My Research
My Research
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My research investigates how language comprehension operates when multiple languages are simultaneously active, using bilingualism as a lens on the fundamental architecture of the human language system. Rather than treating bilingual language use as a special case, my work takes multilingual experience to be a powerful test of core theoretical assumptions about sentence processing.
I focus on bilingual sentence comprehension in real time, asking whether the mechanisms that guide parsing, prediction, and revision are language-specific or instead emerge from experience with multiple linguistic systems. By examining how bilinguals resolve structural ambiguity, manage competing cues, and integrate information across languages, my research directly challenges models that assume encapsulated, language-selective processing routines. Instead, my findings support accounts in which sentence processing is adaptive, probabilistic, and shaped by prior linguistic experience.
A central contribution of my work is to show that cross-language interaction is not peripheral but fundamental to comprehension. This is especially evident in code-switching, where bilinguals encounter rapid, unexpected shifts in language. By studying how bilingual listeners and readers comprehend code-switched input, my research reframes code-switching as a critical testing ground for theories of prediction, expectation, and error-driven learning in language comprehension.
Methodologically, I combine experimental psycholinguistics with neurocognitive approaches to link behavior and brain activity as comprehension unfolds. Using eye-tracking, electroencephalography (EEG), and co-registration of eye movements and EEG, my work connects moment-by-moment processing decisions to their neural correlates, allowing for fine-grained tests of competing theoretical models.
Overall, my research advances a view of sentence comprehension in which linguistic knowledge, processing mechanisms, and experience are deeply intertwined. By centering multilingualism, my work contributes to broader theories of language that move beyond monolingual norms and better reflect the diversity of human linguistic experience.
With (from left to right) Karen Miller, Carrie Jackson, Colleen Balukas, Kara Morgan-Short, Travis Bradley and John Lipski at PSUxLING 2018.
Recent Publications
Recent Publications
(*indicates publications with current and former graduate and undergraduate students, and post-doctoral fellows).
*Valdés Kroff, J. R., Treadway, H., Guzzardo Tamargo, R. E., & Dussias, P. E. (forthcoming). Sensitivity to code-switching
asymmetries in L2 sentence processing. Current insights into code-switching. Language Science Press. https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/522
*Beatty Martínez, A. L., & Dussias, P. E. (in press). Bilingualism in context: Principles for designing ecological and transdisciplinary research in language and cognitive science. In J. Schwieter (Ed)., Quantitative Research Methods in Multilingual Acquisition and Processing. John Benjamins.
Kroll, J. F., & Dussias, P. E. (2024). Beyond transfer: Language processing in bilinguals is shaped by competition and regulation. Language Teaching Research Quartely, 44, 55-70 https://doi.org/10.32038/ltrq.2024.44.07
*López-Beltrán, P., & Dussias, P. E. (2023). Heritage speakers’ processing of the Spanish subjunctive: A pupillomery study. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1075/lab.21030.lop
*Valdés Kroff, J. R., & Dussias, P. E. (2023). Production, processing, and prediction in bilingual codeswitching. In K.D. Federmeier & J. L. Montag (Eds.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation (Vol. 78, pp. 195-237). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.plm.2023.02.004
Dussias, P. E. (2023). Sintaxis y cognición. In Guillermo Rojo Sánchez, María Victoria Vázquez Rozas & Rena Torres Cacoullos, (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Spanish Syntax, Routledge, London. https://www.routledge.com/Sintaxis-del-espanol--The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Spanish-Syntax/Rojo-VazquezRozas-TorresCacoullos/p/book/9781032419459
*Navarro-Torres, C., Dussias, P. E., & Kroll, J. F. (2023). When exceptions matter: Bilinguals regulate their dominant language to exploit structural constraints in sentence production. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 38, 217-242. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2022.2105915
Andras, F., Rivera, M., Bajo, M. T., Dussias, P. E., & Paolieri, D. (2022). Cognate facilitation effect during auditory comprehension of L2: a visual world eye-tracking study. International Journal of Bilingualism, 26, 405-425. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006921103335
Dussias, P. E. (2022). Theoretical Perspectives on Psycholinguistics. In Aline Godfroid & Holger Hopp, (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition and Psycholinguistics. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Second-Language-Acquisition-and-Psycholinguistics/Godfroid-Hopp/p/book/9781032372938
*Johns, M.A., & Dussias, P. E. (2022). Comparing Single-Word Insertions and Multi-Word Alternations in Bilingual Speech: Insights from Pupillometry. Languages, 7, 267; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040267
*López-Beltrán, P., Johns, M. A., Dussias, P. E., Lozano, C., & Palma, A. (2022). The effects of information structure in the processing of word order variation in the second language. Second Language Research, 7, 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267658321992461
*Román, P., Kaan, E., & Dussias, P. E. (2022). Access to verb bias and plausibility information during syntactic processing in adult Spanish-English bilinguals. Bilingualism, Language and Cognition, 25, pp. 417-429. doi:10.1017/S1366728921000924
Dussias, P. E., & Miller, K. (2022). Eye-tracking Methods in child SLA research. In Yuko Goto Butler and Becky Huang, (Eds.), Research methods for understanding child second language development (pp.121-143). Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Research-Methods-for-Understanding-Child-Second-Language-Development/Butler-Huang/p/book/9780367417017
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