Masako Hirotani has been appointed as a research associate in the Department of Neuropsychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany.
Hirotani, assistant professor of linguistics, SLaLS and the Institute of Cognitive Science will provide expertise in linguistics and psycholinguistics to a research group under the direction of Professor Angela D. Friederici, Director of the Neuropsychology Department. During her three-year term, Hirotani will be participating in two projects. The first will investigate the neuroanatomical basis for language processing including syntactic and semantic processing. The second will examine the on-line use of speech cues, such as pitch and pauses, and the impact of these on language processing.
“I will be using both brain imaging technique and brain waves (ERP) to take on these two projects,” said Hirotani. “I will also get my own ERP machine with my recent CFI award, so it’ll be even easier to collaborate and I can also collect some interesting data here at Carleton.”