Current projects

Literary scholars have long speculated about the nature of rhyme’s cognitive and aesthetic effects. However, laying an empirical foundation for these speculations is a fairly recent endeavor and there remain considerable evidential gaps. The research project aims to broaden this empirical foundation, using methods from experimental psychology and psycholinguistics to address fundamental questions about rhyme that have gone unnoticed in prior research.

The increasing popularity of social media as a platform for news distribution has changed the way news stories are both written and consumed. Recent studies show that social media engendered novel types of digital news discourse that are characterized by increased subjectivity. However, it remains unclear how exactly subjectivity is expressed in news stories on social media as compared to journalistic websites, and more importantly, how it influences online processing and offline evaluation of news stories, especially among different literacy groups of readers. This research project aims to unravel the relationship between subjectivity, digital news medium, and literacy level, by investigating processing and appreciation of subjectivity in online news narratives, comparing news on social media platforms and journalistic news websites while considering the impact of individual differences in literacy skills. This goal will be achieved by a combination of coprus studies, online crowdsourcing experiments and eye-tracking experiments on English and Russian media.

This project looks to move the field of bilingualism forward by using a combination of narrative stimuli with VR and fMRI methodologies to address the question(s) of how context may influence bilingual language switching.

The main aim of this project is to understand how aphantasia - a condition in which people are unable to experience visual imagery whilst being unaffected in visual perception - affects narrative reading experience.

This project combines cognitive linguistics with the philosophy of mind and psychiatry in researching the way in which different perspectives are presented in spoken or written stories, with a specific focus on the narratives of people with a schizophrenia diagnosis. The project aims to broaden our understanding of epistemic isolation and the (inter)subjective experience of people with a sensitivity for psychosis by zooming in on the stories they tell. How are different perspectives represented and distinguished in these narratives? And what do they express with respect to the relation between the ‘self’ and the (social) environment?

This project investigates the involvement of social-cognitive processes, such as empathy and theory of mind, during story reading. Central questions in this project are: which linguistic characteristics of stories activate social-cognitive processes in readers? Which individual differences between readers play a role in the social-cognitive and linguistic processing of stories? And how can exposure to stories ultimately make a positive contribution to socio-cognitive skills?

This project will directly assess the critical role of olfaction in word meaning by exploring smell- and taste-related language in individuals without a sense of smell (i.e., anosmics) and comparing them to controls with an intact sense of smell.

WordWise is a pathbreaking initiative of Peitho (Radboud Centre for Rhetoric) and Radboud University’s Department of Political Science offering rhetoric as a means to educate responsible and resilient citizens.