Key Research Areas

What are our core research areas? 

ARiEAL brings together a diverse yet cohesive collection of researchers with expertise in linguistics and languages, relevant clinical conditions, and key neurophysiological, neuroimaging, and behavioural measures in order to advance understanding of the neural, behavioural and social foundations of human communication. Our approach relies on integrated experimental and applied research that crosses disciplinary boundaries, but encompasses the following areas of inquiry:

1. Mechanisms of normal and atypical reading behaviour informing practices and methods of adult literacy assessment and education
2. Word recognition and speech comprehension across languages
3. Language learning mechanisms emphasizing working memory’s role and its manifestation in neurocognitive outcome measures demonstrating neuroplastic changes related to learning and learned material
4. Language, language structure, and bilingualism
5. Second language learning, language documentation and revitalization
6. First and second language and literacy acquisition and loss beginning in children and extending to aging populations
7. Applications in brain injury, neurodevelopmental disorders, and speech language pathology
8. Technical advances: Simultaneous recording of EEG and fMRI and EEG and eye movement activity for basic research on, for example, syntax and semantics, as well as phonological processing and its interaction with orthographic processing. Technical advances will result in applications in typical and atypical populations including individuals with reading problems, brain injury, and neurodevelopmental disorders. This work will lead to the development of machine learning tools to advance EEG signal analysis and for new applications in brain-computer interfacing that promise to enable communication in previously non communicative people.