Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics Research Laboratory

Lab News

2024

• Congratulations to Professor Viorica Marian on being selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for the prestigious John P. McGovern Award Lecture in the Behavioral Sciences, which honors outstanding behavioral scientists from around the world!

• • Congratulations to Dr. Sirada Rochanavibhata on accepting a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at San Francisco State University in the Department of Child and Adolescent Development!
  • Congratulations to Dr. Peiyao Chen on accepting a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at the College of Wooster in the Department of Psychology!
  • Congratulations to Dr. Aya Inamori Williams on accepting a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at Santa Clara University in the Counseling Psychology Department!
  • Congratulations to Sherry Ning on successfully defending her dissertation!
  • Professor Marian was the Andreas guest speaker at the PanLingua Conference, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN.
  • Professor Marian gave a keynote at the English Learner Roadmap Power in Collaboration Across California meeting.
  • Professor Marian will be speaking at the National Chinese Language Conference, Mountain View, CA.

• Professor Marian gave an invited talk for the Mind, Technology, and Society Speaker Series at the University of California, Merced.
• Professor Marian gave an invited colloquium at Florida State University, Tallahassee.
• Professor Marian gave a public lecture for the Linguistics Program at DePaul University, Chicago, IL.
• Professor Marian gave an online talk for chatwithus.org to teachers and speech language pathologists working with disadvantaged children as part of a non-profit in the Chicago metropolitan area.
• Professor Marian gave an invited talk as part of the Northwestern University’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese Talk Series, Evanston, IL.
• Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim gave an invited talk as part of Loyola University‘s Neuroscience Seminar, Chicago, IL.
• Dr. Sirada Rochanavibhata gave an invited talk titled “Bilingual language development: A cross-linguistic comparison of communication in Thai-English bilingual mothers and children” as part of the Boosting Research Impact Online Series Vol. 1: Research Sharing Session on Psycholinguistics and Bilingualism, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

2023

• Congratulations to Professor Viorica Marian on publishing her book “The Power of Language: How the Codes We Use to Think, Speak, and Live Transform Our Minds”!
• Congratulations to Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim on being selected to give a talk at the Marginalia Science x Boston College Inaugural Symposium!

• Congratulations to Dr. Aya Inamori Williams on receiving the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 2023 Diversity and Inclusion Award!

• Professor Marian joined host Ira Flow and Professor Linda Waite from the University of Chicago on stage at the Studebaker Theatre for Science Friday Live to discuss bilingualism, language, and mind.

• Congratulations to Malak Elmessiry on being awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
• Congratulations to Dr. Sirada Rochanavibhata on being selected to give a talk at Boston University’s Developmental Science Emerging Scholars Symposium!
• Dr. Aya Inamori Williams joined our lab as a postdoctoral fellow.
• Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim accepted a position as Research Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University.
• Professor Marian and Dr. Sirada Rochanavibhata gave an invited talk titled “Culture at play: A cross-cultural and cross-linguistic comparison of parent-child communication” at the National Institutes of Health Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival.
• Dr. Sirada Rochanavibhata gave a talk titled “The influence of cultural background and early linguistic experience on cognitive and social development” at the International Symposium on Heritage Bilinguals.
• Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim gave a talk titled “How bilingual language experience shapes cognitive abilities” at the International Symposium on Heritage Bilinguals.
• Professor Marian gave an invited talk at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Evanston, IL.
• Professor Marian gave an invited talk at the CSD Connect Conference.
• Professor Marian was the plenary speaker at the Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education Graduate Student Symposium at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
• Professor Marian was the plenary speaker at the 15th annual meeting of the Illinois Language and Linguistics Society.
• Professor Marian was a keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the International Women Associates, Union League Club of Chicago.
• Professor Marian gave an invited talk about “The Power of Language: Multilingualism and Social Justice” for the American Romanian Coalition for Human and Equal Right.
• Professor Marian gave an invited talk for a webinar Following the Science: Bilingualism as an Asset Supporting Early Brain Development by Early Learning Nation.
• Professor Marian gave an invited talk at the Teacher Education About Multilingualism in Granada, Spain.
• Professor Marian gave an invited talk at the International Conference on Computational Neuroscience and Bilingualism in Goa, India.
• Professor Marian gave an invited talk at the ALBA Language Neurobiology lab meeting in San Francisco, CA.

• Publications
  • The book “The Power of Language: How the Codes We Use to Think, Speak, and Live Transform Our Minds” by Viorica Marian was published by Dutton. The Commonwealth editions was published by the Pelican imprint of Penguin Books in London, the Dutch translation was published by Ambos Anthos in Amsterdam, the Chinese-simplified translation was published by Dook Media in Shanghai, and the Japanese translation was published by Kadokawa Corporation in Tokyo.
  • The paper “Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently” by Matias Fernandez-Duque, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian was published in Science Advances.
  • The paper “Sound-meaning associations allow listeners to infer the meaning of foreign language words” by Sayuri Hayakawa and Viorica Marian was published in Nature Communications Psychology.
  • The paper “Thai and American mothers socialize preschoolers’ emotional development differently” by Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian was published in Scientific Reports.
  • The paper “Studying second language acquisition in the age of large language models: Unlocking mysteries of language and learning” by Viorica Marian was published in Brain and Language.
  • The paper “The evolution of science in second language acquisition research” by Viorica Marian was published in Language Learning.
  • The paper “Cultural background and input familiarity influence multisensory emotion perception” by Peiyao Chen, Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Taomei Guo, and Viorica Marian was published in Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.
  • The paper “Culture and gender influence self-construal in mother-preschooler reminiscing” by Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian was published in Journal of Cognition and Development.
  • The paper “Bilingualism alters the neural correlates of sustained attention” by Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Susan Bobb, Noriko Hoshino, and Viorica Marian was published in Translational Issues in Psychological Science.
  • The paper “Translational approaches to bilingualism and multilingualism research” by Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Maki Kubota, Joscelin Rocha-Hidalgo, and Viorica Marian was accepted in Translational Issues in Psychological Science. 
  • The paper “Bilingual mothers and children gesture differently across native and second languages” by Sirada Rochanavibhata, Jessica Yung-Chieh Chuang, and Viorica Marian was accepted in the Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech.
  • The chapter “Multilingualism and Cognitive Control in the Brain” by Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian was published in The Cambridge Handbook of Third Language Acquisition.
  • The article “AI Could Cause a Mass-Extinction of Languages – And Ways of Thinking” by Viorica Marian was published in The Washington Post.
  • The article “Is Artificial Intelligence Good for Humanity?” by Viorica Marian was published in Moment Magazine.
  • The article “The Surprising Creative Power of the Multilingual Brain” by Viorica Marian, Matias Fernandez-Duque, and Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim was published in Fast Company.
  • The article “Expressions and Gestures Can Be ‘Worth a Thousand Words'” by Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian was published in Psychology Today.
  • The article “Bilingual Therapy and Mental Health” by Aya Inamori Williams and Viorica Marian was published in Psychology Today.
  • The article “It’s a Bouba, Not a Kiki: The Relationship Between Sound, Form, and Meaning” by Viorica Marian was published in Behavioral Scientist.
• Conferences
  • November. Matias Fernandez-Duque, Viorica Marian, and Sayuri Hayakawa presented their poster “Speaking multiple languages changes memory of visual scenes” at the 64th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in San Francisco, CA.
  • November. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Jessica Chuang, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “More than words: Comparing bilingual mother-child nonverbal communication across languages” at the 64th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in San Francisco, CA.
  • August. Max Freeman and Viorica Marian presented their talk “Native-language phonotactic processing in bilinguals” at the 20th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences in Prague, Czech Republic.

• • August. Matias Fernandez-Duque, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian presented their talk “Phonological overlap facilitates object memory” at the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition in Nagoya, Japan.

• • August. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Jessica Yung-Chieh Chuang, Kaniya Hester, Nadia van den Berg, and Viorica Marian presented their work “Cross-linguistic differences in bilingual mother-child autobiographical reminiscing” at the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition in Nagoya, Japan.

• • August. Aya Williams, Qing Zhou, Chang Liu, Viorica Marian, and Stephen Chen presented their work “Emotional acculturation in Chinese American Immigrant Parents: Insights from Bilingual Parent-Child Affirmation Discussion” at the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition in Nagoya, Japan.

• • August. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian presented their talk “Bilingual experience shapes linguistic and cognitive abilities” at the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition in Nagoya, Japan.

• • June. Max Freeman, Jonathan J. D. Robinson Anthony, Viorica Marian, and Henrike K. Blumenfeld presented their talk “Language Experience and Sociolinguistic Context Impact Cognitive Control in Bilinguals” at the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Sydney, Australia.
  • June. Max Freeman and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Bilinguals’ Speech Perception Is Influenced by Native- Language Phonotactic Constraints” at the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Sydney, Australia.
  • April. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian presented their talk “Bilingualism Predicts NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery Scores: A Cluster Analysis” at the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
  • April. Viorica Marian organized a professional development session titled “Working with Bilinguals and Multilinguals: Research, Practice, and Community” at the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.

2022

• Sirada Rochanavibhata successfully defended her dissertation!

• Congratulations to PhD candidate Matias Fernandez-Duque on winning Best Student Presentation Award at the 4th International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children in Tromsø, Norway!

• Congratulations to lab PhD alum Dr. Scott Schroeder on earning tenure and promotion to Associate Professor of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Hofstra University!

• Congratulations to lab Ph.D. alum and St. John University Professor Dr. Max Freeman on his engagement!

• Sherry Ning successfully defended her dissertation prospectus!
• Matias Fernandez-Duque successfully defended his Qualifying Research Project and was admitted to PhD candidacy!

• Professor Marian gave plenary talks at the 2022 International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech and the International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children.
• Professor Marian was appointed Chairperson of the National Institutes of Health Language and Communication Study Section for 2020-2022.
• Dr. Maki Kubota from the UiT The Arctic University of Norway visited our lab in the Fall and gave a talk about her longitudinal research on language change in bilingual returnee children.

• Publications
  • The paper “Cultural background and input familiarity influence multisensory emotion perception” by Peiyao Chen, Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Taomei Guo, and Viorica Marian was published in Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.
  • The paper “Communicating risk: How relevant and irrelevant probabilistic information influences risk perception in medical decision-making” by Sayuri Hayakawa and Viorica Marian was published in Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience.
  • The paper “Predictors of language proficiency and cultural identification in heritage bilinguals” by Sayuri Hayakawa, Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, and Viorica Marian was published in Frontiers in Communication.
  • The paper “To bilingualism and beyond! Modeling bilingualism requires looking beyond language” by Viorica Marian was published in Language Learning.
  • The paper “Language is activated by visual input regardless of memory demands or capacity” by Sarah Chabal, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian was published in Cognition.
  • The paper “Audio-visual interactions during emotional processing in bicultural bilinguals” by Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Peiyao Chen, and Viorica Marian was published in Motivation and Emotion.
  • The paper “Cultural experience influences multisensory emotion perception in bilinguals” by Peiyao Chen, Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, and Viorica Marian was published in Languages and selected as the issue cover.
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  • The paper “Individual and sociolinguistic differences in language background predict Stroop performance” by Max R. Freeman, Jonathan J. D. Robinson Anthony, Viorica Marian, and Henrike K. Blumenfeld was published in Frontiers in Communication.
  • The paper “Diversity in bilingual child language acquisition research: A commentary on Kidd and Garcia (2022)” by Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian was published in First Language.
  • The paper “Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Eye-tracking evidence that L2 proficiency impacts access of L1 phonotactics” by Max R. Freeman and Viorica Marian was published in Studies in Second Language Acquisition.
  • The paper “Culture at play: A cross-cultural comparison of mother-child communication during toy play” by Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian was published in Language Learning and Development.
  • The paper “Language changes medical judgments and beliefs” by Sayuri Hayakawa, Yue Pan, and Viorica Marian was published in International Journal of Bilingualism.
  • Professor Marian’s article “If Putin conquers Ukraine, is Moldova next?” was published in the Chicago Tribune. Read the unabridged version “The War in Ukraine: Is Moldova Next?” on Medium.
• Conferences
  • November. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “The influence of bigram frequency on letter naming” at 63rd annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society.
  • November. Aya Inamori Williams,  Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Lauren Haack, Viorica Marian, and Linda Pfiffner presented their talk “Promising effects of socioemotional skills training in bilingual children with attention and behavioral concerns” at the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine.
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  • October. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Jessica Yung-Chieh Chuang, and Viorica Marian presented their talk “Bilingual non-verbal communication: A cross-linguistic comparison of gesture use in bilingual mothers and children” at Bilingualism Forum.
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  • October. Matias Fernandez-Duque, Viorica Marian, and Sayuri Hayakawa presented their talk “Dual-language competition changes memory for visual items” at Bilingualism Forum.
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  • August. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Peiyao Chen, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Cultural immersion and experience shape emotion perception in bilinguals” at the International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children in Tromsø, Norway.
  • August. Matias Fernandez-Duque, Sayuri Hayakawa, & Viorica Marian presented their talk “Effects of phonological competition on memory in bilinguals” at the International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children in Tromsø, Norway. Matias won the Best Student Presentation Award!
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  • May. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim, Peiyao Chen, and Viorica Marian presented their talk “Culture and input familiarity influence emotion perception in bilinguals” at the Association for Psychological Science in Chicago, IL.
    
  • April. Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian presented their poster “A cross-cultural comparison of American and Thai mother-child communication during toy play” at the Society for Research in Child Development Special Topic Meeting: Learning Through Play and Imagination.
  • April. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Jessica Yung-Chieh Chuang, and Viorica Marian presented their talk “Different languages, different contexts, different gestures: A cross-linguistic comparison of bilingual mothers’ and children’s nonverbal communication” at the International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech.

2021

• Congratulations to Dr. Sayuri Hayakawa on receiving the 2021 American Psychological Association Rising Star Award! The APS Rising Star award is presented to outstanding APS members in the earliest stages of their research career post-PhD.

• Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim gave a talk titled “How learning a second language shapes the mind and brain” to the faculty and staff of the German International School Chicago.
• Congratulations to lab member and 2021 graduate Ryan Wagner on starting a full time position with the language learning company Duolingo in Pittsburgh!
• Congratulations to lab graduate Max Freeman, who is now Assistant Professor at St. John’s University, on receiving a Faculty Recognition Award for outstanding achievements in teaching, research, and service, and The Richard and Camille Sinatra Endowment Grant to improve the areas of poverty and social justice in research. Max also received an Academic Service-Learning Award for a trip to Salamanca in Spain, and a Seed Grant to study Clay-Based Language Stimulation Improvements to Children’s Language Skills.
• Congratulations to Dr. Sayuri Hayakawa on her engagement!
• Congratulations to Lesley Meza on being accepted to the Master’s program in Speech-Language Pathology at Marquette University!
• Congratulations to Kaniya Hester and Ryan Wagner who were each awarded the 2021 Northwestern Undergraduate Research Grant!
• Publications
  • The paper “Measuring bilingualism: The quest for a ‘Bilingualism Quotient’” by Viorica Marian and Sayuri Hayakawa was published in Applied Psycholinguistics.
  • The paper “Memory after visual search: Overlapping phonology, shared meaning, and bilingual experience influence what we remember” by Viorica Marian, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Scott R. Schroeder was published in Brain and Language.
  • The paper “Cost and benefits of native language similarity for non-native word learning.” by Viorica Marian, James Bartolotti, Aimee van den Berg, and Sayuri Hayakawa was published in Frontiers in Psychology.
  • The paper “Cross-modal interaction between auditory and visual inputs impacts memory retrieval” by Viorica Marian, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Scott R. Schroeder was published in Frontiers in Neuroscience.
  • The paper “Cross-cultural differences in mother-preschooler book sharing practices in the United States and Thailand” by Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian was published in Journal of Child Language.
  • The paper “Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Eye-tracking evidence that L2 proficiency impacts access of L1 phonotactics” by Max R. Freeman and Viorica Marian was published in Studies in Second Language Acquisition.
  • The paper “Culture at play: A cross-cultural comparison of mother-child communication during toy play” by Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian was published in Language Learning and Development.
  • The paper “Language changes medical judgments and beliefs” by Sayuri Hayakawa, Yue Pan, and Viorica Marian was published in International Journal of Bilingualism.
  • The paper ” How a picture becomes a word: individual differences in the development of language-mediated visual search” by Sarah Chabal, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian was published in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications.
  • The paper “Native language similarity during foreign language learning: Effects of cognitive strategies and affective states” by Sayuri Hayakawa, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian was published in Applied Linguistics.
  • The paper “Considering preventative care in a native vs. non-native language: A Foreign Language Effect” by Sayuri Hayakawa, Yue Pan, and Viorica Marian was published in Brain Sciences.
  • The paper “First-language influence on second language speech perception depends on task demands” by Max R. Freeman, Henrike K. Blumenfeld, and Viorica Marian was published in Language and Speech.
  • The paper “Spoken words activate native and non-native letter-to-sound mappings: Evidence from eye tracking” by Viorica Marian, James Bartolotti, Natalia L. Daniel, and Sayuri Hayakawa was published in Brain and Language.
• Conferences
  • November. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Kaniya Hester, Julia Borland, Nadia van den Berg, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Cross-linguistic differences in bilingual mother-child communication during toy play” to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association Convention.
  • November. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Jessica Yung-Chieh Chuang, Claire Simcox, Lesley Meza, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Bilingual mothers and children gesture differently across languages” to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association Convention.
  • July. Viorica Marian and Sayuri Hayakawa presented their talk “Bilingualism changes how we perceive and process information” to the 13th Virtual Biennial Meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism.
  • July. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Julia Borland, Kaniya Hester, Jessica Yung-Chieh Chuang, Claire Simcox, Lesley Meza, Nadia van den Berg, and Viorica Marian presented their talk “Bilingual mothers and children communicate differently in their two languages” to the 13th Virtual Biennial Meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism.
  • April. Julia Borland, Sirada Rochanavibhata, and Viorica Marian presented their talk “Cross-cultural differences in mother-child engagement with picture books” to the Midwestern Psychological Association 93rd Annual Virtual Meeting.
  • April. Kaniya Hester, Ryan Wagner, Julia Borland, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Adapting the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire for Dialects” to the Midwestern Psychological Association 93rd Annual Virtual Meeting.
  • April. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Julia Borland, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “The influence of cultural background and communicative task on maternal scaffolding styles” to the 2021 Virtual Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.

2020

• Congratulations to Drs. Viorica Marian, Sayuri Hayakawa, Tuan Q. Lam, and Sumitrajit Dhar on the 2019 Editor’s Award from the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research!
• We welcome Dr. Ashley Chung-Fat-Yim from Dr. Ellen Bialystok’s Lab as the newest member of our lab! Ashley joined our research group as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and will be conducting electrophysiological research on linguistic and cognitive processing in the bilingual brain.
• Congratulations to Sirada Rochanavibhata, Siqi Ning, and Matias Fernandez-Duque on passing their annual reviews with flying colors despite the pandemic!
• Congratulations to Siqi Ning who passed her qualifying research project defense and received a non-clinical Master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders! She was admitted to Ph.D. candidacy and is now “All But Dissertation” (ABD).
• Congratulations to Yue Pan on being accepted to the PhD program in Marketing at the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University!
• Congratulations to lab alumna Neli Vorobyov on being accepted to the MS in Speech-Language Pathology at William Paterson University, where she was also offered a Graduate Assistantship!
• Publications
  • The paper “Listening to speech and non-speech sounds activates lexical and semantic knowledge differently” by James Bartolotti, Scott Schroeder, Sayuri Hayakawa, Sirada Rochanavibhata, Peiyao Chen, and Viorica Marian was published in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
  • The paper “When it’s harder to ignorar than to ignore: Evidence of greater attentional capture from a non-dominant language” by Sayuri Hayakawa, Anthony Shook, and Viorica Marian was published in the International Journal of Bilingualism.
  • The paper “Maternal scaffolding styles and children’s developing narrative skills: A cross-cultural comparison of autobiographical conversations in the US and Thailand” by Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian was published in Learning, Culture, and Social Interaction.
  • The paper “Cognitive and linguistic predictors of bilingual single-word translation” by Peiyao Chen, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian was published in Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science.
  • The paper “On language and thought: Bilingual experience influences semantic associations” by Siqi Ning, Sayuri Hayakawa, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian was published in Journal of Neurolinguistics.
  • The paper “The LEAP-Q Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire: Ten years later. ” by Margarita Kaushanskaya, Henrike Blumenfeld, & Viorica Marian was published in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
  • The paper “Language difficulty and prior learning influence foreign vocabulary acquisition” by Sayuri Hayakawa, James Bartolotti, Aimee van den Berg, and Viorica Marian was published in Languages.
• Conferences
  • June. Siqi Ning, Sayuri Hayakawa, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “On language and thought: Bilingual experience changes concept associations” in the Association for Psychological Science 2020 Virtual Poster Showcase.
  • June. Matias Fernandez-Duque, Sarah Chabal, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Language activation in visual processing occurs regardless of memory demands” in the Association for Psychological Science 2020 Virtual Poster Showcase.
  • July. Sarah Chabal, Matias Fernandez-Duque, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Role of working memory in language activation during visual scene processing” to the Cognitive Science Society 42nd Annual Virtual Meeting.

2019

• Fall 2019
  • Matias Fernandez-Duque joins our lab as a Ph.D. student.
  • Max R. Freeman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP/L starts as an Assistant Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders at St. John’s University, New York.
  • Dr. Marian gave an invited colloquium at Georgetown University in October.

• Summer 2019
  • Sayuri Hayakawa accepted a position as Research Assistant Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University
  • Congratulations to Yue Pan, Siqi Ning, and Sirada Rochanavibhata on successfully completing their annual reviews!
  • Congratulations to Sirada Rochanavibhata on being awarded The Graduate School Conference Travel Grant for the biennial meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism and the Siegel Fellowship!
  • Congratulations to Siqi Ning on being awarded The Graduate School Conference Travel Grant for the biennial meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism!
  • Sirada Rochanavibhata is traveling to Thailand to test participants for her dissertation.
  • Yue Pan, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Viorica Marian poster Judgment under Uncertainty: How Risk Information Influences Risk Perception in Decision-Making was accepted for the presentation the 60th Psychonomic Society annual meeting!
  • Congratulations to Margarita Kaushanskaya on the birth of her daughter!
  • Congratulations to Max Freeman on receiving his Certificate of Clinical Competence!
  • Congratulations to Sirada Rochanavibhata on receiving the Developmental Sciences Seed Fund Grant

• Spring 2019
  • Sayuri Hayakawa co-taught a graduate seminar on Science Communication with Dr. Nina Kraus.
  • Congratulations to Julia Borland on being accepted to the 2018-2019 Academic Year Undergraduate Research Assistant Program (URAP) at Northwestern University!
  • Pooja Venkatesh joined the lab as a research assistant.
  • Heather Kleinschmit joined as a Project Manager.
  • Ryan Wagner joined our research lab.

• Winter 2019
  • Sirada Rochanavibhata and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Influence of maternal scaffolding on children’s developing narrative skills: A cross-cultural comparison” at the Institute for Innovations in Developmental Sciences Data Blitz, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
  • Julia Borland was awarded a Conference Travel Grant by the Northwestern Office of Undergraduate Research

• Publications
  • Professor Marian’s article “The language you speak influences where your attention goes.” was published in Scientific American.
  • The paper “Covert co-activation of bilinguals’ non-target language: Phonological competition from translations. ” by Anthony Shook and Viorica Marian was published in Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism.
  • Professor Marian and Sayuri Hayakawa’s article “Neuroemergentism: At the intersection of ontogeny and phylogeny.” was published in Journal of Neurolinguistics.
  • The paper “Consequences of multilingualism for neural architecture” by Sayuri Hayakawa and Viorica Marian was published in Behavioral and Brain Functions. 
  • The paper “The case for measuring and reporting bilingualism in developmental research.” by Krista Byers-Heinlein, Alena Esposito, Adam Winsler, Viorica Marian, Dina Castro, and Gigi Luk was published in Collabra: Psychology.
  • The paper “From Klingon to Colbertian: Using artificial languages to study word learning” by Sayuri Hayakawa, Siqi Ning, and Viorica Marian was published in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. 
  • Sayuri Hayakawa and Viorica Marian’s article about how multilingualism alters multisensory perception was published in On Biology.
  • Sayuri Hayakawa and Professor Marian’s article about how language shapes the brain was published in Scientific American.
  • Professor Marian and Sirada Rochanavibhata’s article about raising a bilingual child was published in Psychology Today.
  • The paper “A cross-cultural comparison of communicative patterns in bilingual and monolingual mother-child dyads in the United States and Thailand” by Neli Vorobyov, Sirada Rochanavibhata, and Viorica Marian was published in Alpenglow: Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal of Research and Creative Activity.
• Conferences
  • March. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Julia Borland, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “A comparison of mother-preschooler book sharing practices in the United States and Thailand” to the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in Baltimore, Maryland.
  • April. Julia Borland, Sirada Rochanavibhata, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Culture and interlocutor scaffolding influence preschoolers’ conversation styles” to the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago, Illinois.
  • April. Siqi Ning, James Barolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Bilingualism Changes Semantic Distance Between Concepts” to the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association in Chicago, Illinois.
  • May. Julia Borland, Sirada Rochanavibhata, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “A comparison of mother-preschooler book reading practices in the United States and Thailand” to the Northwestern University Undergraduate Research and Arts Exposition in Evanston, Illinois.
  • June. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Julia Borland, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Culture and conversation: A comparison of mother-child discourse in the US and Thailand” to the biennial meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism in Edmonton, Canada.
  • June. Siqi Ning, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Bilingualism Changes Semantic Distance Between Concepts” to the biennial meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism in Edmonton, Canada.
  • June. Sayuri Hayakawa, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Effects of Native Language Similarity on Foreign Language Acquisition, Transfer, and Retention” to the biennial meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism in Edmonton, Canada
  • July. Siqi Ning, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “On Language and Thought: How Bilingualism Affects Conceptual Associations” at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society in Montreal, Canada.
  • September.  Professor Marian gave a keynote talk on “Measuring Bilingualism With Self-Reports and Standardized Tests, or Why a Bilingualism Quotient is Unrealistic” at the Capturing and Quantifying individual differences in bilingualism workshop in  Tromso, Norway.

• • September. Siqi Ning, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Bilingual experience changes concept associations” in Moscow, Russia.

• • September.  Viorica Marian gave a keynote talk on “How Bilingualism Changes Linguistic, Cognitive, and Neural Processing” at the Bilingualism and Cognition Symposium in  Moscow, Russia.

• • October. Jennifer Krizman, Viorica Marian, & Nina Kraus presented their paper “Monolinguals catch up to bilinguals on executive control, but not neural processing of sound, over the course of adolescence” at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, IL.
  • November. Siqi Ning, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Bilingual Experience Changes Associations Between Concepts” at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Montreal, Canada.

• • November. Peiyao Chen, Taomei Guo, Alice Hiu Dan Chan, & Viorica Marian presented their poster “Cultural Differences in Multisensory Perception of Emotion” at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Montreal, Canada.

• • November. Yue Pan, Sayuri Hayakawa, & Viorica Marian presented their poster “Judgment under uncertainty: How risk information influences risk perception in decision-making” at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Montreal, Canada.

• • November. Max Freeman & Viorica Marian presented “Bilinguals’ second language speech processing is influenced by native-language rules” at the annual convention of the American Speech Language Hearing Association in Orlando, FL.
  • November. Peiyao Chen & Viorica Marian presented their paper “Perceiving emotion with eyes and ears: The role of cultural background and input familiarity” at the annual convention of the American Speech Language Hearing Association in Orlando, FL.
  • November. Sirada Rochanavibhata & Viorica Marian presented their paper “A comparison of mothers’ scaffolding strategies and children’s conversation skills across cultures and communicative settings” at the annual convention of the American Speech Language Hearing Association in Orlando, FL.

2018

• • • Winter 2018
      • Congratulations to Sunhee Ko on accepting a faculty position at Kongju National University in Korea!
      • Congratulations to Laura Montenegro on being accepted to Northwestern University’s clinical Masters program in Speech, Language, and Learning!
      • Congratulations to Aimee van den Berg and Julia Borland on being accepted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign!
      • Congratulations to Max Freeman on being accepted to attend the Latin American School for Education, Cognitive, and Neural Sciences in Santiago, Chile!
      • Congratulations to Grace Pickens who was awarded a Fulbright ETA Fellowship in Argentina for the upcoming year! She looks forward to partnering with the Ministry of Education and collaborating with local speech and hearing organizations.
      • Congratulations to Ben Magliato, captain of the Northwestern Varsity Diving team, for winning the TYR Invitational at Northwestern University!
      • Professor Marian will be traveling to San Francisco, CA for the NIH LCOM study section.
      • Sayuri Hayakawa traveled to Tokyo, Japan and Sirada Rochanavibhata traveled to Seattle, Washington.
      • Danya Soto joined the lab as a research assistant.
      • Sherry Ning is now the primary contact person for IRB matters.
      • Freshman Minna Natsuko Ito joined the lab research team.
    • Spring 2018
      • Max Freeman successfully defended his dissertation and received his Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders.
      • Sayuri Hayakawa attended her Ph.D. convocation ceremony at the University of Chicago.
      • Yue Pan and Manuel Melendez Lujan have accepted offers to join the lab as Ph.D. students starting in the fall.
    • Summer 2018
      • Sirada Rochanavibhata passed her qualifying research project defense and received a non-clinical master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. She was admitted to Ph.D. candidacy and is now “all but dissertation” (ABD).
      • James Bartolotti accepted a position as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Kansas.
      • Max Freeman accepted a position as a speech-language pathologist with the Chicago Public Schools.
      • Neli Vorobyov joined the lab as a summer research assistant.
      • Sirada Rochanavibhata traveled to Thailand.
      • Max Freeman attended the Latin American School for Education, Cognitive, and Neural Sciences in Santiago, Chile, and presented a paper titled “How the Native Language Influences Second Language Processing: An Investigation of Bilingual Phonotactics” (co-authored by Viorica Marian).
      • Marina Sokolova completed her 1st dissertation review at the University of Southampton (UK) and proceeded to Russia to teach a psycholinguistics summer course titled “To the human brain through language.”
    • Fall 2018
      • Sirada Rochanavibhata defended her dissertation proposal.
    • Publications
      • The paper “Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions reveal an efficient auditory efferent network” by Viorica Marian, Tuan Lam, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Sumitrajit Dhar was accepted for publication in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. 
      • The paper “Neuroemergentism: At the intersection of ontogeny and phylogeny” by Viorica Marian and Sayuri Hayakawa was accepted for publication in the Journal of Neurolinguistics.
      • Professor Marian and Sayuri Hayakawa’s article about language, memory, and choice was published in Psychology Today. [pdf]
        • Translated into Catalan and Arabic.
      • The paper “Top-down cognitive and linguistic influences on the suppression of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions” by Viorica Marian, Tuan Lam, Sayuri Hayakawa, and Sumitrajit Dhar was published in Frontiers in Neuroscience. 
      • Professor Marian’s article about social media and going viral was published in the Chicago Tribune. [pdf1] [pdf2]
      • The paper “Language experience changes audiovisual perception” by Viorica Marian, Sayuri Hayakawa, Tuan Lam, and Scott Schroeder was published in Brain Sciences. Click here for PowerPoint and example stimuli.
      • Professor Marian’s article about African American English was published in the Los Angeles Review of Books. [pdf]
      • Professor Marian’s article about multilingual education was published in The Hill. [pdf]
      • The paper “Learning and processing of orthography-to-phonology mappings in a third language” by James Bartolotti and Viorica Marian was accepted for publication in the International Journal of Multilingualism.
      • Professor Marian’s article about linguistic and cultural diversity at the Olympics was published in Scientific American. [pdf]
      • Professor Marian’s article about immigration was published in The Hill. [pdf]
      • Professor Marian’s article about bilingualism was published in LatinoUSA. [pdf]
    • Conferences
      • January. Scott Schroeder, James Bartolotti, Sirada Rochanavibhata, Peiyao Chen, and Viorica Marian submitted their paper “Differences between linguistic and non-linguistic input in lexical and semantic access” to the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI.
      • March. James Bartolotti, Aimee van den Berg, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Costs and benefits of native language similarity for second language learning” to the American Association for Applied Linguistics 2018 Conference, Chicago, IL.
      • March. Max Freeman, Ashley Leung, Munirah AlKhuwaiter, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Bilinguals hear their first language during second language comprehension” to the American Association for Applied Linguistics 2018 Conference, Chicago, IL.
      • April. Sayuri Hayakawa, Viorica Marian, Tuan Q. Lam, and Scott Schroeder presented their paper “Language experience changes audio-visual integration” to the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
      • April. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Steven Zecker, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Cross-cultural differences in mother-preschooler conversation styles in the US and Thailand” to the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
      • July. Peiyao Chen, James Bartolotti, Scott Schroeder, Sirada Rochanavibhata, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “Words and non-speech sounds access lexical and semantic knowledge differently” at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI.
      • July. James Bartolotti, Aimee van den Berg, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “How second language learning is helped and hurt by native language similarity” at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI.
      • August. Neli Vorobyov presented her poster “A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Communicative Patterns in Bilingual and Monolingual Mother-Child Dyads in the United States and Thailand” at the 2018 Summer Research Opportunity Program (SROP) Forum, Evanston, IL.
      • October. Julia Borland, Sirada Rochanavibhata, and Viorica Marian presented their poster “A comparison of mother-preschooler conversation styles in the United States and Thailand” to the University of Illinois at Chicago Bilingualism Forum, Chicago, IL.
      • October. Siqi Ning, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Bilingualism Decreases Semantic Distance Between Concepts” to the University of Illinois at Chicago Bilingualism Forum, Chicago, IL.
      • November. Peiyao Chen and Viorica Marian presented their poster “The influence of culture and input familiarity on multisensory perception of emotion” to the the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans, LA.
      • November. Viorica Marian, Sayuri Hayakawa, Tuan Lam, and Scott Schroeder presented their paper “Language experience changes audio-visual integration: Evidence from the McGurk Effect with bilinguals” to the the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans, LA.
      • November. Max Freeman and Viorica Marian presented their research “How the native language influences second language processing: An investigation of bilingual phonotactics” to the annual convention of the American Speech Language Hearing Association, Boston, MA.

2017

• Winter 2017
  • Congratulations to Margarita Kaushanskaya on the birth of her son on December 30, 2016! Happy New Year!
  • January. Dr. Lilia Rissman from the University of Chicago visited the lab and gave a talk titled “Gradient Verbal Meaning across Languages.”
  • February. Dr. Angela Grant from Pennsylvania State University gave a talk titled “Learning a Second Language: Processes & Consequences.”
  • February. Dr. Sayuri Hayakawa from the University of Chicago visited the lab and gave a talk titled “Morality & Mental Imagery in a Foreign Language.”
  • Congratulations to James Bartolotti on the birth of his daughter on February 23!
• Spring 2017
  • Congratulations to Ashley Leung on being accepted to the Ph.D. program in Psychology at the University of Chicago!
  • Congratulations to Munirah AlKhuwaiter and Sherry Ning on being accepted to the Ph.D. program in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University!
  • Congratulations to Max Freeman on successfully defending his dissertation proposal!
  • April. Professor Marian served as an invited panelist at a roundtable on Describing and Quantifying Bilingualism at the Society for Research in Child Development in Austin, Texas.
  • April. Professor Marian served as a panelist on a faculty panel on Navigating Tenure at Northwestern University.
• Summer 2017
  • Congratulations to Aimee van den Berg on being accepted to the Beaver Works Summer Institute at MIT!
  • Congratulations to Julia Borland on being accepted to the National Security Language Initiative for Youth, Arabic Summer Program in Amman, Jordan.
  • July. Professor Marian taught a tutorial on assessing phonological and orthographic neighborhood density in English, Spanish, French, German, and Dutch at the World Congress of Applied Linguistics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
  • Professor Marian  was an invited speaker at the National Association for Bilingual Education Dual Language Symposium. Delray Beach, Florida.
• Fall 2017
  • Dr. Sayuri Hayakawa joined the lab as a post-doctoral fellow.
  • Sherry Ning joined the lab as a PhD student.
  • Congratulations to Peiyao Chen on successfully defending her dissertation proposal!
  • Welcome to Ben Magliano and Grace Pickens who joined the lab as research assistants.
  • Congratulations to Sunhee Ko on the birth of her baby girl!
  • Sirada Rochanavibhata completed testing participants in Thailand for her Qualifying Research Project.
  • Max Freeman traveled to San Diego to test participants for his dissertation studies in collaboration with Henrike Blumenfeld.
  • Professor Marian was awarded an R01 grant by the NIH to study bilingualism and its consequences for cognition, language, and the brain.
  • Professor Marian became a Fellow in the Public Voices Thought Leadership Fellowship Program for 2017-2018.
  • Professor Marian was awarded an Undergraduate Student Faculty Interaction Grant.
  • Professor Marian traveled to Bethesda, MD for the NIH LCOM study section.
• Publications
  • The paper “Cross-linguistic phonotactic competition and cognitive control in bilinguals” by Max Freeman, Henrike Blumenfeld, and Viorica Marian was published in the Journal of Cognitive Psychology.
  • The paper “Neural signatures of language co-activation and control in bilingual spoken word comprehension” by Peiyao Chen, Susan Bobb, Noriko Hoshino, and Viorica Marian was published in Brain Research.
  • The paper “Linguistic predictors of cultural identification in bilinguals” by Scott Schroeder, Tuan Q. Lam, and Viorica Marian was published in Applied Linguistics.
  • The paper “Bilinguals’ existing languages benefit vocabulary learning in a third language” by James Bartolotti and Viorica Marian was published in Language Learning.
  • The paper “Orthographic knowledge and lexical form influence vocabulary learning” by James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian was published in Applied Psycholinguistics.
  • The paper “Neural signatures of second language learning and control” by James Bartolotti, Kailyn Bradley, Arturo Hernandez, and Viorica Marian was published in Neuropsychologia.
  • The paper “Orthographic and phonological neighborhood databases across multiple languages” by Viorica Marian was accepted at the Journal of Written Language and Literacy.
  • The paper “Covert co-activation of bilinguals’ non-target language: Phonological competition from translations” by Anthony Shook and Viorica Marian was published in Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism.
  • The paper “Bilingual cortical control of between- and within-language competition” by Viorica Marian, James Bartolotti, Sirada Rochanavibhata, Kailyn Bradley, and Arturo Hernandez was published in Nature Scientific Reports.
  • The chapter “Auditory word recognition across the lifespan: Links between linguistic and non-linguistic inhibitory control in bilinguals and monolinguals” by Henrike Blumenfeld, Scott Schroeder, Susan Bobb, Max Freeman, and Viorica Marian was published in Bilingualism and Aging.
• Conferences
  • March. Sumit Dhar, Tuan Q. Lam, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Top-down control of cochlear mechanics – Bilingualism and Spontaneous OAEs” to the American Auditory Society, Scottsdale, AZ.
  • April. James Bartolotti, Aimee Van den Berg, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Task difficulty and affect interact to influence learning success” to the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
  • April. Viorica Marian, James Bartolotti, Sirada Rochanavibhata, Kailyn Bradley, and Arturo Hernandez presented their paper “Cortical activation during linguistic competition in bilinguals” to the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
  • April. Viorica Marian, Tuan Q. Lam, Ashley Leung, and Sumit Dhar presented their paper “Top-down cognitive and linguistic effects on physiology: Evidence from SOAE” to the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL.
  • April.  Aimee van den Berg, James Bartolotti, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Task difficulty, mood, confidence, and language similarity influence vocabulary acquisition in a foreign language.” at the IMSAloquium at Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora, IL.
  • June. Peiyao Chen, Susan Bobb, Noriko Hoshino, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Neural signatures of resolving linguistic and non-linguistic interference” to the meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Limerick, Ireland.
  • June. Sumit Dhar, Tuan Q. Lam, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Bilingualism and executive function influence otoacoustic emissions” to the meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Limerick, Ireland.
  • June. Viorica Marian, James Bartolotti, Sirada Rochanavibhata, Kailyn Bradley, and Arturo Hernandez presented their paper “Bilingual cortical control of within- and between-language competition” to the meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Limerick, Ireland.
  • June. James Bartolotti, Aimee Van den Berg, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Wordlikeness and concreteness interact to influence second language vocabulary learning” to the meeting of the International Symposium on Bilingualism, Limerick, Ireland.
  • October. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Julia Borland, Laura Montenegro, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “A cross-cultural comparison of mother-preschooler autobiographical conversations” to the 2017 Biennial Meeting of the Cognitive Development Society, Portland, OR.
  • November. Max Freeman and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Cross-linguistic perception of phonotactics in bilinguals” to the American Speech Language Hearing Association, Los Angeles, CA.
  • November. Sirada Rochanavibhata, Julia Borland, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Differences in communication styles at the age of 4 in English and Thai mother-child dyads” to the American Speech Language Hearing Association, Los Angeles, CA.
  • November. James Bartolotti, Aimee Van den Berg, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Using L1 to acquire L2: Bridge words as a learning aid” to the American Speech Language Hearing Association, Los Angeles, CA.

2016

• Professor Marian co-organized the Norwegian-American Workshop on Bilingualism at Northwestern, with Professors Jason Rothman, Terje Lohndal, and Marit Westergaard.
• Max Freeman passed his qualifying research project defense and received a non-clinical master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. He was admitted to Ph.D. candidacy and is now “all but dissertation” (ABD).
• Peiyao Chen passed her qualifying research project defense and received a non-clinical master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders. She was admitted to Ph.D. candidacy and is now “all but dissertation” (ABD).
• Scott Schroeder accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences at Hofstra University in New York.
• James Bartolotti was hooded in The Graduate School graduation ceremony at the end of Spring Quarter.
• Max Freeman was selected to serve on the Topic Committee for Cultural and Linguistic Issues at the 2016 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention.
• Sirada (Ping) Rochanavibhata collected data in Thailand this Summer.
• Peiyao Chen and her teammates from the Northwestern University Curling Club won the Chicago Curling Club’s All-American Event.
• Congratulations to Munirah Alkhuwaiter on the birth of her daughter on June 24!
• Publications
  • The paper “The influence of native-language tones on lexical access in the second language” by Anthony Shook and Viorica Marian was accepted to the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
  • The paper “Third language vocabulary learning benefits from bilinguals’ existing languages” by James Bartolotti and Viorica Marian was accepted to the journal Language Learning.
  • The paper “Influence of prior language knowledge and lexical form on novel vocabulary learning” by James Bartolotti and Viorica Marian was accepted to the journal Applied Linguistics.
  • The paper “Auditory Word Recognition Across the Lifespan: Links between Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Inhibitory Control in Bilinguals and Monolinguals” by Henrike Blumenfeld, Scott Schroeder, Susan Bobb, Max Freeman, and Viorica Marian was published in Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism.
  • The paper “Neural Signatures of Second Language Learning and Control” by James Bartolotti, Kailyn Bradley, Arturo Hernandez, and Viorica Marian was published in Neuropsychologia.
  • The paper “Cognitive Consequences of Trilingualism” by Scott Schroeder and Viorica Marian was accepted to the International Journal of Bilingualism.
  • The paper “The Role of Language Proficiency, Cognate Status and Word Frequency in the Assessment of Spanish–English Bilinguals’ Verbal Fluency” by Henrike Blumenfeld, Susan Bobb, and Viorica Marian was published in the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.
  • The chapter “Bilingual Language Assessment in Early Intervention: A Comparison of Single- Versus Dual-Language Testing” by Caroline Larson, Sarah Chabal, and Viorica Marian was published in Current Issues in Language Evaluation, Assessment, and Testing.
  • The paper “Bilingualism and Musicianship Enhance Cognitive Control” by Scott Schroeder, Viorica Marian, Anthony Shook, and James Bartolotti was published in Neural Plasticity.
• Talks
  • November. Professor Marian gave the opening keynote address for Brain Awareness Week in the Departments of Psychology, Biology, Neuroscience, and Modern Languages and Literatures at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois.
  • October. Professor Marian gave an invited talk at Norway’s Transatlantic Forum 2016, University of Chicago.
  • October. Professor Marian served as the workshop speaker at Workshop on Bilingualism and Multilingualism. Arctic University-Northwestern Collaboration. Northwestern University.
  • April. Professor Marian served as a panelist for Northwestern University’s Panel for Women Faculty: Navigating Tenure.
  • April. James Bartolotti gave an invited talk in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University.
  • April. Professor Marian gave an invited talk as the affiliated faculty honoree in the Department of Linguistics at Northwestern University.
  • April. Professor Marian gave the 11th Annual Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Lecture at Northwestern University.
• Conferences
  • November. Tuan Q. Lam, Scott Schroeder, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Effect of bilingualism on audio-visual speech perception in noise” at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Boston, Massachusetts.
  • November. Peiyao Chen, Susan Bobb, Noriko Hoshino, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Resolving language co-activation in bilingual speech comprehension: ERP evidence from Korean-English bilinguals” at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Boston, Massachusetts.
  • November. Max Freeman, Henrike Blumenfeld, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Cross-linguistic Activation of Phonotactic Constraints and Cognitive Control in Bilinguals” at the Annual Convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
  • October.  James Bartolotti and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Acquisition of orthography-to-phonology mappings in a third language” at the UIC Bilingualism Forum in Chicago, Illinois.
  • October. Peiyao Chen, Susan Bobb, Noriko Hoshino, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Language co-activation and control in listening comprehension: ERP evidence from Korean-English bilinguals” at the UIC Bilingualism Forum in Chicago, Illinois.
  • October.  James Bartolotti and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Acquisition of orthography-to-phonology mappings in a third language” at the Norwegian-American Workshop on Bilingualism in Evanston, Illinois.
  • October. Peiyao Chen, Susan Bobb, Noriko Hoshino, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Language co-activation and control: ERP evidence from bilingual listening comprehension” at the Norwegian-American Workshop on Bilingualism in Evanston, Illinois.
  • May. Anthony Shook and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Native-language tones influence lexical access in the second language” at the International Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Granada, Spain.
  • May. Scott Schroeder and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Visual memory can be changed by auditory input” at the International Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Granada, Spain.
  • May. Max Freeman, Henrike Blumenfeld, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Non-target language phonotactic constraint activation in bilinguals” at the International Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Granada, Spain.
  • May. Peiyao Chen, Susan Bobb, Noriko Hoshino, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Bilingualism enhances conflict resolution and response monitoring: ERP evidence” at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Chicago, Illinois.
  • May. Max Freeman, Henrike Blumenfeld, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Cross-linguistic phonotactic constraint access in bilinguals” at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in Chicago, Illinois.
  • March. Max Freeman attended the Latin American School for Education, Cognitive, and Neural Sciences in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and presented a paper titled “Cross-linguistic phonological rule access in bilinguals” (co-authored by Viorica Marian and Henrike Blumenfeld).
  • February. Professor Marian was the keynote speaker at the International Symposium on Cognition and Neuroscience at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
• Lab Visitors
  • June. Kerry Ebert from Rush University visited the lab.
  • June. Daniel Weiss from Penn State University gave an invited talk titled “Know when to fold’em: Accommodating variability in statistical learning.”
  • June. High school girls from Evanston Township High School, Lake Forest High School, and Illinois Math and Science Academy visited the lab as part of a Northwestern event encouraging girls to pursue careers in science.
  • May. Alena Esposito from Emory University gave an invited talk titled “Explaining Academic Achievement in Dual-language Education.”
  • April. Chelsea Eddington from University of Pittsburgh gave an invited talk titled “Mapping Meaning to L2 Vocabulary.”

2015

• Awards
  • Professor Marian received the University of Alaska Alumni of Achievement Award. Read about it here.
  • Professor Marian was appointed as the Ralph and Jean Sundin Endowed Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders.
  • James Bartolotti received an NIH Training Grant in Neuroscience of Human Cognition.
  • Sirada (Ping) Rochanavibhata received a Northwestern University Cognitive Science Fellowship.
• Graduations and Weddings
  • Henrike Blumenfeld got married!
  • James Bartolotti successfully defended his dissertation “Previous Language Experience Shapes Novel Language Learning” and received his Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders.
  • Max Freeman got married!
  • Sarah Chabal successfully defended her dissertation “Language Activation During Visual Scene Processing” and received her Ph.D. in Communication Sciences and Disorders.
• Jobs and Promotions
  • Henrike Blumenfeld was promoted to Associate Professor in the School of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences at San Diego State University.
  • Susan Bobb accepted Assistant Professor position in Psychology at Gordon College.
  • Tuan Q. Lam accepted position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at Loyola University New Orleans.
  • Anthony Shook accepted Data Analyst position at Mbira Technologies.
  • Sarah Chabal accepted position as Research Psychologist at the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory.
• Publications
  • The paper “Repetition Reduction During Word and Concept Overlap in Bilinguals” by Tuan Q. Lam and Viorica Marian was published in the Journal of Memory and Language.
  • The paper “Linguistic Predictors of Cultural Identification in Bilinguals” by Scott R. Schroeder, Tuan Q. Lam, and Viorica Marian was accepted to the journal Applied Linguistics.
  • The paper “Bilingualism and Musicianship Enhance Cognitive Control” by Scott R. Schroeder, Viorica Marian, Anthony Shook, and James Bartolotti was accepted to the journal Neural Plasticity.
  • The paper “Parallel Language Activation and Inhibitory Control in Bimodal Bilinguals” by Marcel Giezen, Henrike Blumenfeld, Anthony Shook, Viorica Marian, and Karen Emmorey was published in the journal Cognition.
  • The paper “Audio-Visual Object Search is Changed by Bilingual Experience” by Sarah Chabal, Scott R. Schroeder, and Viorica Marian was accepted to the journal Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics.
  • The paper “Bilingual Children Show an Advantage in Controlling Verbal Interference during Spoken Language Comprehension” by Roberto Filippi, John Morris, Fiona Richardson, Peter Bright, Michael Thomas, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, and Viorica Marian was published in the journal Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
  • The paper “Speakers of Different Languages Process the Visual World Differently” by Sarah Chabal and Viorica Marian was accepted to the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
  • The paper “Auditory Word Recognition Across the Lifespan: Links Between Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Inhibitory Control in Bilinguals and Monolinguals” by Henrike Blumenfeld, Scott R. Schroeder, Susan Bobb, Max Freeman, and Viorica Marian was accepted to the journal Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism.
  • The paper “Neural Processing of Speech in Children is Influenced by Bilingual Experience” by Jennifer Krizman, Jessica Slater, Erika Skoe, Viorica Marian, and Nina Kraus was published in the journal Neuroscience Letters.
• Conferences and Talks
  • November. Professor Marian was a panelist on the Women in Cognitive Science panel at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Chicago, Illinois.
  • November. Scott Schroeder and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Auditory input improves visual memory” at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Chicago, Illinois.
  • November. Max Freeman, Henrike Blumenfeld, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Cross-linguistic phonological rule access in bilinguals” at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Chicago, Illinois.
  • November. Max Freeman, Henrike Blumenfeld, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Phonological rule access across languages in bilinguals” at the Annual Convention of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in Denver, Colorado.
  • November. Scott Schroeder, Viorica Marian, James Bartolotti, Anthony Shook, and Sarah Chabal gave a talk titled “Tools for psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic research” at the Bilingualism Forum in Mexico City, Mexico.
  • November. Scott Schroeder gave a talk titled “How bilingualism changes cognition” at the Bilingualism Forum in Mexico City, Mexico.
  • November. Professor Marian gave an invited talk at Chinese University of Hong Kong.
  • October. James Bartolotti and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Bilingual cortical control of between and within language competition” at the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, Illinois.
  • October. Peiyao Chen, Susan Bobb, Noriko Hoshino, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Neural signatures of language co-activation and control in bilingual spoken language comprehension” at the Society for the Neurobiology of Language in Chicago, Illinois.
  • September. Professor Marian gave an invited talk at University of Alaska Anchorage.
  • June. James Bartolotti and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Third language vocabulary learning benefits from each of a bilingual’s languages” at the International Symposium on Bilingualism in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
  • June. Henrike Blumenfeld, Scott R. Schroeder, Susan Bobb, Max Freeman, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Bilinguals show fewer age-related changes than monolinguals in lexical competition resolution” at the International Symposium on Bilingualism in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
  • March. Max Freeman attended the Latin American School for Education, Cognitive, and Neural Sciences in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.
  • February. Caroline Larson, Tuan Q. Lam, and Viorica Marian presented their paper “Speech sound production: Dissociating disorders from bilingual or bidialectal accents” at the Illinois Speech-Language-Hearing Association conference in Rosemont, Illinois.
• Lab Visitors
  • November. Mark Antoniou from Western Sydney University visited the lab and gave a talk titled “Bilingual adaptability stems from dual mapping between phonetic and phonological categories.”
  • November. Rhonda McClain from the Department of Linguistics at Northwestern University visited the lab and gave a talk titled “Using event-related potentials to track the scope and time course of inhibition during bilingual speech.”
  • October. Agnes Kovacs from Central European University gave an invited talk titled “Learning two languages in the crib: Cognitive effects of bilingualism in infancy.”
  • October. Xin Xie from University of Connecticut gave an invited talk titled “Phonetic adapatation to foreign accents.”
  • August. Zofia Wodniecka from Jagiellonian University visited the lab and gave a talk titled “Cognitive and linguistic performance in bilinguals.”
  • August. Benjamin Zinszer from University of Rochester visited the lab and gave a talk titled “You say potato, I say tŭdòu: How speakers of different languages share the same concept.”
  • May. Taomei Guo from Beijing Normal University visited the lab and gave a talk titled “Inhibitory control in bilingual language production and its plasticity.”
  • May. Katie Von Holzen from Universite Paris Descartes gave an invited talk titled “Bilinguals implicitly name objects in both their languages: An ERP study.”
  • March. Jason Rothman from University of Reading visited the lab and gave a talk titled “Different? Yes. Incomplete? No.: Sourcing (some) differences in heritage language bilingualism to input quality differences.”
  • March. Matt Dye from University of Illinois visited the lab and gave a talk titled “Natural language exposure and neurocognitive development in deaf children.”