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Primary Projects


Human Social Dynamics

This research explores how people represent and comprehend another's perspective in social communication. This line of inquiry has contributed to many insights in the areas of pragmatics, embodiment, and social cognition. With Drs. Rick Dale and Roger Kreuz, I am attempting to extend this research in two ways. The first is to interpret perspective-taking behavior as a nonlinear dynamical process. I argue that the fundamental dynamical properties that exist throughout nature also exist at the level of high-level, human cognition. The second way is to use action dynamics techniques, as in capturing arm movement trajectories, to better understand the factors and cognitive processes that underlie egocentric and allocentric ("other-centric") response choices.


Action Dynamics and Deception

A convincing deceiver must act in discordance with their knowledge of the truth. To do so requires the deceiver to resolve competition between what is known to be true and what is intended to be false. In collaboration with Drs. Rick Dale and Danielle McNamara, I am investigating the temporal signatures of this competition by examining the action dynamics of arm movement while participants respond falsely or truthfully to various sources of information. To do so, I use a Nintendo Wiimote (or computer-mouse controller) to track a continuous stream of x,y arm movement coordinates. This information not only extends traditional approaches that have collapsed deceptive behavior into ballistic reaction time movements, but provides a more sensitive measure to detect deception in the real-world.

A short video of some of the research:





Language and Deception

Even amongst the most talented of deceivers, their ability to conceal verbal lies can be compromised by subtle linguistic features that have been shown to reveal hidden cognitive states. These features include the literal meaning of the words used, as well on how words are arranged and structured in discourse. For this project, I take advantage of advances in technology and linguistic theory to analyze hundreds of features of language using natural language processing tools, ranging from word information variables to sentence and discourse level variables. Thus, language serves as a window into cognition, addressing a diverse set of interrelated questions, including a) What are the qualitative and quantitative linguistic features of deception, b) How does the relationship between language and cognition vary from individual monologue to conversational deception?, and c) Are there consistent patterns of language that cut across context?




Dynamic Psycholinguistics

One of my primary interests is in the area of psycholinguistics. Specifically, I am most interested in how nonlinear dynamical systems and cognitive dynamics can offer new insights into the study of human language. Both approaches are unique strands of research, but are nevertheless closely related. In dynamical systems, the general thesis is that language operates as a self-organizing system, and thus signatures of nonlinear dynamics should be evident in language representation and use. In cognitive dynamics, the emphasis is on the covariance of cognition and action as it unfolds in real-time. Both strands offer powerful methodological tools, including arm trajectory analysis, cross-recurrence analysis, 1/f analysis, and neural networks. In collaboration with, and using techniques pioneered by Dr. Rick Dale, I explore the psychological study of language as a dynamic psycholinguistics. 


Other Projects


Discourse Analysis for Educational Practices

With Drs. Danielle McNamara and Phil McCarthy, I have been involved in several projects (and papers) that are aimed at better understanding reading and writing comprehension through discourse analysis. In addition to gaining basic insights on cognitive processes, the ultimate goal is to apply our findings to the design of educational technologies. 

Distributional Statistics / Semantic Models

Much of my early undergraduate training was on assessing high dimensional semantic models like HAL (Hyperspace Analogue to Language) and LSA (Latent Semantic Models). I have not lost any of my early appreciation for their explanatory power.