Vicky Tzuyin Lai
I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Linguistics and the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder, specializing in Psycholinguistics. I successfully defended my thesis on 11/11/2009. My research looks at the on-line processing of semantic and pragmatic information in linguistic and non-linguistic contexts.
My dissertation work in Dr. Tim Curran's Cognitive ERP Lab looks at metaphor comprehension. I use the measure of brain electrical activity (ERPs) to examine metaphorical sentences with varying degrees of conventionality. We have also been exploring the issue whether there is any hemispheric difference in processing conventional and novel metaphors. Currently I am running metaphor priming studies, priming people with metaphorical thinking.
I am also interested in word recognition in context. I am collaborating with Dr. Al Kim in his Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Lab. I have invesitigated how words with multiple meanings are accessed in shallow and deep semantic tasks. Currently we are exploring the psycholinguistic properties of semantic predictability.
My other interest lies in testing whether language influences thought in the domains of time and motion. One of my older studies in Taiwan looks at the on-line processing of TIME IS MOTION metaphor in Mandarin Chinese. I asked how linguistic (sentential context) and non-linguistic (a person's physical movement) contexts affect temporal reasoning (with Dr. Kathleen Ahrens). After I came to Boulder, I started exploring whether L2 speakers of English have acquired the English way of thinking about time. Recently, I am working with Dr. Bhuvana Narasimhan and looking at thinking-for-speaking effects in bilingual speakers' encoding of motion events.
