Individual Differences in language processing

Why are some people better with words than others?

We investigate how and why people differ in the way they speak and understand spoken language. For instance, why do some people speak faster and more fluently than others? Does this reflect on differences in the speakers’ speech motor skills, their linguistic abilities, or their speed of thinking? Why do some people provide rather bland descriptions of events, whereas others describe them vividly and in much detail? Is it because they differ in their perception or understanding of the events, or in the quality of their memory representations, or in their vocabulary and grammatical skills? Why are some people better able than others to understand language when the acoustic input is poor? Is it because people differ in early perceptual processes, in the linguistic analysis of the speech input, or in the ability to draw appropriate inferences or to adopt the speaker’s perspective? Our goals are, first, to find ways of characterizing and quantifying individual differences in speaking and listening and, second, to relate these differences to underlying linguistic and non-linguistic abilities and skills. The focus of the department is to develop functional models of speaking and listening. We collaborate closely with researchers studying the neurological and genetic bases of language.

Most of the empirical work is carried out in the Individual Differences Project. However, members of the department also collaborate in the Coordination of Cognitive Systems Project, which investigates the ways language production and comprehension processes are related to general cognitive processes, especially attention, vision, and working memory.