Dynamic and flexible aspects of language production

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Rasha Abdel Rahman
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2008 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 82757437

This project aims to investigate dynamic and situational aspects of language production. The project has two major goals. One goal is to investigate different facets of semantic processing beyond classic categorical relations, such as associative-thematic relations, semantic distance, or the semantic richness of the intended message, and to describe the behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of these semantic factors. The second goal of the planned research is to investigate how the dynamics of lexical activation may be affected by more general cognitive processing mechanisms. In particular, we explore whether a cognitive processing mode of ambiguity, induced by the presentation of ambiguous texts (e.g., puns) affects the co-activation of different meanings when participants name the pictures of homophones. Event-related brain potentials during overt language production will be used to track the functional and temporal dynamics of semantic processing during speech planning.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants