After doing a research master's, I became a PhD student and graduate teaching assistant in Psychology at Lancaster University. I'm investigating how conceptual processing (i.e., understanding the meaning of words) is supported by linguistic and sensorimotor brain systems. I use methods such as behavioural and electroencephalographic experiments, corpus analysis, statistics and programming. My CV is available.
The linguistic and sensorimotor bases of semantic processing: Variation across individuals, words and tasks
Conceptual processing has been found to draw on two cognitive systems. One is a linguistic system, which is based on knowledge of words and the relations among them. The other is a sensorimotor system, which draws on our perceptual, motor and affective experience. These two systems contribute to conceptual processing in a sequential manner: the linguistic system is activated first, providing more superficial semantic information, with the sensorimotor system slower to reach peak activation, but providing more refined meaning. We know that the relative importance of each system is modulated by contextual factors (e.g., linguistic context, processing goals, cognitive resources). However, we know much less about how people’s individual cognitive capacities and experience (reading experience, reasoning ability) interact with these systems, which has become a central theme in my work.
Much evidence has been found in cognitive psychology for the role of linguistic systems (based on statistical regularities in how words co-occur in language) and sensorimotor systems (based on perceptual, motor, affective experience). The linguistic system is consistently linked to faster, more superficial processing, while the sensorimotor system is linked to slower, more cognitively demanding tasks (Connell & Lynott, 2013; Louwerse et al., 2015). Recent evidence suggests that individual differences, such as measures of reading experience (e.g., Pexman & Yap, 2018) and of sensorimotor experience (Beilock, et al., 2008; Vukovic & Williams, 2015), provide additional explanatory power for accounts of embodied cognition. For example, linguistic individual differences in vocabulary predict word recognition and information processing speed (Yap et al., 2012). Likewise, sensorimotor individual differences in spatial perspective-taking are also implicated in semantic processing, as participants who tend to naturally adopt an internal perspective in space are more likely to engage in perceptual simulation when reading, by identifying themselves as the protagonist (Vukovic & Williams, 2015).
Degrees
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Research Master Language and Communication, 2017
Tilburg University and Radboud University (Netherlands)
- Student member, Master’s curriculum and accreditation committee
- Tilburg U. Scholarship for Academic Excellence, 2014/2015
- Grade: 7.54 out of 10 (Distinction)
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BA English Philology, 2013
Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain)
- One-year Erasmus exchange at University of Jyväskylä, Finland
- One-year exchange at University of Barcelona, Spain
- Six-month Spanish teaching placement in Kaunas, Lithuania
- Grade: 7.30 out of 10 (2:1 Hons)
Further courses
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Neurobiology of language, 2017
Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics
- Course focussed on multilingualism, including the interesting and hotly-debated topic of the cognitive benefits.
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Big data in society, 2016
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
- I honed my experience in R and learned about techniques such as topic modelling and crowdsourcing.
- Coursework
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Linear mixed-effects models in R, 2016
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
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Transcranial brain stimulation, 2015
Donders Institute, Radboud University
- I gained theoretical and practical experience in the technique of transcranial brain stimulation. This technique occupies a privileged position in the area of conceptual processing (i.e., the comprehension of words in the brain), as it allows tapping into the causality of experimental effects with a greater precision than most other techniques.
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Neurobiology of language, 2015
Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics
- I learned about the functional mapping of language in the brain, and the toolkit used for this research.
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Psycholinguistics: Self-monitoring, 2015
Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics
- I learned about how speech errors can serve as a window into the psychology of language.
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[Part of] Neuroimaging 1, 2014
Radboud University
- I followed the first two months of this course as a listener to learn the principles of electroencephalography, event-related potentials, magnetoencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging.
