Current Research

Overview: Lab philosophy

Research in our lab seeks to understand cognitive, neural, and affective aspects of human language processing. We primarily focus on fundamental/basic science, but our work is motivated by real-world problems (such as language impairments) and we strive for translational impact and ecological validity in our research. 

We also try to improve and expand the set of tools available to cognitive neuroscientists and neuropsychologists. This includes statistical methods for analysis of time course data (GCA) and for correction for multiple comparisons in lesion-symptom mapping (cFWER; see also our recent book on LSM methods), and a large web-based database to facilitate the use of cognitive neuropsychological methods in the study of language and cognition (MAPPD).

Current projects apply these tenets to several inter-related research projects:

Processing and representation of semantic knowledge

We have a long-standing interest in the distinction between taxonomic information about an object (that an apple is a fruit, that it is the same kind of thing as a pear or a peach, that it is round and edible, etc.), and the events or situations in which they participate, which tell us thematic information about the object (that apples grow on trees and ripen in the fall, that they can be baked into pies or made into cider, that they sometimes have worms inside, etc.). Our systematic review brought together behavioural, computational, and neuroscience evidence that taxonomic and thematic semantic systems are distinct and proposed neuro-computational principles that may drive this distinction (Mirman, Landrigan, & Britt, 2017). Of particular focus is the "dual-hub" hypothesis that the anterior temporal lobes are specialised for taxonomic processing while the temporo-parietal cortex is specialised for thematic processing (e.g., Schwartz et al., 2011; Thye et al., 2021; Thye et al., 2025a). We are delving deeper into this distinction to try to understand its functional basis and the reason for the apparent neuroanatomic specialisation.

Our more recent work has focused on comprehension of longer-form narratives (stories, films) to understand how comprehension of individual words and sentences in the context of a "situation model" of the state of affairs in the story.  These studies have focused on processing of different kinds of content (e.g., Thye et al., 2024), different kinds of situation model operations (Adezati et al., 2026) and functional connectivity between the semantic network and the default mode network (Thye et al., 2025b). 

Functional communication and fluency in aphasia

Fluent and effective communication is a primary concern for people with post-stroke aphasia, but many treatment studies focus on improving production of individual words and rarely show generalisation to functional communication or discourse (Drossinos & Mirman, in press). Our recent aphasia research has focused on identifying the cognitive and neural components of fluency deficits in aphasia (Mirman et al., 2019; Zevgolatakou et al., 2023; Ding et al., 2023), and distinguishing them from strategic differences (Ding et al., 2025). Ongoing work is examining the neural correlates of functional communication and contextual factors that support or hinder communication in aphasia. 

Aesthetic pleasure of metaphors and other poetic language

There is a striking parallel between literary critical analysis and psycholinguistic models of language comprehension: in both, a reader is to uncover the correct meaning of a text. Yet, poetic language – with its ambiguity, allusions, and novel metaphors – resists this kind of decoding. This makes poetic language difficult, but it is often deeply pleasurable. Our current research is examining this relationship between difficulty and pleasure (Errington et al., 2022), how task set influences poetry enjoyment (Errington et al., 2026), and their neural correlates during reading metaphors and poems. We are also evaluating whether reading for pleasure (and other arts engagement) has benefits for mental health and well-being. Our long-term goal is to develop a neurocognitive model of how poems (and figurative language more generally) evoke a pleasure response, and the implications this has for creative writing, education, and mental health and wellbeing.

Emeritus

These projects are not currently active, but remain interests in the lab:

• Lesion-symptom mapping the organization of the spoken language system

• Word learning, plasticity, and aphasia recovery

• Competition and cooperation among co-activated representations, and the role of cognitive control in spoken language

• Interactivity