Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratories (CNLL)

Lab JMD1

What is the CNLL?

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory (CNLL) was established at UNNC in 2012, when our Behavioural Lab was set up to measure accuracy and reaction times in Psycholinguistics experiments. Then in 2013 our Electrophysiology Lab was inaugurated, providing facilities to measure brain electrical patterns, using  electroencephalography /event-related potentials (EEG/ERPs).

Since then, as well as providing facilities for experimental research and undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and learning  in the area of Cognitive Neuroscience,  the CNLL has attracted a great deal of attention from external researchers in China and abroad. We regularly have short and longer-term research visitors and are always involved in collaborative projects with prestigious neuroscience research centres and universities in China, Europe and world-wide.

These international, interdisciplinary collaborations have resulted in high impact-factor publications on topics such as identifying the brain correlates of bilingual and monolingual language processing, developing multilingual data banks, exploring the factors influencing children’s processing of mathematics across different countries, and investigating the effects across the lifespan of language learning and other types of cognitive training, among other research directions.

About the Lab:

CNLL comprises a room (Trent 111) with a single-person Faraday cage and electrophysiology (EEG) equipment, and a room (PB 107) for behavioural experiments. 

The EEG lab was funded with a Research Committee grant of 750,000 RMB to Professor Margaret Gillon Dowens in 2012, and opened in 2014. 

Most of the research carried out in the EEG lab is related to identifying and measuring the electrical brain patterns of language processing in monolingual and bilingual participants in different age groups (grammatical and semantic processing in young and elderly people, visual processing of Chinese characters, etc.)  However, we have also recorded electrical brain patterns related to neuroeconomic decision-making, motor activity, etc.

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We also have a number of behavioural projects related to, e.g. language processing, mathematics processing in children, psychological well-being in students and older (retired) adults, cognitive enhancement of executive functions in students and seniors, among others. Some of these involve field work, such as collecting data in local schools, Universities for the Third Age, etc.

We collaborate with researchers in a number of local and international neuroscience research centres, some of whom have been working with us since the lab was set up. These include eminent researchers at European neuroscience centres, such as Profs. Manuel Carreiras, Nicola Molinaro and others the Basque Centre for Cognition, Brain and Language and Prof. Horacio Barber and Dr Maarje Van der Meij from the Psychology Neurocog group of La Laguna University etc. We also work with a number of very eminent researchers in other universities, e.g. Prof. Jon Andoni Dunabeitia at Nebrija University in Madrid and Prof. Jeannette Littlemore and Dr Gareth Carrol at Birmingham University. All of these top researchers have visited the CNLL and have contributed to our projects and events. We also collaborate with younger researchers trained here in our lab and now working at other institutions (e.g. Dr Dawei Wei at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University) or pursuing PhD/post-doctoral studies.

Why do we have a Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Lab at UNNC? 

Brain research is one of the key areas for research in the 21st century, with the EU’s Human Brain Project (1.3 billion dollars) and the USA’s Brain Initiative (100million dollars) indicating the importance of this research area internationally. The Chinese government is also aware of the benefits to be obtained from research in this area and is promoting this type of research. In the applied areas of Teaching and Learning and Public Health, it is now generally accepted that far more research is needed into how the brain learns and how this potential can be developed not only in childhood but across the lifespan into old age, providing benefits of greater mental and physical health, and reducing the economic and social costs to society of the inevitable aging of our populations. The research in our lab is related to precisely these areas-multilingual language processing, brain and communication across the lifespan, aging and learning, language  challenges such as dyslexia, specific language impairment, etc., as well as inter-disciplinary research into  brain-computer interfaces, neuroeconomics, and other fascinating, cutting-edge areas of research.

Teaching and training in CNLL:

The lab is not only productive in terms of research output but is a training centre for EEG and other laboratory-based techniques in language research. We train our UG and PG students in science-based techniques and methods, including NAA and lab internships and also PG students from other international and local institutions. CNLL also provides facilities for UG and PG students to carry out experiments for their module assignments in Academic Community (EDEN1004) Psycholinguistics (EDEN2000) and Brain and Language (EDEN3001).

We have many students studying for postgraduate qualifications in areas related to the cognitive neuroscience of language, after becoming interested in this area through research in our modules and lab work. For example, on the prestigious University of Edinburgh MSc in Developmental Linguistics. We also have alumni who were trained or involved in the CNLL studying postgraduate qualifications (MSC, MPhil, PhD, etc.) at Cambridge and Oxford universities, among other prestigious international establishments. 

Selection of recent CNLL projects and publications:

  • 2022-2023  Cognispan:  Exploring the effects of using AAP-based cognitive training programmes to improve thinking skills in younger and older populations (ongoing project) 
  • 2020-2022 The Multilingual Picture Database  Duñabeitia et.al  (Submitted to Scientific Data) pre-print available at: https://psyarxiv.com/x9c5p 
  • 2019-2022 Factors Associated with Children’s Understanding of Mathematical Equivalence: An Investigation across Six Countries  Şimşek E.,  Xenidou-Dervou.I., Hunter, J., Gillon Dowens, M., Suk Pang, J., Lee, Y., McNeil,N. ,Kirkland, P., & Jones, I. In: Journal of Educational Psychology (in press)
  • 2019-2020 Complex brain activity analysis and recognition based on multiagent methods Zhang, H. L., Liu, J. & Gillon Dowens, M., 13 Jun 2020, In: Concurrency Computation Practice and Experience. 34, 8, e5855.
  • 2018-2020 Efficacy of a computer-based cognitive training program to enhance planning skills in 5 to 7-year-old normally-developing children. Ríos Cruz, S. G., Olivares Pérez, T., Hernández Expósito, S., Bolívar Barón, H. D., Gillon Dowens, M. & Betancort Montesinos, M., 2 Jan 2020, In: Applied Neuropsychology: Child. 9, 1, p. 21-30 10 p.
  • 2017-2019   Lin Y., Wei D., & Gillon Dowens M.  Learning a new language at older ages: neuro-cognitive and psychological wellbeing effects from an ERP study. Presented at 21st Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP), 25th -28th of September, 2019, Tenerife, Spain
  • 2017-2019 Processing of task-irrelevant words of different frequency values: A visual mismatch negativity study Wei, D. & Gillon Dowens, M., 20 Mar 2019, In: NeuroReport. 30, 5, p. 383-388 6 p.
  • 2016-2018  Early lexical processing of Chinese words indexed by Visual Mismatch Negativity effects Wei, D., Gillon Dowens, M. & Guo, T., 1 Dec 2018, In: Scientific Reports. 8, 1, 1289.

 

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