In this laboratory we investigate the nature of linguistic representations and how those representations are used during language comprehension. In addition, we investigate how language interfaces with other domains such as conceptual representations and vision. In this page you will find a brief description of some of the main topics investigated in the lab. For more information, please check the list of publications below or write to Dr. Roberto de Almeida.

 

• Lexical Representation and Processing
  How are words processed and represented in the mind? Regarding the structure of words, some people believe that we recognize and process words in full form while others believe that we recognize words by first recognizing their constituent morphemes (e.g., when you see a word such as remaking, you first decompose it into re, make, and ing). Together with Gary Libben (University of Alberta), we have been working on the nature of the lexical recognition and access codes employing different types of morphologically complex words. Our projects include experiments with inflected (e.g., barking) and compound (e.g., keyboard) words and employ several experimental paradigms. In other projects on lexical representation and processing we are investigating what types of verb-specific information are accessed during language comprehension and how verb information guide sentence parsing (see topic below). Also regarding verb information, together with Norman Segalowitz we have been working on how English-French bilinguals represent different semantic classes of verbs.

  
  

• Sentence Processing
  Our projects on sentence processing include experiments investigating how morphologically complex ambiguous words (e.g., undoable) are parsed in different semantic contexts (also in collaboration with G. Libben). This work also deals with the interaction between sentence information and the morphological structure of complex words. We are also investigating how people resolve syntactic ambiguity in different types of contexts (one of these studies employs a technique we are developing monitoring eye movements during viewing of real objects and scenes; see below), and how verbs determine parsing preferences. Another study on sentence processing investigates the effect of different types of verbs and other grammatical categories (e.g., adverbs) in memory for sentence-propositional content.
  
  
• The Interaction Between Linguistic and Visual Representations
  Together with researchers from the vision lab (Michael von Grunau, Cesar Galera, and Caroline van de Velde) and PhD student Julia Di Nardo we've been developing a series of studies on the interaction between linguistic and visual representations during language comprehension. These studies include the effect of visual context (e.g., pictures of objects and scenes) in the access to verb-conceptual representations and how representations computed from real context influence the way we parse and interpret linguistic utterances.
  
  
• The Nature of Concepts
  How are concepts represented in the mind? How do you represent, say, the concept DOG? Is it represented as a set of features (for instance, +BARKS, +ANIMAL, +PET, +FURRY)? We are currently investigating the nature of concepts by looking at how verbs "behave" in certain types of sentence contexts. Some people think that certain classes of verbs are represented in the mind by a "conceptual template" that specifies the nature of the arguments of the verb together with its conceptual primitives. For instance, some people think that the verb to kill is mentally represented by a template such as [x CAUSE [y DIE]] in which x and y specify the arguments of the verb (the kinds of elements the verb requires to form a grammatical sentence) and CAUSE and DIE are taken to be "conceptual primitives". We are investigating this idea using not only causatives but also different classes of verbs and employing different types of experimental techniques.
  
  
• Category-Specific Semantic Deficits
  Cases of category-specfic deficits (i.e., conceptual or semantic deficits caused by brain injuries or diseases) have been taken as evidence for the way concepts are represented and organized in the brain. Research on this topic has been done in two ways: (1) theoretical, through the review and discussion of case studies and how they inform us about the nature of the representation of concepts (see de Almeida, 1999, 2001), and (2) empirical, through the investigation of cases of category-specific deficits with verb concepts (work being developed with Forouzan Mobayyen).
  
  
• To view some recent publications and conference presentations related to the research described above, click here.