Nomi Olsthoorn
Whereabouts
As of September 2011 I work at the department of Psychology at the Univeristy of Lancaster in the UK.
Research Interests
I am interested in the cognitive architecture of language processing, the relationship between language perception and language production, grammatical processing and syntactic priming from a psycholinguistic point of view.
In addition to this my research focuses on individual differences in L1 and L2 processing, and the cognitive and linguistic factors that contribute to interindividual variation.
Research topics
- Studies in Listening Proficiency:
the project aims to unravel the cognitive and linguistic determinants of succesfulsegmenting and comprehending oral language in native and non-native speakers. What is the effect of aging, level of education and individual differences in working memory span? Can we find evidence for a common core of basic language proficiency? (with Sible Andringa and Jan Hulstijn, ACLC University of Amsterdam). - Native and non-native speaker effects of Verbal Working Memory assessment.
- The relationship between grammatical encoding and decoding. This question is addressed both directly, using dual-tasks to determine whether encoding and decoding processes can work simultaneously and independently (they cannot), and indirectly by means of syntactic priming experiments that aim to measure overlap in representations (with Gerard Kempen, Leiden University, MPI for Psycholinguistcs and Simone Sprenger, MPI for psycholinguistics, Groningen University).
- Reaction time effects of Syntactic priming and the relationship between functional and positional syntactic processing. (with Gerard Kempen, Leiden Univeristy and MPI for psycholinguistcs, Nijmegen)
- Individual differerences in Artificial Language Learning aptitude. (with Padraic Monaghan, Lancaster University)
Publications
Kempen, G.A.M., Olsthoorn, N.M. & Sprenger, S. (2011). Grammatical workspace sharing duringlanguage production and language comprehension: evidence from grammatical multitasking. Language and Cognitive Processes. Andringa, S.J., N.M. Olsthoorn & J.H. Hulstijn (in preparation). Individual differences innative speaker utterance comprehension. Olsthoorn, N.M., S.J. Andringa & J.H. Hulstijn (submitted). Visual and Auditory digit span performance in native and non-native speakers . Olsthoorn , N.M. & Andringa, S.J. (2009). Working memory is more than what is measured by a WM task: A case in point: Segmentation proficiency and verbal working memory. In Backus et al. (eds). Artikelen van de Zesde Anéla-conferentie. Delft: Eburon. Olsthoorn, N.M. (2007). Relationships between grammatical encoding and decoding. An experimental psycholinguistic study. PhD Thesis Leiden University. Kempen, G., Olsthoorn, N. & Janssens, G. (2000) Taaltris Engels: de leukste manier om Grammatica Engels te oefenen! (educational CD-Rom). Bruna Multimedia, Utrecht the Netherlands Kempen, G., Olsthoorn, N., Megens, J. & van Tol, L. (1999). Taaltris Frans: de leukste manier om Grammatica Frans te oefenen! (educational CD-Rom). Bruna Multimedia, Utrecht the Netherlands Kempen, G. Olsthoorn, N. & van Willigen, W. (1998) Taaltris Duits: de leukste manier om Grammatica Duits te oefenen! (educational CD-Rom). Bruna Multimedia, Utrecht the Netherlands
Invited talks
Native and non-native speaker effects in Working Memory and Listening proficiency. Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University. Second Language Learning Research Group. 7 December 2009.
Selected Presentations
Please contact me if you are interested in the slides:
Andringa, S.J. Olsthoorn , N.M. & Hulstijn, J.H. Individual differences in native speaker utterance comprehension. Anéla conference, April 6, 2010
Andringa, S.J. Olsthoorn, N.M. & Hulstijn, J.H. Individual differences in native and non-native speaker spoken utterance comprehension. Eurosla conference, September 4, 2010
Andringa, S.J. & Olsthoorn, N.M. (2009). The role of short-term working memory capacity in L1 and L2 utterance comprehension. In: Proceedings of the 7 th International Symposium on Bilingualism , July 2009, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Kempen, G.A.M., Olsthoorn, N.M. & Sprenger, S. (2009). Entanglement of grammatical encoding and decoding: Overlapping grammatical processing resources for language production and comprehension. Proceedings of the annual CUNY conference on sentence processing , to be held March 2009 Universityofsouthern California, Davis, CA, USA. Olsthoorn, N.M. & Kempen, G.A.M. (2002) Syntactic Priming . In: Proceedings of the Binannual CUNY Conference on sentence processing, City University of New York, New York. CUNY/University Press, New York. Olsthoorn, N.M., Kempen, G.A.M. &Van Breugel, C.F. (1999). Interactive Multimediafor Grammar and Writing Instruction . Paper presented at the 8th biannualconference Computer Assisted Language Learning, Exeter, England. Olsthoorn, N.M. & Kempen, G.A.M. (1999). The cognitive architecture of grammatical encoding and decoding: evaluating the single-processor hypothesis using a picture-sentence interference test . In: Vandierendocnk, Brysbaert, Van Der Goten, (1999). Proceedings of the XI th Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology . ESCoP/Academia Press, Gent, Belgie.