Dr. Eve Higby
Faculty member: Dr. Eve Higby
Discipline: Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
General description of Dr. Higby’s expertise:
Research in the Multilingualism Lab focuses on language and cognition in bilinguals and monolinguals and the brain structures related to those abilities. We study language production and comprehension in young adults and older adults and how language is affected by different cognitive abilities, different aspects of brain structure, and different language histories.
Related majors for this project:
Any students interested in learning how to do research with human subjects. Most relevant to students in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, but students from other majors can join as well.
Project:
How do bilinguals access words from each of the languages they know? Bilinguals sometimes experience competition from the language they are not using, especially if they tend to retrieve certain words in the other language. Words that sound alike and have similar meanings, such as bicycle and bicicleta in English and Spanish, are called cognates, and bilinguals are usually faster to retrieve cognates from memory than translation words that are not cognates (such as milk and leche). However, even though cognates can be retrieved more quickly, they may still induce competition while speaking, and this competition might show up in slowed retrieval of the following word. Assistance is needed to transcribe responses to a picture-naming study in Spanish and English, as well as responses to a word generation task in both languages. We will then analyze how quickly bilinguals retrieve cognate names versus non-cognate names and whether there is any effect of naming cognates or non-cognates on the following picture-naming trial.
Student-researcher expectations and responsibilities:
Dr. Higby contact info. and instructions regarding what you need to provide when you contact her about a student-research position:
Please send an email to eve.higby@csueastbay.edu describing why you’re interested in the lab or project.
Discipline: Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
General description of Dr. Higby’s expertise:
Research in the Multilingualism Lab focuses on language and cognition in bilinguals and monolinguals and the brain structures related to those abilities. We study language production and comprehension in young adults and older adults and how language is affected by different cognitive abilities, different aspects of brain structure, and different language histories.
Related majors for this project:
Any students interested in learning how to do research with human subjects. Most relevant to students in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, but students from other majors can join as well.
Project:
How do bilinguals access words from each of the languages they know? Bilinguals sometimes experience competition from the language they are not using, especially if they tend to retrieve certain words in the other language. Words that sound alike and have similar meanings, such as bicycle and bicicleta in English and Spanish, are called cognates, and bilinguals are usually faster to retrieve cognates from memory than translation words that are not cognates (such as milk and leche). However, even though cognates can be retrieved more quickly, they may still induce competition while speaking, and this competition might show up in slowed retrieval of the following word. Assistance is needed to transcribe responses to a picture-naming study in Spanish and English, as well as responses to a word generation task in both languages. We will then analyze how quickly bilinguals retrieve cognate names versus non-cognate names and whether there is any effect of naming cognates or non-cognates on the following picture-naming trial.
Student-researcher expectations and responsibilities:
- Must be fluent in Spanish and English
- Work a minimum of 3-5 hours per week on your research project (CSR Scholar requirement)
- Commit to at least 1 semester of working in the lab
- Attend lab meeting once a week
- Read papers for multilingualism reading group and attend meetings 2x/month
Dr. Higby contact info. and instructions regarding what you need to provide when you contact her about a student-research position:
Please send an email to eve.higby@csueastbay.edu describing why you’re interested in the lab or project.