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We conduct research on the cognitive and neural basis of language processing. The underlying question we seek to address is: What makes human language special? More specifically, why are adults able to understand language with ease despite the daunting computational problem posed by language processing? Depending on their interests, undergraduates who join the lab will participate in one of the following two projects:
THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN HUMAN NAVIGATION. People use subtle acoustic, prosodic, and visual cues to progressively understand the meaning of utterances. Using virtual reality (VR) simulations, this project investigates how people use and integrate acoustic, prosodic, pragmatic, and visual information as they navigate around physical objects and people. Students who participate in this project will learn to use state-of-the-art motion capture technology to create realistic models of how people move, to build realistic VR simulations of complex environments, and to design sophisticated human experiments that investigate how linguistic and nonlinguistic information affect the choices people make as they navigate through the world. This project is particularly suitable for students who are interested in the cognitive science of language, computational linguistics, and computer science/computer engineering. Students do not need to have experience with VR, but programming experience is highly desirable.
PROSODY AND LANGUAGE. Sometimes the same words can have very different meanings depending on the how the words are said. For example, a greenhouse can be a special building for growing plants, or it can simply be a house that is painted green. Similarly, the word record is a noun when the first syllable is stressed (a REcord) and a verb when the second syllable is stressed (to reCORD). This research project investigates how college understand and produce different types of prosody. The goals of this project are 1) to investigate the relationship between prosody understanding and comprehension, 2) to investigate the relationship between prosody and other aspects of language (e.g., syntax, the lexicon), and 3) to investigate the extent to which the prosodic abilities of college students differ qualitatively, quantitatively and functionally. This project is particularly suitable for students who are interested in the psycholinguistics, linguistics and/or language disorders. Students do not need experience with any specific software programs, but they should be comfortable working with computers.
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