BIOGRAPHY
I research human language understanding. In particular, I am interested in the process by which humans assign meaning to words and phrases. Linguists know that as humans process language we make decisions about the words millisecond by millisecond. For example, when someone pronounces the first syllable of "elephant" the human mind considers and discards words with the same first syllable, such as "eloquent" and "elevator," even before hearing the rest of the word. Given that moment-by-moment decision process, how do humans cope with uncertainty at every stage? Part of the research I do includes recording people's eye movements to a scene in front of them as they hear and process a sentence and related scene. The more we study about how humans process language, the more likely we may be able to apply that knowledge to artificial intelligence. However, there is still a huge amount of research that needs to be done before that can happen because the rules for comprehending language are extremely complex.
The same interest in language that initially made me want to become a novelist also led me to this research. I have strong intuitions about language and I enjoy scientific research. I believe people do their best research in an area in which they have an intuitive sense.
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