Center for Language Science at Penn State

09/14/2026

Meet new CLS faculty member Dr. Emiko Muraki, Assistant Professor in Cognitive Psychology at Penn State and the PI of the Concepts, Imagery, and Simulation in Cognition (CISC) Lab. Her research explores how perceptual, motor, and affective systems shape language, concept knowledge, and mental imagery. With a background in both drama and psychology, she brings a unique perspective to our language science community.

1. You have a unique academic background that spans both drama and psychology. What led you from drama to psychology, and has your experience in drama influenced the way you think about your research?

My greatest interest in drama was always in understanding the inner workings of characters, as an actor, director, and dramaturg. I loved developing the rich mental life of the characters I was portraying. As I built my professional career in the arts sector, I found myself in roles where research and systems knowledge became central to my job, as an evaluation specialist studying the impact of the arts in society. I realized that cognitive science could bridge my interests in the human mind and research on complex systems.

2. What do you see as the broader or real-world implications of the research currently being conducted in your lab, particularly for our understanding of language?

My research focuses on the complexity and flexibility of concept knowledge across different contexts, individuals, and points in time. The result of incorporating context and individual differences into my research is that the findings are more inclusive and consider the identities and experiences of participants. Therefore, the advances that my lab makes in understanding the foundational mechanisms of concept knowledge and representation will be more widely applicable. In addition, because I examine how perceptual and motor systems contribute to concept knowledge, this opens new avenues to addressing language development and language disorders, by considering how we can leverage perceptual and motor systems to support language acquisition and as using them as points of intervention when language processes are disrupted.

3. As a new faculty member, what are you looking forward to about being part of the Center for Language Science community?

The Center for Language Science is an incredible community of researchers who all bring different expertise and perspectives on language science. I’m most looking forward to engaging in interdisciplinary conversations. I know my research will benefit from perspectives from linguistics and communication science and disorders, and I hope that my perspective from cognitive science and neuroscience will be equally as helpful for my colleagues.

09/14/2026

Join us on Friday, September 18, at 9:00 a.m., in Foster Auditorium for a talk, “Teaching Spanish as a Heritage Language: The Importance of Countering
‘No Sabo Kid’ Narratives”, presented by Kim Potowski, Ph.D.

09/10/2026

Today we have a throwback to our Summer–Fall 2022 newsletter, which explored language learning and people with intellectual disabilities. People with intellectual disabilities can benefit from access to opportunities to learn multiple languages, which may support inclusion, strengthen family connections, and foster cultural identity. 🌟

Read the article to learn more:

Summer/Fall 2022 Dear Friends, We are thrilled to present the Summer/Fall 2022 issue of our Center for Language Science/Bilingualism Matters at Penn State newsletter. In this issue, we explore what the research has revealed about the relationship between language learning and intellectual disability...

09/08/2026

Join us on Friday, September 11, at 9:00 a.m., in Foster Auditorium for the Adele Miccio Awards presentation!

08/31/2026

Join us on Friday, September 4, at 9:00 a.m. in Foster Auditorium for presentations by graduate students who received the CLS Pilot Study Funding Award and the CLS Summer School Funding Award！

08/31/2026

We had a great time sharing our enthusiasm for language science with the public at the Grange Fair in Central PA last Friday. A big thank you to the Eberly College of Science Outreach Office and to all the CLS folks who helped make the event possible. Shout out to everyone at the Grange Fair who stopped by to participate and talk about language with us!

08/04/2026

The next installment in our CLS summer research features is the Second Language Acquisition Lab, directed by Dr. Carrie Jackson. One current project looks at how language processing is influenced by social and political circumstances among Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals living in Ukraine. When bilinguals encounter a word that is similar across their languages (e.g., English "potato" and Spanish "patata"), they often activate both of their languages--something called the "cognate effect". Dr. Jackson's lab is investigating whether this effect has changed for Ukrainian bilinguals, particularly those who have stopped using Russian since the beginning of the full scale invasion. To learn more about Dr. Jackson’s research group, please visit:

People Carrie Jackson. I direct the SLA lab. I am currently a professor of German and Linguistics at Penn State University and the head of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures. My main interests include psycholinguistics, language acquisition, and foreign language pedagogy...

07/31/2026

Ever wonder how language scientists use eye tracking? Watch this to learn more!

07/30/2026

The Center for Language Science (CLS) supports student research in a variety of ways. Romi Román Cabrera, a graduate student in Hispanic Linguistics in the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, received funding from the CLS to support her dissertation research. Read on to learn about her interesting project and her experience as a CLS member.

You received an award from the CLS to support your dissertation research. Could you tell us a bit about your project?
- My project looks at how children and adults produce and understand subject pronouns in Spanish. For example, in a sentence like “Yasmin looks at Mabel, now she spins.” I am interested to see who people think “she” refers to, since it could be either Yasmin or Mabel. This question is especially interesting in Spanish since it is perfectly grammatical and systematic to say things like “Yasmin looks at Mabel, now spins”, omitting the pronoun "she". Spanish speakers may do this variably, and previous research on other types of Spanish has shown that whether or not the pronoun is pronounced can influence how the sentence is interpreted. My research is the first to explore this question in Dominican Spanish, and I am using techniques like eye tracking and asking people to produce sentences in order to investigate their patterns of pronunciation and interpretation.

What is something that you have learned through this research experience that you would like to share with the public?
- Sooo many things. Working with children is a fascinating world! If I had to share one thing it would be the importance of science communication, especially when you conduct research in a community where people might not be as familiarized with research or research practices. It is very important to speak about the project using accessible general audience language and be aware of one’s positionality as a researcher. Some people were a bit skeptical at first about the eye tracker and I had to find ways to explain what it does and its application from the real world so they would feel comfortable with it. One example that always helped was comparing it to the eye‑tracking technology used in gaming devices.

What are your next steps in this project?
- The immediate next step in this project is data analysis, as I'm now looking at the data I collected to see what sorts of patterns emerge. Further ahead, I would like to apply for a postdoctoral grant and expand this work with speakers of other Spanish dialects. One of the broader goals of my research is to contribute to a relatively small area of study that combines child language processing with dialectal variation.

How has being part of the CLS supported your research?
- Being part of the CLS has supported my research by giving me access to a strong interdisciplinary community, which has been especially valuable because my work draws on several areas, including child language acquisition, language development, cognition, and language variation. It has also given me opportunities to get early feedback on my project through conversations with invited speakers such as Dr. Elizabeth Schotter, Dr. Jorge Valdés Kroff, and Dr. Anne Beatty Martínez. In addition, seeing how other members present their work, learning about the kinds of projects they do, and hearing about the challenges they have faced in fieldwork has helped me think about my own research process and approach.

07/28/2026

The Summer–Fall 2026 CLS/Bilingualism Matters Newsletter is now available! Check it out on our website at: https://sites.psu.edu/bilingualismmatters/summer-fall-2026/. This issue was developed by graduate research assistants Ingrid Chuang, Mackenzie Gentz, Yifei Gong, and Jie Yan, together with CLS Lab Manager Larisa Bryan, who chose to highlight the fascinating topic of heritage language users. Inside, you'll find an accessible introduction to heritage languages, a "Grammar Detective" feature that invites you to explore some of their unique linguistic patterns, and a look back at many of the exciting activities and accomplishments from the past academic year.

Special thanks also go to our summer research assistants, Alex Koch and Emily Herman, as well as Brittany Glunt, whose hard work formatting and preparing the newsletter made this publication possible. We encourage you to share the newsletter with others who may be interested, and we'd love to hear your questions, comments, or feedback. We hope you enjoy this latest issue—and that it makes for some enjoyable summer reading!

Summer/Fall 2026 Dear friends and colleagues, Welcome to this issue of the CLS/Bilingualism Matters newsletter! This edition explores the fascinating world of heritage speakers and the creative ways bilingual experiences shape language use. Graduate students Mackenzie Gentz, Yifei Gong, Jie Yan, and...