News

On the 14th of July, 2025, Rick Sung successfully passed his PhD oral defense! Congrats!

Thesis title: Swearing or non-swearing? An empirical perspective

The dissertation link will be posted here when it becomes available.

Justin Hsieh will present at the 6th DiscourseNet Congress (DNC6) hosted by the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels, Belgium! The conference will be held in-person between 7-10 July, 2025.

Title: Decoding the Echo: Language Dynamics in Echo Chamber vs. Non-Echo Chamber Political Interviews

On the 28th of May, 2025, Jean-François Petit de Chemellier successfully passed his PhD oral defense! Congrats!

Thesis title: Electrophysiological evidence for crosslinguistic typicality effects

The dissertation link will be posted here when it becomes available.

On the 25th of April, 2025, Lucy Hung succesfully passed her dissertation proposal. Congrats!

Proposal title: Tone Sandhi in Mandarin-English Code-Switched Utterances: An Event-Related Potential Study

Terry Lee has been awarded the grant for "Postdoctoral Research Fellows in Humanities and Social Sciences" (「人文及社會科學博士後研究人員」) from the National Science and Technology Council (Taiwan ROC), and we will be seeing him frequently in ouir laboratory for the next year as he rejoins us as a postdoc! Congrats, Terry!

On the 12th of July, 2024, Dylan Scott Low successfully passed his MA oral defense! Congrats!

Thesis title: Metaphorically Thinking: Insights from Neurocognitive Processing in Mandarin-English Bilingualism

The dissertation link will be posted here when it becomes available.

On the 2nd of July, 2024, Phoebe Shen successfully passed her MA oral defense! Congrats!

Thesis title: Flexibility of Nominal Concepts: An Event-Related Potential Study on Mandarin Individual and Event Classifiers

The dissertation link will be posted here when it becomes available.

It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we received the news of our lab member Andrew Wong's (翁柏凱) passing on the 27th of July, 2023. We will always remember him for his intelligence, independence, and dedication to his research. These qualities of his are exceptionally admirable. Andrew lived with visual impairment, but never did he allow his condition to present an obstacle to his studies or research. Andrew's research program was significant—his MA thesis project aimed to examine the processing of Taiwanese braille in the brain via fMRI, reflecting his interests in issues concerning cognition in blind and visually impaired individuals. Had fate allowed Andrew to continue his work, we have no doubt that he would have made a fine scholar and had a successful and fulfilling academic career. Nevertheless, even though that can no longer be, we honor Andrew's tenacious spirit which guided him throughout his life, and we look to the future with gratitude for having known him and a commitment to carry forward his legacy. Andrew's contributions will forever inspire us and be an integral part of our journey.

Shiaohui Chan will present a poster at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2023) in Sydney, Australia, from 26th to 29th of July 2023! Congratulations!

Title: Dynamics of information activation of noun countability and semantic category in language processing 

Terry Lee has been awarded the grant for "Postdoctoral Research Fellows in Humanities and Social Sciences" (「人文及社會科學博士後研究人員」) from the National Science and Technology Council (Taiwan ROC), and we will be seeing him frequently in ouir laboratory for the next year as he rejoins us as a postdoc! Congrats, Terry!

On the 29th of June, 2023, Terry Lee successfully passed his PhD dissertation defense! Congrats!

Thesis title: Neural correlates of empty categories 

The dissertation link will be posted here when it becomes available.

Stephanie Fu and Dylan Scott Low will present at the 56th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL-56) hosted by Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand! The conference will be held in-person between 10-12 October, 2023.

Title: Exploring syntactic optimality in code-mixing: An emprical study of Mandarin-English bilinguals in Taiwan

On 19 May, 2023, Dylan Scott Low will formally receive an Outstanding Graduate Student Award (Academic Category). The award is given to selected holders of the MOE or MOFA Taiwan Scholarship at the end of their scholarship period, after review by a 16-person panel of experts.

On the 11th of April, 2023, Phoebe Shen succesfully passed her thesis proposal. Congrats!

Proposal title: Conceptual flexibility: An event-related potential study on Mandarin individual and event classifiers

On the 16th of March, 2023, Rick Sung succesfully passed his dissertation proposal. Congrats!

Proposal title: Swearing or non-swearing? An empirical perspective

Terry Lee and Shiaohui Chan will present a poster at the 13th Workshop on Theoretical and East Asian Linguistics (TEAL-13) hosted by the Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University! The conference will be held in-person between 12-14 May, 2023.

Poster title: The role of the right prefrontal regions in processing sentences with gaps

See this site for more details: https://sites.google.com/ntnueng.tw/teal13/program/program-day-1 

We have good news for the New Year! Terry Lee and Shiaohui Chan's article has been accepted in the Journal of Neurolinguistics! Congratulations!

Article title: Better early than late for a filler: An fMRI study on the filler-gap order in language

Online link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2023.101126 

Dr. Aymeric Collart (now at Academia Sinica) has been invited back to NTNU to give a guest lecture to the Department of English this Friday (4 November 2022) from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm. We are excited to see Aymeric again and catch up! Welcome back, Aymeric!

Talk title: What can formal linguistics bring to neurolinguistics? Examples from temporal concord processing in Mandarin

Our former lab manager and recent Phd alum, Dr. Aymeric Collart, has been awarded the 2022 "Best PhD Dissertation of the Year" award by the Linguistic Society of Taiwan (LST)! Congratulations! For his award, Aymeric has also been invited to give a talk at the 23rd National Conference on Linguistics (NCL23). The conference will be held in-person at National Chengchi University in Taipei between 28-29 October, 2022.

Talk title: Towards an extended neurolinguistic model of the processing of TIME in Mandarin: Bridging linguistic analyses and neurocognitive evidence

Dylan Scott Low’s article with Isaac Mcneill (Mahidol University) and Asst. Prof. Michael James Day (Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) has been accepted in the journal Sustainable Multilingualism!

Article title: Endangered Languages: A Sociocognitive Approach to Language Death, Identity Loss, and Preservation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 

The article is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/sm-2022-0011 or ResearchGate

On the 27th of July, 2022, Silvia Yang successfully defended her MA thesis. We are also happy to know that she will be pursuing her PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language in San Sebastián, Spain! Congrats!

Thesis title: An ERP Study on Cross-Cultural Humor: Taiwanese Subjects' Response to American Sarcastic Insults 

Her thesis is available online at: http://doi.org/10.6345/NTNU202201304 

Dylan Scott Low and Wong Kah Fai will present a poster at the 22nd National Conference on Linguistics jointly organized by National Chengchi University and Academia Sinica! The conference will be held in-person at National Chengchi University in Taipei between 28-29 October, 2022.

Poster title: Cognitive Phonology, Relational Networks, and Optimality Theory: Analysing Consonant Phonotactics in Malaysian and Singaporean Colloquial English 

The poster is available online at: http://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.21837.72169/1 

On the 13th of January, 2022, Aymeric Collart succesfully defended his PhD dissertation. He also obtained the highest grade. Congrats to Dr. Collart!

[Update on 08/09/2022] We are proud to say that Aymeric has started a new position as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Linguistics of Academia Sinica, Taipei! Kudos!

Dissertation title: Bridging Time and Language in the Brain: Insights from Mandarin Chinese

His dissertation is available online at: http://doi.org/10.6345/NTNU202200490 

Shiaohui Chan’s article has been accepted in the journal Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. Congrats!

Article title: Dynamics of nominal classification systems in language processing 

The article is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2021.2011331 

An article by Fan Jiaming (Damien), Aymeric Collart, and Chan Shiao-hui has been accepted in the journal Interpreting. Congrats!

Article title: When two languages are competing: An ERP study on sentence processing in expert and novice interpreters 

The article is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.00069.fan  

On the 15th of June, 2021, Terry Lee succesfully passed his dissertation proposal. Congrats!

Proposal title: The neural correlates of empty categories

Vicky Chang (I-Chi Chang) and Shiaohui Chan will present their research online at the 37th Annual Northwest Linguistics Conference (NWLC), held online by the Department of Linguistics at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada), between 14-15 May, 2021!

Title: The modulation of Mandarin classifiers on perception of real-world objects: A neurolinguistic approach

Vicky Chang (I-Chi Chang) and Shiaohui Chan will present their research online at the UNC Linguistics Spring Colloquium 2021, held online by the Department of Linguistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) on  20 March, 2021!

Title: The influence of Mandarin classifiers on Mandarin speakers' object categorization: A neurolinguistic approach

On the 15th of January, 2021, Aymeric Collart successfully passed his PhD dissertation proposal. Congrats!

Proposal title: Bridging time in a tenseless language: Insights from Mandarin Chinese

Also on the 15th of January, 2021, Vicky Chang successfully passed her MA thesis proposal. Congrats!

Proposal title: The modulation of Mandarin classifiers on perception and categorization: A neurolinguistic approach

Aymeric Collart and Shiaohui Chan’s article has been accepted in the Journal of Neurolinguistics. Congrats!

Article title: Processing past time reference in a tenseless language: An ERP study on the Mandarin aspectual morphemes -le and -guo  

Ku Li-Chuan and Shiaohui Chan's article, with Vicky T. Lai (University of Arizona) has been accepted in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. Congrats! 

Article title: Personality Traits and Emotional Word Recognition: An ERP Study   

The article can be accessed online at: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-020-00774-9 

Terry Lee and Aymeric Collart will make two poster presentations at the 33rd CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing held at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst between March 19-21, 2020.

Title: Biological foundations of syntactic movements (Terry Lee)

Title: Not all the pasts are the same: an ERP study of the temporal constraints of the Mandarin aspectual markers -le and -guo  (Aymeric Collart)

Ronald 張哲 succesfully passed his dissertation proposal on the 3rd of January, 2020. Congratulations!

Proposal title: The Resolution of Syntactic Ambiguity: ERP Evidence from Reduced Relative Clause and Prepositional Phrase Attachment

Aymeric Collart will make an oral presentation at 19th NCL National Conference on Linguistics, held at National Chiao Tung University , Hsinchu (Taiwan), on October, 25, 2019.

Title: Temporal relations electrified: An ERP study on the perfective marker –le

Shiaohui Chan’s article has been accepted in the Journal of Neurolinguistics!

Title: An elephant needs a head but a horse does not: An ERP study of classifier-noun agreement in Mandarin

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2019.100852 

On the 11th of June, 2019, Johnny succesfully defended his MA thesis. He also obtained the highest grade. Congrats!

Thesis title: Linguistic Relativity: An ERP Study on Mandarin Classifiers

His thesis is available online at: http://doi.org/10.6345/NTNU201900059 

Aymeric Collart and Shiaohui Chan will make a poster presentation at the 32nd CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, held at the University of Colorado Boulder between March 29-31, 2019!

Title: Aspect is distinct from time reference: An ERP study of the perfective marker -le in Mandarin Chinese

Lin Keng-yu and Shiaohui Chan’s article has been accepted in the Journal of Cognitive Psychology!

Title: When senses meet functions: an amodal stage in conceptual processing 

Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2018.1560299 

Chen Yen-Lin and Shiaohui Chan will make an oral presentation at the joint conference ICPEAL 17 – CLDC 9 (the 17th International Conference on the Processing of East Asian Languages and the 9th Conference on Language, Discourse, and Cognition), held at National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei, on October 19, 2018.

Title: Semantic Prosody in the Processing of Mandarin-Chinese Verbs: An ERP study

Aymeric Collart will make an oral presentation at the joint conference ICPEAL 17 – CLDC 9 (the 17th International Conference on the Processing of East Asian Languages and the 9th Conference on Language, Discourse, and Cognition), held at National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei, on October 19, 2018.

Title: Same interpretation, different process? The case of verbal-le and You+VP in Taiwan Mandarin

神經語言學實驗室 江欣粦 同學 於2017年6月26日以優異成績通過105學年度英語學系語言組碩士論文畢業口試（論文題目：語言轉換與語言混合之功能性磁振造影研究；Thesis Topic: The Processing of Language Switching and Language Mixing: An fMRI Study）

魏熙 榮獲科技部補助大專學生研究計畫<Familial sinistrality and speech error perception> 

Aymeric Collart 榮獲國立臺灣師範大學英語學系語言組博士班入學資格與臺灣教育部攻讀博士四年獎學金