About

My overarching research interest is in how we learn about the world through language and how we communicate successfully, how is it that can people make sense of the signs and sounds an other person is making. Communication relies on more than producing and understanding words; there is a lot of meaning that we need to infer beyond what a speaker has chosen to say. Consider the following interaction:

Frankie: Have you tried Charlie's cake? It's moist and delicious

Ashley: Well, it's moist...

Here Ashley communicates that Charlie's cake is not delicious. Although they haven't said this, as listeners, we assume that if Ashley had agreed with this they would have said so. Since they did not say the cake was delicious we inferthat  the cake is not delicious.  This is an example of an inference and demonstrates a challenge that we face as language users- when should we draw an inference?  As competent langauge users we have expectations for how other language users are going to interact with us. When these expectations are not met we often try to understand why which results in making inferences. My work looks at how we reconcile our expectations with our reality during communication.

I am interested in questions about:

• how listeners make sense of the things people say?

• how speakers choose what to say?

• what processes underlie inferencing?

• what is the developmental trajectory of inferencing across the lifespan?

• how do our expectations shape communication?

I use a range of psycholinguistic techniques iincluding eye-tracking and EEG.

You can find a copy of my CV here