Research Programs
Research Areas
In addition to empirical methods using behavioral data, our faculty and students conduct research into the neural bases of language and cognition using cutting-edge cognitive neuroscience techniques, including electroencephalography (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and neuropsychological work with patients with brain injury. In addition to conducting this work in our own labs, this research utilizes the University of Delaware’s state-of-the-art facilities at the Center for Biomedical and Brain Imaging (CBBI) and at the Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus.
Our research questions include:
What brain mechanisms underlie the formation of linguistic categories, like speech sounds in a spoken language?
How does the brain rapidly integrate linguistic information over time?
How does the brain support visual and linguistic representations, and the link between the two?
What processes enable language recovery following brain injury?
Note that prospective Ph.D. students especially interested in exploring questions in linguistics and cognitive science using neuroscientific methods are welcome to consider the University of Delaware’s Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Graduate (ING) Ph.D. program. For more information about ING, visit their website here.
Faculty Contacts:
Research on endangered and under-described languages is comparative research on the diversity and uniformity of the languages of the world. This is an area of special initiative at the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and other agencies. A major focus of the linguistics program at the University of Delaware is the study of a wide range of typologically different languages. Our research questions include:
Which features of human languages are common to all languages, and which features vary across languages?
What are the parameters along which languages can and do vary?
Which principles of language processing are common to all languages?
Why are some patterns more common than others, cross-linguistically?
Faculty Contacts:
Language Acquisition is one of the central topics in cognitive science. Experimental research is focused on first and second language acquisition in infants, children, and adults; language processing in children; and the neural and genetic bases of language and its relation to other mental processes. An area of special strength at the University of Delaware is first language acquisition.
Our research questions include:
When infants hear a sentence, how do they know where one word ends and another begins?
How do they learn the meanings of the words?
How do children develop spatial and early mathematical skills?
How can parents help their children develop language and literacy?
Faculty Contact:
A central goal in cognitive science is understanding how different cognitive systems interact. Our faculty conduct cutting-edge research on the interface between two of our core cognitive systems, language and vision — or informally, the link between what we see and how we describe it — and what this link can tell us about how we conceptualize the world. To do so, we use complementary experimental techniques, including tools from vision science, psycholinguistics, and cognitive neuroscience. Our broad research questions include:
What does natural language reveal about perceptual and cognitive experience, and vice-versa?
Do language and vision represent information in similar ways, or even in common neural systems?
What is the nature of the Language of Thought?
Faculty Contact:
Our faculty and graduate students conduct research into how we understand the meaning of sentences, how our interpretations of sentences are shaped by knowledge of the world, and how this interacts with other aspects of our minds and cognitive systems. We also conduct research into how social categories (including of race, gender, and social stereotypes) influence how we infer meaning from language and how such categories are understood in science and society, more broadly.
How do we interpret context to understand sentence meaning, such as “The price is $200” meaning “exactly” vs. “about” $200?
How do nearby words affect meaning, as in why “simply” sometimes weakens (“simply okay”) or emphasizes (“simply delicious”) our message?
How does language let us talk about unrealized possibilities (e.g., what might, must, or couldn’t be)?
How do we judge a speaker’s credibility or knowledge based on their appearance or social status?
Faculty Contact:
Andrea Beltrama
Faculty and graduate students at the University of Delaware carry out novel research in the areas of phonology, phonetics, and their interface. The kinds of questions asked include:
How can we characterize the sound patterns of different languages?
What principles account for the variety of sound patterns of different languages?
What role do various factors play in how a child might learn the sound pattern of his or her or language?
What is the relationship between perception and production of speech?
Faculty Contact:
Psycholinguistics is the study of how humans comprehend and produce. It explores how the brain processes language, from sounds and words to sentences and discourse. At the University of Delaware, research in psycholinguistics focuses on topics like sentence processing and the neural mechanisms underlying language use. Our research questions include:
How do humans parse complex sentences in real time?
How does the brain integrate information about language in real time?
How do language and perception interact during communication?
How does knowledge outside of language (e.g., social knowledge) get integrated in real-time to make inferences based on utterances?
How do language disorders, like aphasia, affect processing and production?
Faculty Contact:
Andrea Beltrama
Faculty and graduate students at the University of Delaware are conducting cutting-edge research in the areas of formal and experimental syntax and its interface with areas such as semantics, pragmatics, morphology, and sentence processing. This work brings together a variety of theoretical questions about the architecture of the syntax, which we investigate using a variety of experimental techniques. These include acceptability judgements, word recognition tasks, self-paced reading tasks, and visual-world eye-tracking experiments.
Faculty Contact:
Labs
Researchers at the Experimental Syntax Lab study how sentences of human language are processed, with a special interest in the relationship between sentence processing, language typology, and formal syntactic theory. The research employs a variety of experimental techniques, including self-paced reading, visual-world eye-tracking, and grammaticality judgement studies, to examine how formal representations of linguistic structure interact with how we understand sentences that we’ve never heard before. Researchers study a variety of diverse languages including English, Korean, Mandarin, Niuean, and Japanese.
Faculty Contact
Research Areas
- Endangered and underdescribed languages
- Syntax and semantics
Researchers at the PhonLab study the relationship between speech, language, and cognition by examining how speakers of the world’s languages produce and perceive speech. They use a number of methods in our research, including acoustic and articulatory analysis and behavioral perception studies. The research takes them to language communities all over the world.
At the heart of their work lies questions about cross-linguistic variation in prosody and speech timing. Researchers are interested in how these aspects of language are acquired, and how the structure of different languages shapes aspects of their temporal properties, as reflected in patterns of speech articulation and perception.
Faculty Contact
Research Areas
- Endangered and underdescribed languages
- Phonology and phonetics
The UD Perception and Language Lab is an interdisciplinary lab in the Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware. By integrating empirical and theoretical approaches from different areas of cogntive science, the lab investigates the link between what we see and how we describe it — and in turn what this can tell us about how we conceptualize the world.
Faculty Contact
Research Area
- Psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience of language
Research Questions
- Perception: How does perceptual processing contribute to our understanding of the world around us? What is the structure and format of perceptual representations? How do perceiving and remembering interact?
- Language: What can language reveal about the contents of perceptual and cognitive experience? How do children learn words for concepts — especially abstract ones? How are concepts represented in the mind?
- Cognition: How is information “translated” across cognitive domains? Do these domains represent information in similar ways, or even in common neural systems? What is the nature of the “language of thought”?
The Experimental Psycholinguistics Laboratory examines the millisecond-by-millisecond incremental representation building that the mind/brain performs in response to language stimuli.
Faculty Contact
Research Areas
Psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience of language
Research Questions
- What are the components of the human language processing system?
- What is the relative timing of these components' activity during linguistic representation building?
- What can parsing tell us about grammar?
- How do the language processing mechanisms develop in children?
- How does this development interact with children's induction of grammatical rules?
- Do language-impaired children process language differently and is this the source of their acquisition impairment?
The research uses behavioral (reaction time and categorical data) and electrophysiological measures of brain activity (EEG and event-related brain potentials) to address these questions.
Since 1974, researchers at the Child's Play, Learning and Development Lab at the University of Delaware have been exploring how children learn and grow. From how children develop language and spatial skills to how play can help scaffold learning, they are exploring children’s marvelous minds.
Faculty Contact
Research Area
- Language acquisition
Research Questions
- How do children learn language?
- How do children develop spatial skills?
- How do children learn through play?
- How does media affect children's learning and development?
- What can parents do to promote early literacy?
Voluntary Research Participation
Students are invited to participate as volunteers in experiments conducted by researchers in the Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science. Some studies will offer a small dollar amount. You may also earn extra credit in a class if your instructor allows it. Please ask your professor in advance if they offer extra credit in return for experiment participation.
If your professor allows extra credit for research participation, they will decide how much extra credit you will receive. The researcher will email your instructor at the end of their study indicating how much time you spent in the study and what you did. Your instructor may also ask you to submit a written report related to the research participants.
Students who are taking multiple LING/CGSC courses: For each experiment in which you participate, you can only get extra credit in ONE course for each experiment participation. You will be asked to indicate which class you want your extra credit for. Please make your decision before you sign up for the experiment.
Note that you can also participate in an experiment simply because you are interested in seeing how linguistic research is conducted and would like to volunteer your time.
Please be aware of the eligibility criteria that are indicated for each experiment and do not sign up unless you qualify. You may participate in more than one experiment. You have to be at least 18 years old to participate.
Email the researcher to make an appointment. Make note of the time and location of the experiment when you sign up. You are responsible for arriving on time. Please consult the Campus Map in advance to see where buildings are so you know how to get there. The research labs often run on tight schedules – if you arrive late, then you may have to reschedule.
If you have to cancel your appointment, please contact the researcher of the study at least one day in advance.
All instructors that allow students to receive extra credit in their courses through research participation will also have an alternative extra credit assignment available for those students who do not meet the research criteria or who do not wish to participate in research.
Research Projects Welcoming Participation
Research projects welcoming your participation are listed below. Contact the project’s researcher for more information.
Brief Description: The purpose of the study is to measure the brain’s response to different sounds to determine what sort of mental representations are created and used by the brain when encountering different sounds
Eligibility: Native English speakers, between 18 and 35 years old, no history of hearing or language impairments, or history of neurological condition
Duration: 1.5-2 hours
Compensation: Extra Credit at Instructor Discretion
Location: 800 Barksdale Rd, Room 102
Researcher Contact Info: Please contact epl.udel@gmail.com if you want to sign up for this study
Other Notes: If eligible, you may have the opportunity to do this experiment alongside another experiment currently running in the lab during your visit (total time of visit would be approximately 2 hours)
Brief Description: The purpose of the study is to measure the brain’s response to positive and negative sentences to determine whether negated sentences are understood in the same way as the positive sentences, or in a different manner
Eligibility: Native English speakers, between 18 and 35 years old, no history of hearing or language impairments, or history of neurological condition
Duration: 1.5-2 hours
Compensation: Extra Credit at Instructor Discretion
Location: 800 Barksdale Rd, Room 102
Researcher Contact Info: Please contact epl.udel@gmail.com if you want to sign up for this study
Other Notes: If eligible, you may have the opportunity to do this experiment alongside another experiment currently running in the lab during your visit (total time of visit would be approximately 2 hours)
