The Department of Psychology and Neuroscience proudly presents Dr. Vicky Lai, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Cognitive Science Program, University of Arizona

Title: Cognitive and affective neuroscience of language

Abstract:  My research program investigates the cognitive and affective aspects of language meaning with behavioral, electroencephalogram/Event Related Potential (EEG/ERP), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods. One major line of inquiry focuses on figurative language. We examine whether we comprehend metaphors, idioms, irony, and literal language differently, how creative minds produce metaphors with high quality, how we can leverage metaphor use in science learning, and how we can use metaphors to express emotion and irony to regulate emotion.  The other line of inquiry tackles the interface between language and emotion. We ask how emotional meaning is encoded in words and conveyed by sentences. We also ask whether emotional factors affect cognitive processes involved in language, such as prediction of the next word and combination between text meaning and world knowledge. Our current effort is investigating age effects on emotional language comprehension to explore neurolinguistic biomarkers for healthy (and pathological) aging.