People in the Psycholinguistics Laboratory

Janine McGloin - Speech Pathologist and Research Assistant
I am a speech pathologist currently working as lead research assistant on the project with Dr Joanne Arciuli at the University of Sydney. I have been collecting data on visual statistical learning, vocabulary, linguistic stress, and reading accuracy and comprehension with adults. I will soon be going into state and catholic schools using similar experiments to collect normative data with children aged 5 to 12years, and language impaired children in the Communication Disorders Treatment and Research Centre. The study will contribute to the understanding of the development and application of linguistic stress, and in the long term to assessment tools and intervention strategies, curriculum planning and teaching approaches. I enjoy being part of the project team. I have a particular interest in literacy and learning, and have previously worked on the word learning in children project also at the University of Sydney.

Dr Ian Simpson - Postdoctoral Fellow
I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Discipline of Speech Pathology. More details about this work can be found here. In a former life I was a computer programmer and my role in the Psycholinguistics Laboratory is to create programs for the various experiments being run, along with analysis tools to process the data. These are usually written in a combination of e-Prime and visual basic.

Tim Tooke - Research Assistant
I am currently in my third year of a Bachelor of Speech and Hearing Sciences at Macquarie University. I hope to continue studying toward a Masters of Speech and Language Pathology. In particular I am interested in acquired speech and language disorders resulting from head injuries and the resulting intervention strategies. Currently, I am also a research assistant examining stress assignment with Dr Arciuli. My job involves going into primary schools and collecting a range of data using several tasks involving reading, nonword decoding, picture description and implicit learning. In my spare time I am interested in running, spending time with family and friends, travelling in Australia and overseas and foreign language learning.

Joanne Lindelauf - Research Assistant
Joanne works as a research assistant on Dr Arciuli’s research study "To Stress or Not to Stress: A Cross-linguistic Investigation of Lexical Stress Using Corpus Analyses, Behavioural Testing and Computational Modelling". She also works as a primary school teacher and is studying psychology through Charles Sturt University’s distance education program.

Alessio Barsaglini - International Visiting Researcher
I am a Clinical Psychologist from the University Degli Studi di Padova, situated in Padua, in northern Italy. I am visiting Australia until June to carry out research into "the linguistic markers of deception in Italian speakers". This work is being carried out in collaboration with Dr Joanne Arciuli, in the Faculty of Health Sciences.
I will be recruiting participants from the Italian speaking community residing in Australia. The study will contribute to the understanding of the linguistic processes and features characterising lying versus truth telling.

Berna Gurisik - Honours Student
I am currently undertaking an honours thesis under the supervision of Joanne Arciuli and Natalie Munro to investigate auditory processing abilities in children with SLI via a Dichotic Listening task. We are also interested to explore how these results may or may not correlate with their reading rate, accuracy and comprehension and other skills such as statistical learning. Auditory processing difficulties and reading difficulties are quite frequently reported in this population however little research has been conducted to explore the extent of the relationship between the two. It is hoped that by conducting this research, we will gain a greater understanding of language processing in SLI in the hope that it will influence future intervention approaches. Another area of clinical interest is that of neurological speech disorders. Aphasia is a particular interest and in the future I would like to conduct a study to extend our knowledge in the treatment of aphasia and how we can go about improving social re-integration of this population.

Kirsten Stokes - Honours Student
Hi, my name is Kirsten Stokes. I am an honours student in the Discipline of Speech Pathology at the University of Sydney. The research I am undertaking investigates the relationship between auditory discrimination and reading abilities of primary school aged children with Autism. I am researching this in order to gain greater understanding of specific aspects of cognitive function and its role in literacy development. I am hoping that these results will assist those working on literacy with children with Autism. I am also interested in working with adults and other specific populations, such as those with a stutter and disability populations. As I am still learning I am yet to decide the area in which I enjoy working in most! There are so many options!

Lisa Lim - Postgraduate Masters Student
I am a speech pathologist currently undertaking a distance research study with Dr Joanne Arciuli (primary supervisor), Dr Natalie Munro and Dr Susan Rickard Liow. I am investigating the reading (and spelling) ability of children, aged 6-12 years, with Down syndrome in Singapore. The study looks at literacy skills and a range of subprocesses thought to underpin reading ability (such as spelling, IQ, vocabulary, language, phonological awareness skills) in children with Down syndrome compared to typically developing children. I am particularly interested in the nature and effects of phonological awareness in Down syndrome and whether this is a major obstacle to effective reading. I am also keen to explore the effect of bilingualism, as well as the role of gender in literacy outcomes. I will be recruiting children from the Down Syndrome Association and student care centres in Singapore. The study’s results will aid in informing educators working on literacy intervention in the Down syndrome population. I enjoy working with children and look forward to visiting my supervisors and former lecturers at the University of Sydney again.

Gina Villar - PhD Student
I am currently undertaking a PhD as a UPA scholarship recipient, under the primary supervision of Dr Joanne Arciuli. Having graduated With Distinction from a Graduate Diploma of Psychology at Charles Sturt University (CSU), I was awarded an academic scholarship to undertake a Bachelor of Social Science (Psych) (Hons). Upon graduation, I was awarded the Australian Psychological Society (APS) Prize for the graduate with the most distinguished record in an Honours year of Psychology (2008) from CSU. I am an Associate member of the APS and am eligible for provisional registration as a Psychologist with the Psychologists Registration Board of NSW.

My research interests lie in the field of deception, specifically the identification of key linguistic features that may be used to discriminate between deceptive and truthful communications. Through my honours project I investigated linguistic cues to deception in the speech of a convicted murderer. Using speech samples elicited under two different speech conditions – media interviews and wire-tapped telephone conversations –the characteristics of language behaviour during lying compared to truth-telling were investigated under real-life high-stakes conditions. Jo generously contributed her extensive psycholinguistic and research expertise through her supervision of that project, then afterwards in the preparation of a manuscript for submission for publication. We plan to continue the investigation of linguistic cues to deception through my PhD research. Dr Helen Paterson, a lecturer in forensic psychology from the University of Sydney’s School of Psychology, has agreed to provide co-supervision and I am grateful for the combined expertise Jo and Helen will bring to my PhD.