Our studies of language comprehension focus, in children, on comprehension problems in fluent (word) readers, and, in ordinary young adult readers, on anaphor interpretation and inference (including inferences based on gender stereotypes). Our overall theoretical framework for this research is mental models theory. We also research cognitive development and language acquisition in children under 5, with particular emphasis on experimental and computational studies of infant and toddler categorisation.
Reference in text comprehension
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When a person or thing is referred to several times in a discourse or text, why are different referring expressions used and what makes different expressions more or less difficult to understand?
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What other factors contribute to the tracking of reference and coreference in text?
People: Alan Garnham
Inferences based on gender stereotypes
- What are the ERP signatures associated with gender stereotype violations? How do those differ from the signatures associated with violations of definitional gender?
- What can be done to reduce gender stereotyping in the representation of text?
- How do gender stereotypes emerge developmentally?
People: Alan Garnham, Jane Oakhill
Human Psychophysiology Lab
Children's reading comprehension: development and difficulties
- What characterises poor comprehenders?
- Which particular language and cognitive skills are causally implicated in comprehension development?
- What can be done to support and improve reading comprehension in children?
People: Jane Oakhill