|
Giovanna Morini
B.S. (2007, University of Florida, Psychology)
B.A. (2007, University of Florida, Linguistics)
|
Research Interests and Projects
• Language acquisition
• Bilingualism
• Word-finding errors
• Language processing
In collaboration with Dr. Rochelle Newman I have been conducting a study that looks at the specificity of children's early word-learning. Through the use of behavioral tasks, we are aiming to identify how early on infants are able to generalize newly acquired linguistic information to multiple speakers.
In collaboration with Dr. Tracy Riggins in the Psychology Department, I am in the process of developing a study that will rely on ERPs as a way of exploring young children's ability to generalize new linguistic information across speakers, through the analysis of patterns that are present at the neural level. This work will offer insight regarding the extent to which milestones in language development observed during behavioral tasks, are supported by brain activity.
In collaboration with Derek Monner, So-One Hwang, Karen Vatz, and Dr. Robert DeKeyser, I have been working on developing neural network models to investigate the effect that maturation and crosslinguistic interference have on different aspects of language acquisition, such as gender assignment, in languages like Spanish and French.
In collaboration with Wing Yee Chow, Shannon Hoerner, Sol Largo, Dan Parker, and Dr. Ellen Lau, I am developing a paradigm that will investigate how language-related ERP signature N400 relates to memory processes.
Previous work with Dr. Lise Abrams examined the resolution of tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states in Spanish-English bilinguals, specifically the effects of phonologically-related words and their syntactic class on word retrieval.
back to top of page
