Biography:
I am a fifth year graduate student in Psychology working with Dr. Judith Kroll. Generally speaking, my research interests involve how the native language changes and accommodates a second language in adulthood, and how second language acquisition restructures the language processing network. I look to both comprehension and production, and across levels of processing (phonology, lexicon, grammar) to investigate individual differences in the native language across second language learners as a function of proficiency, and also compared to monolingual English speakers.
Project Summary:
In March and April of 2015, I had the immense pleasure of traveling to the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong to conduct a project under the supervision of Dr. Brendan Weekes. The purpose of the project was to evaluate the effects of the unique immersion context in Hong Kong, in which English speakers are regularly exposed to Cantonese but not required to speak it in order to navigate their surroundings, and how this environment may impact the native language as well as the ability to learn Cantonese. I used event-related potentials (ERPs) as well as behavioral methods to reveal neural changes and their manifestations in behavior as a result of living in this environment. In June and July of 2017, I am returning to Hong Kong to complete data collection for this project.