Dr Yuki Kamide

• Psycholinguistics - Language processing (especially, sentence comprehension)
• Eye-movements in the processing of linguistic and visual information
• Situated language processing and embodiment
• Cross-linguistic comparisons
• Second language processing and acquisition
• Language use 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 my on-going collaboration 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 '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; Altmann & Kamide, 2009).

• Mental simulation in language processing: I am also interested in the so-called 'mental simulation' in language processing. In particular, I study the way in which listeners may represent sentences or texts that express movements. Motions have several aspects (e.g., trajectory, speed), and my research investigates whether such properties of language can modulate listeners' overt (eye movements) and covert attention shifts. .

• 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.

• 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.

COLLABORATION 

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

• Professor Gerry T.M. Altmann, Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, USA
• Dr Christoph Scheepers, School of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
• Dr Anue Kukona, Department of Psychology, De Montfort University, UK
• Dr Shane Lindsay, Department of Psychology, University of Hull, UK

FUNDING

(2015/16):

• Level 1: Introductory Psychology 1 - Perception & Cognition
• Level 3: Psychology of Language
• Level 4: Comparative Communication & Cognition
• Level 4: Dissertation project supervision

PhD Supervision:

• Dorottya Agg (2014 - present): School of Psychology studentship
• Glenn Williams (2011 – present): School of Psychology studentship
• Gavin Revie (2010 – 2014): School of Psychology studentship
• Benjamin Dunn (2012 – present; University of Glasgow): ESRC project-lined studentship; co-supervised with Dr Christoph Scheepers (Glasgow).