My research focuses on adult sentence comprehension, and in particular what the selective failures of the comprehension system can tell us about the algorithms by which sentences are incrementally processed and understood. Recently, I’ve been interested in the phenomenon of NPI (negative polarity item) illusions – cases where comprehenders are disproportionately likely to accept a sentence with an unlicensed NPI due to structurally irrelevant negative words in the sentence – and what they can tell us about the way online comprehension systems implement grammatical constraints. This project is a collaboration with Iria de Dios Flores and Celeste Joly. In ongoing work with with Colin Phillips and Philip Resnik, we’ve looked at Moses illusions – when asked “How many animals of each kind did Moses bring on the ark?” comprehenders often answer “two” even though the story about an ark features Noah, not Moses. I’ve also worked on the incremental processing of negation using the visual world eye-tracking paradigm in collaboration with Jon Burnsky, Emily Darley, and Julia Buffinton.
Prior to coming to UMD and exploring issues in sentence processing, my primary research area was syntax. I wrote my senior honors thesis at NYU under the advisement of Dr. Stephanie Harves. This project investigated the German absentive construction.
Finally, in collaboration with Phoebe Gaston and others, I’ve investigated the impact of gender bias on representation and publication rates of women in Linguistics.