Statistical language learning and electrophysiological measures: an international collaboration with the Brainvitge Group at Universitat de Barcelona

• Grant number: 23/02238-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: May 22, 2023
• End date: June 28, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Human Development Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Débora de Hollanda Souza
• Grantee: Isabella Toselli Prequero Sbrocco
• Supervisor: Toni Cunillera Llorente
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Spain
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/13731-0 - Finding the right words: an investigation with electrophysiological measures of the role of statistical cues on language acquisition, BP.MS

Abstract

There is now robust evidence that children and adults can track statistical regularities to extract words from speech. More recently, several studies integrated electrophysiological and behavioral measures to understand the neural mechanisms underlying this process. For her Master's work, this candidate aims to collect electroencephalogram and behavioral data during a speech segmentation task with Brazilian-Portuguese native speakers. However, collecting and analyzing complex electrophysiological data and designing a statistical language learning experiment that integrates both measures require several skills. The present application seeks support for a 3-month visit to Dr. Toni Cunillera's laboratory, at the University of Barcelona. Dr. Cunillera and his research group are worldwide renowned for their work on statistical language learning with electrophysiological measures. His work is especially relevant to the candidate's research project. The proposed research internship will provide a unique opportunity for the candidate to develop advanced data analyses and research methods skills highly relevant to statistical language learning research. Also, the candidate will be able to collect and analyze EEG data before starting to collect her own data in Brazil, polishing her research design and ideas in the process. A secondary gain from the internship will be to start an international collaboration that may prove fruitful for students of the Universidade Federal de São Carlos who might be interested in integrating electrophysiological measures in behavioral tasks, especially in statistical language learning. (AU)