Language is one of the unique characteristics of humans and is crucial for communication in our daily life. Research into the cognitive mechanisms and neurological foundations of how humans comprehend and process language helps advance our understanding of the human mind.
Researchers at the Language and Brain Laboratory engage in innovative and cutting edge research in the areas of language and the brain: Psycholinguistics and Neurolinguistics. The laboratory is currently focused on research in auditory sentence comprehension using Event Related Potentials (ERPs, a.k.a. brain waves) and eye-movement research in word and character processing.
In addition to contributing to our understanding of human cognition and brain functions, research from the laboratory will provide cognitive and neurological accounts of processing differences and similarities among languages. Furthermore, our research will have extensive practical applications to fields such as speech language pathology and audiology, and to teaching reading in the classroom. Click here to learn more about the Language and Brain Laboratory.
News
The 2012 Enrichment Mini-Courses Program (EMCP)
Watch Your Brain Work! Linguists and other cognitive scientists measure brain-waves and use the data they collect to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. In this course you will, too. How does your brain process language? How does your brain tell a dog’s bark from the sounds in your name? How does it respond ... more
Dr. Hirotani presents a paper at the CSBBCS 22nd Annual Meeting
For the detailed information, see http://csbbcs.org/index.html/.... more
Four lab members present ERP work in this year’s conference for the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science
Sarah Cebulski, Kathy Van Benthem, Matthew Darling, Masako Hirotani. ERP evidence for automatic processing and integration of language specific suprasegmental cues, to be presented as a poster at Queen’s University Kingston, ON, June 8. Abstract: This ERP study investigated neurological activity associated with suprasegmental cues (intensity, pitch) to determine how they are processed differently from ... more
Dr. Hirotani presents her collaborative work with NIPS in COGSCI 2012 (The Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society)
Hirotani, M., Shimada K., Okazaki, S., Tanabe, H.C., and Sadato, N. (2012). The Role of Social Contexts in Adults’ Word Learning. For more information, see COGSCI 2012.... more
Cebulski receives the best paper award in this year’s Institute of Cognitive Science Spring Conference
Congratulations to Sarah and her coauthors–Kathy Van Bentham and Matthew Darling! Automatic processing and integration of language specific cues Abstract: Suprasegmental cues such as intensity and pitch play an important role in language processing. English content words, for example, are characterized by a strong-weak intensity pattern that even infants have been shown to discriminate by ... more