Dr. Yuki Kamide

Lecturer

Contact Details:
Telephone: (+44)(1382) 384614
Email: Yuki Kamide

Postal Address:
School of Psychology
The University of Dundee
Dundee
DD1 4HN
Scotland, UK

Biography

I was born and grew up in the Kansai area in Japan. I lived there (Kyoto, Nara, Kobe) until 1994, during which time I obtained a BA in Psychology (1998-1992) and an MA in Psychology (by research; 1992-1994), both from Kobe University.In 1994, I came to the UK, and completed my PhD in Psychology under supervision of Prof. Don Mitchell at the University of Exeter (1994-1998). Then, I took up a Post-doctoral Research Fellowship on MRC-funded research grants awarded to Prof. Gerry Altmann at the Psycholinguistics Research Group, the University of York (1998-2002). In Sept 2002, I started my first lectureship in Psychology at the University of Manchester where I stayed until the beginning of 2005. I joined the Department here in Dundee in February in 2005 as a Lecturer in Psycholinguistics.

Research Grouping

Language, Cognition and Perception

Research Centres

LaRC (Language Research Centre)
CORE (Centre for Oculomotor Research

Research Interests

Psycholinguistics· Language processing (especially, sentence comprehension)
Eye-movements in the processing of linguistic and visual information
Cross-linguistic comparisons
Second language use and acquisition in social contexts

My research interests predominantly concern the area of psycholinguistics, especially sentence processing, including the following areas:

Prediction in sentence processing - anticipatory eye-movements in the visual-world paradigm: In recent research with Gerry Altmann, I have explored whether people 'predict' certain properties of a forthcoming lexical item even before the referring expression arrives in the sentence. To investigate the prediction issue, we use a relatively new eye-tracking technique, the so-called 'visual-world paradigm' where people hear a sentence whilst looking at a visual scene containing objects referred to in that sentence. Our first study (Altmann & Kamide, 1999) showed that people look towards certain objects that are about to be mentioned without actually waiting for them to be mentioned (e.g., after hearing 'The boy will eat..', they looked at whatever is edible in the scene, without waiting to hear what is actually going to be mentioned next). Our subsequent research (previous and current research) aims to further clarify properties of the predictors (information to be used in prediction) and the predictees (properties of subsequent items to be predicted). On the whole, our research has indicated that the human sentence processing mechanism is capable of integrating different information sources rapidly in order to anticipate what will be referred to next, which is presumably the major characteristic of an incremental sentence processor that attempts to establish the fullest possible interpretation at each moment in time. Since the first line of studies, our research has progressed into wider issues, including those surrounding world-situated language use (e.g., Kamide et al., 2003; Altmann & Kamide, 2004). Here in Dundee, I plan to move my research in the direction which takes various aspects of visual cognition into account in order to address the mapping between language and the visual world, in collaboration with people from the Language, Cognition and Perception group.
Resolution of structural ambiguity in parsing: This line of research is more traditional in the research field of sentence processing. During my PhD with Don Mitchell, I carried out numerous experiments that looked at the competition processes between different classes of constraints in the initial stage of parsing. In particular, I focused on the competition between verbs' argument structure information (grammar-based) and recency constraints (memory-based). In those experiments, I used structurally ambiguous sentences to see which attachment decision would be initially opted for (and how the initial structural analysis would be revised when it turned out wrong later in the sentence).
Cross-linguistic approach: My previous research in both lines above has taken advantage of the fact that looking at different languages can provide us a wider opportunity to investigate how adult native speakers of a given language handle unfolding sentence inputs incrementally. Since one of my central research interests is the role of verb information during sentence processing, my research has used languages with different verb (or 'head', more generally) positions. I have compared English (a head-initial language), Japanese (a head-final language), and German (verb-initial in main clauses, and verb-final in some subordinate clauses - in collaboration with Dr Christoph Scheepers, University of Glasgow).
Eye-movements in language processing and scene perception: I mainly use eye-tracking techniques for my research. My general interests include constraints that determine the timing of a saccadic eye-movement and the duration of the subsequent fixation in the processing of both visual/auditory language, and visual scenes.
Sociolinguistics using psycholinguistic methodology: I am also beginning to expand my research interests to issues related to language (particularly, second language) use and acquisition within the sociolinguistic framework. In particular, I am interested in the way in which specific social settings affect the language proficiency of individual speakers (e.g., second language learners), and also potential implications of such settings on the outcomes of the individuals' performances (and their perception by others) in other broader aspects, including the question of the cognitive and linguistic validity of 'English Imperialism' in international communicative environments. Also I am interested in the way in which 'what you say' and 'how you say it' interact in communication. My goal is to address those issues using the psycholinguistic methodology based on eye-movements or reaction time measures.

I am engaged in on-going eye-tracking research with the following psycholinguists:

Professor Gerry T.M. Altmann, Department of Psychology, University of York, UK
Dr Christoph Scheepers, Department of Psychology, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK
Dr Patrick Sturt, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Funding

British Academy small research grant, Dec 2003, £5,000
Royal Society small research grant, Feb 2003, £10,000
University of Manchester research support fund (competitive basis), Feb 2003, £10,000
ORS (Overseas Research Studentship) award, 1995-1997

Publications


Links	Publications
	Kamide, Y. (forthcoming). Anticipatory processes in sentence processing. Language and Linguistics Compass.
	Altmann, G.T.M., & Kamide, Y. (forthcoming). The real-time mediation of visual attention by language and world knowledge: Linking anticipatory (and other) eye movements to linguistic processing. Journal of Memory and Language.
	Altmann, G.T.M., & Kamide, Y. (under review). Discourse-mediation of the mapping between language and the visual world: eye-movements and mental representation. Cognition.
	Kamide, Y. (2006). Incrementality in Japanese sentence processing. In M. Nakayama, R. Mazuka & Y. Shirai (Eds.), Handbook of Japanese psycholinguistics; Cambridge University Press.
	Kamide, Y., Altmann, G.T.M., & Haywood, S.L. (2004). The time-course of constraint-application during sentence processing in visual contexts: Anticipatory eye-movements in English and Japanese. M. Tanenhaus & J. Trueswell (Eds.), World-situated language use: Psycholinguistic, linguistic and computational perspectives on bridging the product and action traditions; MIT Press.
	Altmann, G.T.M., & Kamide, Y. (2004). Now you see it, now you don't: Mediating the mapping between language and visual world. In J.Henderson & F. Ferreira (Eds.) The interface of language, vision, and action: Eye movements and the visual world; New York: Psychology Press
	Kamide, Y., Altmann, G.T.M., & Haywood, S.L. (2003). Prediction and thematic information in incremental sentence processing: Evidence from anticipatory eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language, 49, 133-156.
	Kamide, Y., & Scheepers, C., & Altmann, G.T.M. (2003). Integration of syntactic and semantic information in predictive processing: Cross-linguistic evidence from German and English. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32, 37-55.
	Kamide, Y.,& Mitchell, D.C. (1999). Incremental pre-head attachment in Japanese parsing. Language and Cognitive Processes, 14(5/6), 631-662.
	Altmann, G.T.M., & Kamide, Y. (1999). Incremental interpretation at verbs: Restricting the domain of subsequent reference. Cognition, 73, 247-264.
	Kamide, Y., & Mitchell, D.C. (1997). Relative clause attachment: Non-determinism in Japanese parsing. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 247-254.

Teaching

Level 2 Course: 'Language' course in Neuropsychology and Language (PY21001)
Level 4 Option : Language and the Mind (PY40020)

Administration

College Adviser
Blackboard Coordinator
Cognitive Science Seminar Organiser
Language Liaison (with SALLS)

Additional Information

Degrees

PhD in Psychology, University of Exeter, UK, 1998
MA in Psychology (by research), Kobe University, Japan, 1994
BA in Psychology, Kobe University, Japan, 1992