Overview

Psycholinguistics stands at the crossroads of linguistics, psychology, computer science and neuroscience. In this course you will learn about the state-of-the-art in our understanding of how language is learned, produced, and understood, and how it is supported by the human brain. Throughout the course there will be an emphasis on constructing explicit accounts of how humans learn and use language. This will involve learning:

• What have psycholinguists learned about language learning and processing?
• How have they learned these things?
• What do we not yet understand?

In order to achieve these goals, the course has two main components.

• In readings, class discussions, and written homework assignments you will learn about existing findings and current research problems.
• In lab assignments and in your class project you will gain hands-on experience in using the research tools of psycholinguistics - this will involve designing and running experiments, analyzing databases, and manipulating computer models.

By virtue of the different disciplines and techniques that psycholinguistics brings together, it is a field in which collaborative work is very important. Accordingly, a good deal of the work in this course will involve working in a team with your classmates.