I am interested in how different linguistic processes (syntax, semantics, pragmatics) interact with one another and with non-linguistic processes (event representation, social cognition, etc.).
Prior to graduate school, I worked on the relationship between language and memory. I also tried to understand differences between verbal and non-verbal working memory (this work continues).
More recently, I have been trying to ascertain the relationship between social cognition and language processing. On certain popular theories, much of language interpretation requires thinking about what the speaker wants to communicate, suggesting a major role for non-lingustic social cognition. However, evidence for this is currently limited. (You can see some of my work here and here.)
The bulk of my work lately has been on pronouns. Pronoun interpretation is affected both by high-level pragmatic processes and low(er)-level semantic constraints. For some examples of this work, see here, here and here. This work has branched into a series of studies investigating the semantics of verbs (e.g., here).
I also have a line of work on scalar implicature (e.g., here and here). My interest in this well-known pragmatic phenomenon is in how it is affected by grammatical context and also the degree to which listeners can anticipate scalar implicatures in advance and thus speed processing.
In terms of methodology, I run studies with both children and adults. My adult studies are mostly judgment studies, eyetracking studies, and EEG studies. With children, I primarily use Truth Value Judgment and eyetracking, though I have begun using EEG as well. As I have a deep interest in how languages do or do not differ, I run studies in multiple languages (at last count, English, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese and Korean). So far this work is exclusively with adults, though I hope to eventually begin testing kids in other languages as well.
You can find a full list of and links to my papers and posters here.
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