Personnel

Faculty

	Name	Research Interest
	Farrell Ackerman Linguistics	Lexicalism, morphology, lexical semantics, syntax, typology, first language acquisition: the application of Word & Paradigm (inferential-realizational) models of morphology to constraint based lexicalist theories the relevance of paradigms and periphrasis to Realization-based Lexicalism cross-linguistic and typological investigations, especially within the Uralic family
	Amalia Arvaniti Linguistics	Phonetics (especially of prosody), psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, phonology, Greek the production and perception of intonation the production and perception of speech rhythm interactions between components of prosody the interaction of intonation with information structure linguistic variation
	Eric Baković Linguistics	phonological analysis architectural consequences rule and constraint interaction phonological variation Spanish linguistics
	Ursula Bellugi Psychology Salk Institute for Biological Studies	Behavioral neurogenetics—multidisciplinary research linking gene, brain, and cognition: consequences of genetic alterations for brain development and the resulting alterations of cognitive capabilities the nature of both normal and genetically-altered cognition networks of brain regions underlying cognitive functions such as language and spatial cognition Language, modality, and the brain: Structure, acquisition, and processing of American Sign Language Brain bases of sign language compared to spoken language
	Benjamin Bergen Cognitive Science	Meaning and the cognitive processes that underlie it: Language comprehension, especially how people use motor and perceptual simulation to understand words and sentences Metaphorical language and thought, taking evidence from corpus and experimental research How people use grammar to encode meaning, and how grammatical structures affect comprehension What the meaningful units are inside words, with special interest in phonaesthemes
	Leslie Carver Psychology	Brain changes associated with development in the transition from infancy to the early toddler years: Brain basis of cognitive change, e.g., onset of long-term memory Brain basis of social change, e.g., formation of long-lasting relationship with caregiver; use of caregiver's facial expression as a guide to interpreting unusual situations
	Garrison Cottrell Computer Science	Neural networks as a computational model applied to problems in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, engineering and biology as disparate as: how children acquire words how lobsters chew nonlinear data compression
	Seana Coulson Cognitive Science	The study of meaning construction—how people deploy their cognitive resources in order to understand and interpret objects, activities, events, and natural language utterances—using methods ranging from macro- to micro-levels: consideration of culture, social construction, discourse analysis of production and reaction time data relation to neural computation (ERPs)
	Gedeon Deák Cognitive Science	Cognitive, linguistic, and social development: children's word learning, cognitive flexibility, logical skill, metacognition, categorization and generalization flexible cognition and human language embodied learning models of social development infant-parent communication and joint attention
	Diana Deutsch Psychology	Multidisciplinary research investigating language, music, and the relationships between the two: tone languages verbal transformation illusions absolute pitch and its genesis perceptual transformations of speech into song
	Karen Emmorey Psychology Language & Communicative Disorders SDSU	What sign languages can reveal about the nature of human language, cognition, and the brain. Sign language: production and comprehension impact on nonlinguistic visual-spatial cognition linguistic functions of eye gaze Language modality (sign, speech): impact on spatial language bimodal bilingualism (ASL-English) Neural correlates of language and nonlinguistic cognitive functions: neuroimaging studies (fMRI, PET) unilateral brain damage
	Jeffrey L. Elman Cognitive Science Co-Director, Kavli Brain Mind Institute	Language processing parallel distributed processing computational linguistics psycholinguistics artificial life brain and mind
	Victor Ferreira Psychology Assoc. Director, CRL Co-Director, Language & Communicative Disorders	Language production processes: studied empirically and theoretically using the tools of cognitive psychology further understood by means of simulation or connectionist modeling focus on (a) sentence formation and (b) word production
	Eric Halgren Neurosciences
	John Haviland Anthropology
	Andrew Kehler Linguistics	The interaction between theoretical linguistic, psycholinguistic, and computational linguistic models of discourse interpretation: Coherence, reference, and the theory of grammar Ellipsis and anaphora interpretation Empirically-driven computational models of reference The semantics of coordination and plural prediction
	Robert Kluender Linguistics	Neural substrate of language, psycholinguistics, second language acquisition, syntactic theory, Germanic linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, sentence processing
	Marta Kutas Cognitive Science Director, CRL	Human cognition and neuropsychology: language comprehension and production how we attend, understand, learn and remember mechanisms of reading, creativity, humor, sleep unconscious processes handedness and cerebral specialization ortical functioning and behavior Electrophysiological and experimental methods of assessing human information processing in control and patient groups: physiological mechanisms underlying EEG and ERP activity relation between single unit, multiunit and EEG activity clinical applications of ERPs
	Roger Levy Linguistics	Computational Linguistics, Human Sentence Processing, Syntax, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German
	Rachel Mayberry Linguistics	First-, second- and incomplete language acquisition and sign language processing in children and adults.
	Alysson Muotri Pediatrics Cellular & Molecular Medicine	The complexity of the human brain, with thousands of neuronal types, permits the development of sophisticated behavioral repertoires, such as language, tool use, self-awareness, symbolic thought, cultural learning and consciousness. From such dynamic complexity emerged extraordinary technological and artistic masterpieces in a relatively short cultural history. Moreover, brain complexity has a creative purpose. Understanding what produces neuronal diversification during brain development has been a longstanding challenge for neuroscientists and may bring insights on the evolution of human cognition. The Muotri lab explores mobile elements as generators of diversity during neuronal differentiation. These mobile elements may be part of a conserved genetic core process responsible for evoking facilitated complex non-random phenotypical variation in which selection may act. They use animal models, neural stem cells, human and other primates’ pluripotent cells and several molecular tools to investigate fundamental mechanisms of brain development, evolution and mental disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorders.
	Rafael Núñez Cognitive Science	Cognition from the perspective of the embodied mind, with particular interest in high-level cognitive phenomena such as conceptual systems, abstraction, and inference mechanisms, as they manifest themselves naturally through largely unconscious bodily/mental activity (e.g., gesture production co-produced with conceptual metaphors and blends).
	Carol Padden Communication	Sign language, development of writing systems in young children; interaction of language and cultural systems, including writing, drawing and reading,: how innovative, constrained borrowing from English has produced a "foreign" ASL sub-lexicon based on finger spelling how the contrast between "foreign" and "native" ASL sublexicons is exploited in teaching literacy to young deaf children how culturally-rooted pedagogical practices take into consideration the special circumstances of signers and their largely visual interaction with print how circumstances of deafness, including genetic patterning, interact with social and cultural practice throughout the world
	Maria Polinsky	Language universals, syntax-information structure interface, incomplete acquisition (heritage languages), Malagasy, languages of the Caucasus
	Keith Rayner Psychology	Researchers in the Eyetracking Lab under the general direction of Keith Rayner use various eyetracking apparati to study a wide variety of cognitive processes: eye movements during reading language comprehension language production scene perception visual search eye movement control
	Judy Reilly CRL Center for Human Development SDSU	Developmental trajectories of language and emotion in children with: typical development early unilateral brain damage language impairment Williams or Down syndrome English or French environment Tasks include: inferring emotion in others oral and written narratives computer based interventions to enhance pre-literacy skills
	Sharon Rose Linguistics	Phonology, morphology, phonetics, psycholinguistics African language description (Semitic, Kordofanian)
	Ayse Pinar Saygin Cognitive Science	Action and Biological motion processing. Aphasia. Relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic processes. Lesion-symptom mapping. Neuroimaging.
	Martin Sereno Cognitive Science	Neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of visual cortex, models of motion processing, cortical areas in humans: visual cortical areas and visual modeling functional MRI (+ EEG and MEG) natural and artificial symbol-using systems
	Doris Trauner Neuroscience Pediatrics	Cognitive consequences of conditions that alter brain development early in life: neurodevelopment disorders genetic disorders metabolic disorders
	Donna Thal SDSU	Language development: prediction of risk, assessment (co-developer of MacArthur CDI for ages 8-30 months), relationships between linguistic and cognitive development for children who have: language impairment focal brain injury delayed or precocious lexical development English, Spanish or bilingual environment
	Beverly Wulfeck Co-Director, Language & Communicative Disorders SDSU	Cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics, language disorders: Neural bases of disorders of language and cognition in children and adults Relationships between language specific disabilities and cognitive processing deficits Development of real time processing paradigms for the study of language and cognition Cross-linguistic studies of aphasia

Name

Research Interest

Farrell Ackerman

Linguistics

Lexicalism, morphology, lexical semantics, syntax, typology, first language acquisition:

the application of Word & Paradigm (inferential-realizational) models of morphology to constraint based lexicalist theories
the relevance of paradigms and periphrasis to Realization-based Lexicalism
cross-linguistic and typological investigations, especially within the Uralic family

Amalia Arvaniti

Linguistics

Phonetics (especially of prosody), psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, phonology, Greek

the production and perception of intonation
the production and perception of speech rhythm
interactions between components of prosody
the interaction of intonation with information structure
linguistic variation

Eric Baković

Linguistics

phonological analysis
architectural consequences
rule and constraint interaction
phonological variation
Spanish linguistics

Ursula Bellugi

Psychology

Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Behavioral neurogenetics—multidisciplinary research linking gene, brain, and cognition:

consequences of genetic alterations for brain development and the resulting alterations of cognitive capabilities
the nature of both normal and genetically-altered cognition
networks of brain regions underlying cognitive functions such as language and spatial cognition

Language, modality, and the brain:

Structure, acquisition, and processing of American Sign Language
Brain bases of sign language compared to spoken language

Benjamin Bergen

Cognitive Science

Meaning and the cognitive processes that underlie it:

Language comprehension, especially how people use motor and perceptual simulation to understand words and sentences
Metaphorical language and thought, taking evidence from corpus and experimental research
How people use grammar to encode meaning, and how grammatical structures affect comprehension
What the meaningful units are inside words, with special interest in phonaesthemes

Leslie Carver

Psychology

Brain changes associated with development in the transition from infancy to the early toddler years:

Brain basis of cognitive change, e.g., onset of long-term memory
Brain basis of social change, e.g., formation of long-lasting relationship with caregiver; use of caregiver's facial expression as a guide to interpreting unusual situations

Garrison Cottrell

Computer Science

Neural networks as a computational model applied to problems in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, engineering and biology as disparate as:

how children acquire words
how lobsters chew
nonlinear data compression

Seana Coulson

Cognitive Science

The study of meaning construction—how people deploy their cognitive resources in order to understand and interpret objects, activities, events, and natural language utterances—using methods ranging from macro- to micro-levels:

consideration of culture, social construction, discourse
analysis of production and reaction time data
relation to neural computation (ERPs)

Gedeon Deák

Cognitive Science

Cognitive, linguistic, and social development:

children's word learning, cognitive flexibility, logical skill, metacognition, categorization and generalization
flexible cognition and human language
embodied learning models of social development
infant-parent communication and joint attention

Diana Deutsch

Psychology

Multidisciplinary research investigating language, music, and the relationships between the two:

tone languages
verbal transformation illusions
absolute pitch and its genesis
perceptual transformations of speech into song

Karen Emmorey

Psychology

Language & Communicative Disorders

SDSU

What sign languages can reveal about the nature of human language, cognition, and the brain.

Sign language:

production and comprehension
impact on nonlinguistic visual-spatial cognition
linguistic functions of eye gaze

Language modality (sign, speech):

impact on spatial language
bimodal bilingualism (ASL-English)

Neural correlates of language and nonlinguistic cognitive functions:

neuroimaging studies (fMRI, PET)
unilateral brain damage

Jeffrey L. Elman

Cognitive Science

Co-Director, Kavli Brain Mind Institute

Language processing
parallel distributed processing
computational linguistics
psycholinguistics
artificial life
brain and mind

Victor Ferreira

Psychology

Assoc. Director, CRL

Co-Director, Language & Communicative Disorders

Language production processes:

studied empirically and theoretically using the tools of cognitive psychology
further understood by means of simulation or connectionist modeling
focus on (a) sentence formation and (b) word production

Eric Halgren

Neurosciences

John Haviland

Anthropology

Andrew Kehler

Linguistics

The interaction between theoretical linguistic, psycholinguistic, and computational linguistic models of discourse interpretation:

Coherence, reference, and the theory of grammar
Ellipsis and anaphora interpretation
Empirically-driven computational models of reference
The semantics of coordination and plural prediction

Robert Kluender

Linguistics

Neural substrate of language, psycholinguistics,
second language acquisition,
syntactic theory,
Germanic linguistics,
cognitive neuroscience,
sentence processing

Marta Kutas

Cognitive Science

Director, CRL

Human cognition and neuropsychology:

language comprehension and production
how we attend, understand, learn and remember
mechanisms of reading, creativity, humor, sleep
unconscious processes
handedness and cerebral specialization
ortical functioning and behavior

Electrophysiological and experimental methods of assessing human information processing in control and patient groups:

physiological mechanisms underlying EEG and ERP activity
relation between single unit, multiunit and EEG activity
clinical applications of ERPs

Roger Levy

Linguistics

Computational Linguistics, Human Sentence Processing, Syntax, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German

Rachel Mayberry

Linguistics

First-, second- and incomplete language acquisition and sign language processing in children and adults.

Alysson Muotri

Pediatrics
Cellular & Molecular Medicine

The complexity of the human brain, with thousands of neuronal types, permits the development of sophisticated behavioral repertoires, such as language, tool use, self-awareness, symbolic thought, cultural learning and consciousness. From such dynamic complexity emerged extraordinary technological and artistic masterpieces in a relatively short cultural history. Moreover, brain complexity has a creative purpose. Understanding what produces neuronal diversification during brain development has been a longstanding challenge for neuroscientists and may bring insights on the evolution of human cognition.

The Muotri lab explores mobile elements as generators of diversity during neuronal differentiation. These mobile elements may be part of a conserved genetic core process responsible for evoking facilitated complex non-random phenotypical variation in which selection may act. They use animal models, neural stem cells, human and other primates’ pluripotent cells and several molecular tools to investigate fundamental mechanisms of brain development, evolution and mental disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Rafael Núñez

Cognitive Science

Cognition from the perspective of the embodied mind, with particular interest in high-level cognitive phenomena such as conceptual systems, abstraction, and inference mechanisms, as they manifest themselves naturally through largely unconscious bodily/mental activity (e.g., gesture production co-produced with conceptual metaphors and blends).

Carol Padden

Communication

Sign language, development of writing systems in young children; interaction of language and cultural systems, including writing, drawing and reading,:

how innovative, constrained borrowing from English has produced a "foreign" ASL sub-lexicon based on finger spelling
how the contrast between "foreign" and "native" ASL sublexicons is exploited in teaching literacy to young deaf children
how culturally-rooted pedagogical practices take into consideration the special circumstances of signers and their largely visual interaction with print
how circumstances of deafness, including genetic patterning, interact with social and cultural practice throughout the world

Maria Polinsky

Language universals,
syntax-information structure interface,
incomplete acquisition (heritage languages),
Malagasy,
languages of the Caucasus

Keith Rayner

Psychology

Researchers in the Eyetracking Lab under the general direction of Keith Rayner use various eyetracking apparati to study a wide variety of cognitive processes:

eye movements during reading
language comprehension
language production
scene perception
visual search
eye movement control

Judy Reilly

CRL

Center for Human Development

SDSU

Developmental trajectories of language and emotion in children with:

typical development
early unilateral brain damage
language impairment
Williams or Down syndrome
English or French environment

Tasks include:

inferring emotion in others
oral and written narratives
computer based interventions to enhance pre-literacy skills

Sharon Rose

Linguistics

Phonology, morphology, phonetics, psycholinguistics African language description (Semitic, Kordofanian)

Ayse Pinar Saygin

Cognitive Science

Action and Biological motion processing. Aphasia.
Relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic processes.

Lesion-symptom mapping. Neuroimaging.

Martin Sereno

Cognitive Science

Neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of visual cortex, models of motion processing, cortical areas in humans:

visual cortical areas and visual modeling
functional MRI (+ EEG and MEG)
natural and artificial symbol-using systems

Doris Trauner

Neuroscience

Pediatrics

Cognitive consequences of conditions that alter brain development early in life:

neurodevelopment disorders
genetic disorders
metabolic disorders

Donna Thal

SDSU

Language development: prediction of risk, assessment (co-developer of MacArthur CDI for ages 8-30 months), relationships between linguistic and cognitive development for children who have:

language impairment
focal brain injury
delayed or precocious lexical development
English, Spanish or bilingual environment

Beverly Wulfeck

Co-Director, Language & Communicative Disorders

SDSU

Cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics, language disorders:

Neural bases of disorders of language and cognition in children and adults
Relationships between language specific disabilities and cognitive processing deficits
Development of real time processing paradigms for the study of language and cognition
Cross-linguistic studies of aphasia

Research and Project Scientists

	Name	Research Interest
	Adele Abrahamsen CRL	Relations between language and cognition: early words and symbolic gestures in typically and atypically developing toddlers word acquisition at 4-10 years symbolic and connectionist representations of semantic information Cognitive science as a discipline: topics in history and philosophy of cognitive science development of web-based materials for courses on research methods in cognitive science (inquiry.ucsd.edu)
	Julia L. Evans, Ph.D. ccc.SLP	Neurobiology of learning and memory, language acquisition and childhood language disorders, real-time language processing; eyetracking, EEG, ERP, aMEG Infant language development Language and cognitive processing in children and adolescents with Specific Language Impairment Neuroanatomical and neurophysiological correlates of real-time language processing in typically developing children and children with Specific Language Impairment Implicit learning and memory
	Amy Lieberman Linguistics	Sign language acquisition, development of joint attention, sign language processing
	Tracy Love	language and cognitive processes the role of various aspects of cognition (e.g. attention, memory, visual neglect etc.) and their potential impact on language function language processing in adults, children and language disordered populations designing a comprehensive model of normal language processing and in addition, applying this knowledge to those populations who exhibit specific difficulties in one or more aspects of language function
	Jeanne Townsend Neuroscience	Brain bases of cognitive function, studied developmentally using neuropsychological and behavioral testing, EEG, ERP, structural and functional MR imaging: attentional processing in successful aging cognitive effects of cerebral dysfunction in autism language and cognition in normally-developing and at-risk children
	Matthew Walenski	co-dependence of memory and language adult-onset (e.g., Alzheimer's disease, Schizophrenia) or developmental (e.g., Autism, Tourette's) disorders cross-language comparisons aspects of language processing in English, Japanese, and Italian

Postdoctoral Researchers

	Name	Research Interest
	Ben Amsel	My research encompasses behavioural and electrophysiological approaches to understanding human memory and language. I study the organization of semantic memory--our storehouse of knowledge about the world. I additionally study how the brain uses knowledge represented in semantic memory to guide language comprehension.
	Klinton Bicknell	My research seeks to understand the remarkable efficiency of language comprehension. I investigate how we comprehend using a diverse set of methodologies: I build formal, computational models of comprehension using tools from computational linguistics and machine learning, and I also perform a wide range of empirical work, including both controlled experiments (especially eye tracking) and statistical analyses of large, naturalistic corpora.
	Arielle Borovsky	Language acquisition and processing in children and adults. More specifically, I examine the impact of linguistic experience and knowledge on word learning and sentence processing in children and adults using eyetracking and ERP methodologies.
	Melissa Herzig	How sign language and gestural language in spoken language reveal children's readiness to learn new concepts.
	So-One Hwang	I study the interaction of language, gesture, and cognition for communicating, thinking, and learning. I am also interested in the temporal dynamics of language processing and its interface with the sensori-motor systems. My training is in linguistics and cognitive neuroscience.
	Gary Oppenheim	Incremental Learning in Lexical Retrieval

Pre-doctoral Trainees

	Name	Research Interest
	Carson Dance Cognitive Science	Phonological organization; changes in language though development; changes in language through second language learning.
	Hanna Gelfand Language and Communicative Disorders	Gaze patterns in children with specific language impairment
	Ross Metusalem Cognitive Science	Engaging event knowledge during online language comprehension
	Page Piccinini Linguistics	Bilinguals' abilities to use L1 and L2 categories in learning a third language
	Lara Polse Language and Communicative Disorders	Development and integration of orthographic and semantic processing during reading acquisition
	Liz Schotter Psychology	Serial and parallel architectures of language comprehension (reading) and production; Eye movements and language processing.

Alumni

Announcements

Children with Language Learning Disabilities have difficulty learning and using language despite having normal intelligence. These learning deficits often cause frustration and/or failure in academic and peer-social settings. To learn more about our study or to find out if your child is eligible to participate, please contact Child Language & Cognitive Processes Lab at palm@crl.ucsd.edu or (619) 306-2262.

CRL Talks
May 21, 2013 The (un)automaticity of structural alignment Iva Ivanova (UCSD Psychology & Psychiatry Departments)

Personnel

Executive Committee

• Seana Coulson
• Victor Ferreira
• Rob Kluender
• Carol Padden
• Beverly Wulfeck

Faculty

Research and Project Scientists

Postdoctoral Researchers

Pre-doctoral Trainees

Related

Announcements

CRL Talks

CRL Newsletter

Personnel

Executive Committee

• Seana Coulson • Victor Ferreira • Rob Kluender • Carol Padden • Beverly Wulfeck

Faculty

Research and Project Scientists

Postdoctoral Researchers

Pre-doctoral Trainees

Related

Announcements

CRL Talks

CRL Newsletter

• Seana Coulson
• Victor Ferreira
• Rob Kluender
• Carol Padden
• Beverly Wulfeck