals experience difficulties in sentence production? How can findings from psycholinguistic literature aid in designing treatment programs for aphasic individuals?

Gordon-Salant, Sandra, Hearing and Speech Sciences

My research program is concerned primarily with normal aspects of human aging in relation to auditory function and risk factors that contribute to apparent age-related hearing loss.

Goupell, Matthew, Hearing and Speech Sciences

We perform psychoacoustical tasks on normal-hearing individuals and those with cochlear-implants to ask questions about binaural hearing, speech understanding, pitch processing, etc. We make computational neural models in an attempt to explain our data and further the understanding of auditory neural processing.

Hacquard, Valentine, Linguistics

Semantics (modality, aspect, propositional attitudes, degree constructions), Syntax/Semantics and Semantics/Pragmatics Interfaces, Neurolinguistics, Acquisition of Semantics

Hornstein, Norbert, Linguistics

I am currently working on the rethinking of binding phenomena in terms of move. I continue to work on issues in the theory of control and reflexivization but have also recently considered how to integrate bound pronominalization within a move-centered account. This work has a general minimalist flavor to it. However, at the level of implementational detail it differs in important ways from the work currently flying the minimalist banner. Indeed, it resonates more with earlier minimalist work of the mid 90s than with the most recent proposals of Chomsky (1998, 1999, 2000).

Huang, Yi Ting, Hearing and Speech Sciences

Language development involves more than just learning words or syntactic rules. During this process, do children consistently generate the same kinds of interpretations as adults do? When they fail to do so, what do these differences reveal about nature of development? My research explores these questions by examining how the moment-to-moment changes that occur during language processing influence the year-to-year changes that emerge over the course of language development. This work relies on the use of eye-tracking, an innovative method that yields implicit and fine-grained measures of children's interpretation, and focuses on changes in development that occur during the early school-aged years.

Idsardi, William J., Linguistics

My research focuses on the mental representations and computations associated with speech.

Israel, Michael, English

Linguistics

Lasnik, Howard, Linguistics

Syntactic Theory; Logical Form; Learnability.

Lau, Ellen, Linguistics

Cognitive neuroscience of language, using ERPs, MEG, and fMRI, with a special interest in predictive processing. Additional methodological focus on integrating data from multiple neuroimaging modalities.

Lidz, Jeffrey, Linguistics

The relation between comparative syntax and first language acquisition.

Linck, Jared,

My research program focuses on the role of domain-general cognitive control mechanisms in bilingual language processing and second language (L2) acquisition. I am interested in individual differences in L2 acquisition and L2 processing, and how these may be impacted by various factors including a learner's cognitive abilities (e.g., executive functions, implicit learning) and the context of learning (e.g., immersion learning vs. classroom learning). Much of my language processing research has focused on lexical access during comprehension and speech production in L2 learners, with a particular emphasis on the impact of various executive functions (e.g., inhibitory control, working memory capacity). In my work, I hope to expand our understanding of the interface between cognition and multilingual language processes.

MacSwan, Jeff,

Dr. MacSwan is interested in the linguistic study of bilingual codeswitching, or language mixing. His work focuses on the analysis of linguistic phenomena within a constraint-free approach, with the intention of informing our understanding of the organization of the human language faculty in bilinguals.

McSwan, Jeff,

Dr. MacSwan is interested in the linguistic study of bilingual codeswitching, or language mixing. His work focuses on the analysis of linguistic phenomena within a constraint-free approach, with the intention of informing our understanding of the organization of the human language faculty in bilinguals.

Newman, Rochelle, Director, Language Development & Perception Laboratories, Hearing and Speech Sciences

My research focuses on speech perception, word recognition, and language acquisition. More specifically, I am interested in questions such as how the brain recognizes words from fluent speech, the time course over which different stages of speech processing occur, and how listeners (especially infants) separate different streams of speech that occur at the same time.

Novick, Jared ,

My research seeks to understand the human computational system that supports the real-time interpretation and reinterpretation of sentences. In particular, central to revising initial processing commitments is 'cognitive control.' Cognitive control refers to the regulation of mental activity to guide and support flexible behavior, enabling individuals to bias the selection of appropriate over inappropriate information during goal-directed tasks. Data from behavioral, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological studies suggest shared mechanisms in prefrontal cortex (PFC) that support regulatory functions across a range of tasks, including working memory, attention, and language processing. Using a multiple-method approach, my research asks whether a cardinal function of PFC-supported cognitive control is to override early misinterpretations during sentence processing to prevent comprehension failure.

O'Rourke, Polly ,

My area of expertise is in the neural basis of morpho-syntactic processing as examined using the event related potential (ERP) technique. Specifically, much of my research as dealt with the processing of syntactic gender information by native speakers of Spanish. More generally, I'm interested in studying both syntactic and lexicon-semantic processing as a means of improving understanding of the classic language-related potentials (the LAN, N400 and P600). I'm interested in the neural underpinnings of both L1 and L2 processing, as well as the effects and sources of individual variability.

Phillips, Colin, Linguistics

My research combines theoretical linguistics with language processing, language acquisition and neurolinguistics, with a focus on how the human mind/brain makes rapid and effortless language understanding possible.

Ratner, Nan Bernstein , Chair, Department of Hearing & Speech Sciences, Hearing and Speech Sciences

We are currently investigating the origins of stuttering by analyzing the abilities and behaviors of children within three months of stuttering onset.

Redcay, Elizabeth, Psychology

My research examines the development and neural bases of communicative behaviors (e.g. joint attention, theory of mind, social interaction, language) and the interactions between these processes in both typical individuals and individuals with autism (a developmental disorder characterized by atypical communication). I ask how and the extent to which the brain systems underlying these behaviors become specialized and how this neural specialization is reflected in behavioral changes. To examine these questions, I use neuroimaging and behavioral methods with infants, children,adolescents and adults. In some of this research, I use paradigms in which participants engage in a real-time face-to-face communication during fMRI data acquisition, allowing for a more naturalistic social-communicative interaction.

Resnik, Philip, Linguistics, UMIACS

I do research in computational linguistics, with interests in both the modeling of human linguistic processes (especially lexical acquisition and on-line sentence processing) and the application of natural language processing techniques to practical problems such as cross-language information retrieval and machine translation.

Simon, Jonathan Z., Elec. & Computer Eng, Biology

I am active in a number of research areas, all under the general headings of Auditory Neural Computations and Representations,Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience, and Signal Processing in Biological Systems. My specific research areas are: Magnetoencephalography (MEG): Experimental Research, Analysis, and Signal Processing of Large Scale Neural Data. Coincidence Detection and Neural Coding of Temporal Information in Auditory Brainstem: Modeling. Neural Processing of Spectrotemporal Auditory Information in Mammals: Physiology and Modeling. Signal Processing and Neural Data.

Slevc, Bob, Psychology

I study the cognitive mechanisms underlying language processing (especially language production) in both normal and brain-damaged populations and also investigate similarities between the processing of language and of music. Specific interests include how systems such as memory and cognitive control underlie our impressive ability to translate ideas into speech, whether our linguistic choices are driven by what we know about our audience versus by a need to reduce our own cognitive demands, whether language and music rely on similar processing mechanisms, and how musical ability is related to successful second language acquisition.

Uriagereka, Juan, Linguistics

In my work, I study syntactic patterns with an eye on trying to understand what they may tell us about the broader questions that my research pursues. I have specialized mostly in Indo-European (particularly Romance) languages and Basque, presenting analyses from these arenas in a comparative way. I often attempt to relate conclusions reached in the area of syntax to work in the evolution of language or a variety of its performative aspects.

Weinberg, Amy, Linguistics

The laboratory investigates a variety of multilingual applications (cross language question answer, information retrieval, summarization, machine translation). Currently we are contributing to a Cross Langauge Question Answering system. We collaborate with colleagues who address issues in document and alternate media (e.g. video) processing.

Yeni-Komshian, Grace, Hearing and Speech Sciences

The focus of my research is on bilingualism. A major question of investigation is the effect of the age at which bilingual individuals acquire their second language on their proficiency in both of their languages. In this research we make use of current research techniques in speech perception and acoustic analysis of speech.

• Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Lab (CNL lab)
• Computational Linguistics and Information Processing (CLIP)
• Language And Media Processing (LAMP)
• The Language Development Lab