Summer Neurolinguistics School 2021: Lecturers and Talks

Roelien Bastiaanse, University of Groningen / HSE University
Alexia: acquired reading impairments after brain damage. Theoretical background and clinical implications
Reading impairments after brain damage - be it a stroke, traumatic brain injury or a tumor -show a very diverse pattern. The different phenomena observed among patients can be understood by using theoretical models for reading, such as the one by Ellis and Young (1988). This model will be discussed and single cases will be presented to show how the locus of the reading impairment can be identified. This is essential for treating reading individuals with alexia.

Hazel Blythe, Northumbria University 
Phonological processing during silent sentence reading: Typical development, hearing loss, and dyslexia in teenagers
Phonological processing is a key aspect of reading, and eye movement research has shown that skilled adult readers activate phonological information pre-lexically to identify words during silent sentence reading (Rayner, Pollatsek, & Binder, 1998; Pollatsek, Lesch, Morris & Rayner, 1992).  Across a series of experiments, phonological processing during silent sentence in reading was examined in five participant groups: (1) typically developing children; (2) typically developing teenagers; (3) teenagers with hearing loss; (4) teenagers with dyslexia; and (5) skilled adult readers.  Phonological processing was examined for both foveal processing of the currently fixated word (N) as well as for parafoveal pre-processing of the next word in the sentence (N+1).  First, the data showed that all participant groups were sensitive to the phonology of the target words during both foveal and parafoveal processing, consistent with rapid, covert recoding (rather than slower, covert decoding).  Second, the data were indicative of developmental delays, rather than atypical development, with respect to phonological processing during reading in teenagers with both PCHL and dyslexia.

Victor Kuperman, McMaster University
How to study reading comprehension and fluency in the first and second language using eye-tracking data
Eye-tracking is an ecologically valid and highly reliable paradigm for studying real-time reading behavior, at the level of letters, words, sentences, and connected texts. This lecture overviews recent advances in eye-tracking studies of text reading. Drawing on data from  the first (L1) and second (L2) language, I will discuss commonly used methods of text reading research; connections between reading fluency and reading comprehension; cross-linguistic similarities and differences in reading behavior; and the component skills underlying reading proficiency in L1 and L2. The emphasis will be on the new evidence from available eye-tracking corpora.




Anastasiya Lopukhina, HSE University

In this talk, we will cover the basic concepts of reading, i.e. fixations and saccades, foveal and parafoveal processing, perceptual span. We will talk about methods and eyetracking techniques that allow us to study silent reading. Finally, we will touch on how children learn to read and reading difficulties. This presentation is intended to provide a basis for listeners for the following lectures and talks.




Brennan Payne, University of Utah
Aging, context processing, and reading comprehension
During reading, supportive sentential contexts facilitate word recognition, promote predictive processing, and bias subsequent memory. But how does context use change with normal aging? Despite multiple literatures (e.g., behavioral, electrophysiological, eye tracking) tackling this question over decades, a fundamental understanding of age-related changes in context use has not been obtained. In this talk, I review recent work from our lab attempting to bridge the gap across these literatures and methods to understand generalizable factors that shape when and how older adults use context during reading. These factors include the moderating roles of attention allocation, volitional control, effort, and the propensity to engage in production-based predictive processing during reading.

University of Salzburg

, McGill University