Welcome to the Center for Research on Language (CRL)

CRL brings together faculty, students and research associates who share an interest in the nature of language, the processes by which language is acquired and used, and the mediation of language in the human brain.

CRL is housed in the Cognitive Science Building on the Thurgood Marshall Campus at the University of California, San Diego and boasts an interdisciplinary academic staff comprised of specialists in a wide variety of fields:

  • Cognitive science
  • Communication
  • Communication disorders
  • Computer science
  • Developmental psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Neurosciences
  • Pediatrics
  • Psycholinguistics

CRL Talks

April 25

Behavior-contingent analysis of fixation-related brain potentials: Past findings and new tools for co-registration research

Elizabeth Schotter

Department of Psychology, University of South Florida

Recent years have seen a rise in excitement around co-registration (i.e., synchronized measurement of eye tracking, ET and electroencephalography, EEG), which allows researchers to investigate eye fixation-related brain potentials (FRPs). One major focus of co-registration research has been on the reading process – a naturalistic task that involves the interface of many cognitive, perceptual, and motor systems, allowing it to be a testbed for many questions within cognitive neuroscience. But future progress hinges upon researchers synchronizing not only data streams, but also approaches to analyzing the data in a way that capitalizes on the technique’s strength — the ability to directly link neural processing to eye movement behaviors. To make the most of this technique, we must move away from univariate analysis (i.e., treating ET and EEG data as independent outcomes) and toward approaches that account for the multivariate coupling between neural processing and behavioral actions. As an example, I will summarize a few co-registration studies that use behavior-contingent analysis (BCA) to reveal how language-related brain processes (e.g., N400, LPC) are only observed when the reader exhibits specific behaviors (e.g., skipping, regressions). Furthermore, in order to facilitate adoption of these integrated approaches to co-registration research, I will provide an overview of a MATLAB toolbox my lab has developed (i.e., EyeSort) that will allow co-registration researchers to identify certain eye movement behaviors and mark them in the EEG event structure in a way that is flexible and customizable.