Visiting Researchers from Ukraine
December 1, 2022
|McMaster Daily News
Starting in April 2022, the Reading Lab joined ARiEAL in welcoming four scholars from Ukraine, two of whom continue their research in the Reading Lab. Olga Dvorova, a PhD student in Philology from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv is working on a SSHRC-funded project exploring the impact of the pandemic on reading skills in higher education. Mariia Hryntus, a Master’s student in Computational Linguistics from Lviv Polytechnic National University is working on a project on the language of trauma as it emerges during the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Reading Lab at Psychonomics 2022
November 23, 2022
The 63rd Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society was held November 17-20, 2022 in Boston, MA, USA. This conference brings together researchers that study the fundamental properties of how the mind works by using behavioral techniques to better understand mental functioning.
Mental Lexicon 2022 conference
October 20, 2022
|Mental Lexicon Conference Website
The 12th Mental Lexicon conference was held in person October 11-14, 2022 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. The conference brought together psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, and computational research on the representation and processing of words in the mind/brain.
We are so proud of all of our Reading Lab student presenters at Mental Lexicon 2022. Special congrats to MSc student Heather Wild, who won best talk, and PhD student Jordan Gallant, who won best poster!
Student Research Day Program out now!
April 6, 2022
The full program and abstract book for Student Research Day 2022 has been released! This conference will take place from 9:30 am – 3:30 pm on April 13th, 2022 in room CNH 104.
Dr. Victor Kuperman at Applied Linguistics Symposium, Michigan State University on Friday, Feb. 25, 2022
February 25, 2022
|Michigan State University
Dr. Victor Kuperman presented today at the Applied Linguistics Spring Symposium as an invited speaker. Full abstract below:
Reflection of the language background and proficiency in eye-movements while reading texts in English as second language. This talk will present the Multilingual Eye Movements Corpus (MECO), a new collection of eye movements recorded from speakers of 12 languages while reading texts in their L1 and English. The MECO database couples individuals’ eye-tracking data with their scores in component skills of English reading. We examine eye-fixation durations and positions in L2 English reading to estimate and disentangle group-level effects of L1 language background and effects stemming from individual differences in English proficiency. Methodological implications for research into L2 reading are discussed along with directions for future research.
Lab trip to McMichael Gallery with Raymond Bertram
October 15, 2021
The Reading Lab is hosting a visitor from the University of Turku, Raymond Bertram! We took a tour of the amazing McMichael Canadian Art Collection, which has the largest collection of the Group of 7 and extensive exhibitions of Indigenous art, and after visited the well-reputed Mama Fatma Turkish Cuisine.
Lab trip to Niagara Falls
September 19, 2021
The Reading Lab spent a pleasant day between Niagara on the Lake and Niagara Falls, enjoying the sites and visiting local attractions, which included the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre, Fort George National Historic Site, Brock’s Monument, the Butterfly Conservatory, and of course Niagara Falls.
So You Want to Learn about Speech Language Pathology? Career guide co-created by undergraduate thesis student Evonne Syed
September 8, 2021
|Speech-Language & Audiology Canada
Evonne Syed, undergraduate thesis student, has co-created (co-creator: Imad Ali), in consultation with Dr. Lyn Turkstra, and in partnership with Speech-Language & Audiology Canada, a career guide for Speech Language Pathology aimed at high school students.
28th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading
July 16, 2021
Victor Kuperman, Nadia Lana, Melda Coskun, Kaitlyn Battershill, Heather Wild, and Daniil Gnetov presented this week at SSSR’s Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting.
2021 SSHRC Insight Grant: Impact of COVID-19 on reading comprehension
June 18, 2021
|Faculty of Humanities
Dr. Victor Kuperman (Co-applicant: Dr. Esther Geva, University of Toronto) was awarded a SSHRC Insight award. The 5-year grant is for the project “Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on reading comprehension in Canadian and US university students: a multi-componential approach”.
Reading Lab at the House of Commons
June 3, 2021
What can be done to improve well-being of seniors during COVID-19? Dr. Victor Kuperman appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development & the Status of Persons with Disabilities (HUMA) to discuss ageism, intergenerational programs, and digital literacy.
Intergenerational programming, such as WritLarge, has been found to help the psychological and emotional well-being of seniors during COVID-19: sharing stories can be therapeutic for seniors battling loneliness.
Congratulations to undergrad RA Evonne Syed on getting the Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA)
March 23, 2021
Evonne Syed has been awarded the summer USRA for her project “How we learn meanings of words.”
Her study asks: How do we build connections between the meanings of newly learned words and the word meanings that we know? Congratulations Evonne, looking forward to seeing the results of your study!
Writing Across Generations: Collaboration with Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP)
March 1, 2021
|RSVP Spokane
Image Credit: RSVP of Spokane County
The Reading Lab is collaborating with Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) of Spokane County to pilot a virtual project that connects students (grades 8-12) with AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers to apply our findings from WritLarge about the social and cognitive benefits of writing and sharing stories.
New paper: Is the Author Recognition Test useful for non-native English speakers?
February 2, 2021
Sean McCarron and Victor Kuperman’s paper, “Is the Author Recognition Test a Useful Metric for Native and Non-Native English Speakers? An Item Response Theory Analysis” has been accepted into Behavior Research Methods. Â
New paper exploring the role of lexis & grammar for the stable identification of register
January 25, 2021
Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen and collaborators used online data to explore the role of lexis and grammar in different genres in new paper, Exploring the role of lexis and grammar for the stable identification of register in an unrestricted corpus of web documents.
Congratulations to Gaisha on her baby boy!
January 10, 2021
Congratulations Gaisha and Dmitry on their new baby boy Ivan. Both the boy and the mother are in great health!
After months under COVID-19 seniors are more lonely, less optimistic, new study says
December 3, 2020
|CBC
Image Credit: CBC
Victor Kuperman, Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen and team are working on creating a diagnostic tool to identify risk of loneliness in older adults during COVID-19, which they will share with healthcare professionals.
Kelly Nisbet and Gaisha Oralova presented at the Virtual Psychonomics 2020 Annual Meeting
November 21, 2020
Kelly Nisbet presented “Statistical Learning and Reading: How Motivation Influences This Relation.”
Gaisha Oralova presented “Individual differences in Chinese spelling proficiency as reflected by simultaneous EEG and eye-tracking.”
Virtual Words in the World International Conference
October 16, 2020
The Words in the World International Conference (organized by Victor Kuperman, Lori Buchanan and Gary Libben) began today, and the Reading Lab was well represented: Heather Wild, Gaisha Oralova, Melda Coskun, Nadia Lana, and Kelly Nisbet presented, as well as Reading Lab alumni Bryor Snefjella, Sean McCarron and Daniel Schmidtke. The full conference schedule can be found here.
New paper: How are words felt in a second language?
August 26, 2020
Victor Kuperman and Reading Lab alumni Constance Imbault & Amy Beth Warriner published a paper in collaboration with Debra Titone (McGill University) on how L2 speakers of English perceive English words differently. They conducted a large-scale rating study to measure how non-native readers of English respond to the valence (i.e., positive or negative) and arousal (i.e., exciting or calm) of 2,628 English words. Read it here: How are words felt in a second language: Norms for 2,628 English words for valence and arousal by L2 speakers
MIRA awards $75,000 in funding for COVID-19 research with focus on older adults
July 13, 2020
|MIRA
Image Credit: MIRA
Victor Kuperman, James Gillett (Social Sciences, McMaster University), Ranil Sonnadara (Health Sciences, McMaster University) and Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen were awarded funding for their project, “Relieving social isolation and loneliness through storytelling at the time of a pandemic.”
MacDATA fellow Gaisha Oralova using cutting-edge techniques to analyze data in new ways
May 21, 2020
|Daily News
Image Credit: McMaster Daily News
Gaisha Oralova was awarded a MacDATA fellowship for her cross-disciplinary project, “Non-parametric regression modelling of time-series data,” that aims at finding and validating a technique for analyzing electrophysiological data.
60th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society
November 17, 2019
Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen, Gaisha Oralova, Melda Coskun, Nadia Lana, Vincent Porretta and Victor Kuperman presented at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Montreal.
Melda Coskun awarded MacDATA Fellowship
September 10, 2019
|MacDATA Institute
Image Credit: MacDATA Institute
Melda Coskun was awarded the MacDATA Fellowship for her project about Twitter data that examines newly popular words.
Paige Cater presented at MIRA monthly meeting about her summer USRF project
August 30, 2019
Paige Cater gave at talk at the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging (MIRA) monthly meeting about her summer Undergraduate Student Research Fellowship (USRF) project, “The effect of aging on language skills,” which looked at the writing of older adults to identify loneliness.
Kelly Nisbet and Victor Kuperman presented at the 20th European Conference on Eye Movements
August 22, 2019
The 20th European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM 2019) took place from Sunday, August 18th, to Thursday, August 22nd, in Alicante, Spain. Kelly Nisbet presented about her work about factors that influence attaining proficiency in English. Victor Kuperman presented about the Multilingual Eye-movement Corpus (MECO), a collaborative international project that addresses the need for comparable cross-linguistic eye-tracking data on reading.
26th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading
July 20, 2019
Sean McCarron, Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen, Kelly Nisbet, Melda Coskun, Gaisha Oralova, Nadia Lana and Victor Kuperman presented at the 26th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading took place in Toronto from Wednesday, July 17 to Saturday, July 20.Â
Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen awarded SSHRC Insight Development Grant
July 17, 2019
|Daily News
Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen (Co-applicants: Victor Kuperman and Gary Libben) were awarded the SSHRC Insight Development Grant for their project, “Speaking of age: Linguistic markers of cognitive, emotional and social well-being in late adulthood.”
Bryor Snefjella, Davide Gentile and Constance Imbault presented at the 2019 SPSP Convention
February 20, 2019
Bryor Snefjella, Davide Gentile and Constance Imbault presented at the 2019 Society for Personality and Social Psychology Convention. Bryor Snefjella presented “Connecting Dots between Cognitive and Social Psycholinguistics,” Davide Gentile presented “Influences of the Big Five on the Magnitude of Migration,” and Constance Imbault presented “The Chicken or the Egg: Does Being Open Cause People to Migrate, or Does Migration Cause People to Be Open?”
Canadians are more polite on Twitter, Americans more negative — study looked at 40M tweets
November 22, 2018
|CBC
Image Credit: JD Howell, via CBC
Bryor Snefjella, Daniel Schmidtke and Victor Kuperman analyzed over 40,000 tweets, and found that Canadians may be constructing their “nice” identities through language.
59th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society
November 17, 2018
Daniel Schmidtke, Davide Gentile, Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen, and Bryor Snefjella presented at the 59th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society.
Collaborating across an ocean
May 23, 2018
|Brighter World
Image Credit: Brighter World
Victor Kuperman is collaborating with Raymond Bertram (University of Turku, Finland) to carry out research on reading and second languages.
Meet McMaster’s new MacDATA Fellow Bryor Snefjella
July 25, 2017
|Daily News
Image Credit: McMaster Daily News
Bryor Snefjella was awarded a MacDATA fellowship for his project “Massive Multilingual Semantic Norm Extrapolation.”
SSHRC awards $2.5 million for international language project, Words in the World
September 14, 2016
|Words in the World
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has awarded a Partnership Grant for Words in the World, a research and training program led by Gary Libben (Brock University) and leadership team: Victor Kuperman, Lori Buchanan (University of Windsor), Gonia Jarema (University of Montréal), Juhani Järvikivi (University of Alberta) Eva Kehayia (McGill University) and Sid Segalowitz (Brock University).