معرفی
Ellen Lau is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Maryland, co-director of the KIT-Maryland MEG Lab, and a member of the Maryland Language Science Center. Her research focuses on neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics, exploring how linguistic structure and meaning are processed in the brain. Key areas include syntax-semantics interface, prediction in language comprehension, and second language acquisition. Her work integrates neuroimaging methods (ERP, MEG, fMRI) to study real-time language processing.
Her research highlights the role of predictive mechanisms in language comprehension, such as how syntactic and semantic context influence word processing and sentence interpretation. She investigates phenomena like agreement attraction, relative clause processing, and lexical tone perception in L2 learners. Collaborations span cognitive neuroscience and computational models, aiming to bridge syntactic theory with neurobiological mechanisms.
Ellen Lau’s contributions include studies on the neural basis of lexical-semantic prediction, the impact of temporal predictability on semantic expectation, and the dynamics of syntactic and semantic processing in the brain. She emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches, combining behavioral experiments with advanced neuroimaging to address fundamental questions about language’s biological foundations.
- Key affiliations: Department of Linguistics, Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program
- Labs: KIT-Maryland MEG Lab, Maryland Neuroimaging Center
- Research themes: Language evolution, bilingualism, ERP/MEG studies
