30770 - Psycholinguistics (2) (2nd cycle)

Learning outcomes

The learning objective of this course is to understand how cognitive processes interact with language processes. Applications of psycholinguistics in different fields will be examined.

Course contents

In order to attend the Psycholinguistic (2) LM course (30 hours of lessons - 6 cfu) it is necessary to attend to Psicolinguistica (1) LM (30 hours of lessons - 6 cfu).

The aim is to deepen some representative themes of the main problems and perspectives that characterize contemporary experimental research in psychology on language, taking advantage of the skills acquired in the first module (Psycholinguistics 1).

The applied nature of the course will aim at address the issue of the experimental research on language.

At the beginning of the course the teacher will present the main topic as being representative of the main issues and views that characterize the contemporary research in cognitive psychology on language. Students will be required to read a paper and comment and discuss it in class under the supervision of the professor. Given the nature of the course, the attendance becomes very important for the preparation of the exam.

The goal is to deepen a current topic of debate in the scientific community and to collectively co-construct a critical elaboration of this topic.

Psycholinguistics (2) (LM) (6 CFU) will start on the IV period for a total of 30 hours of lessons.

Readings/Bibliography

The Bibliography differs according to whether the student is attending or not attending, specifically:

- Attending students: In addition to the bibliography required for the Psicolinguistica (1) LM exam, students who have also attended Psicolinguistica (2) LM have to study the paper they presented during the course and 2 other papers discussed during the course

- Not attending students: In addition to the bibliography required for the Psicolinguistica (1) LM exam, students who have not attended Psicolinguistica (2) LM must study 5 articles, more specifically:

- the three following articles:

1.  Barsalou, L.W. (2009). Simulation, situated conceptualization, and prediction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 364, pp. 1281-1289.
2. Caruana F., Borghi, A.M. (2013). Embodied Cognition: A new psychology. Italian Journal of Psychology, XXXV, pp. 23-48.
3.  Mahon, B.Z., Caramazza, A. (2008). A critical look to the embodied cognition hypothesis and a new proposal for grounding conceptual content. Journal of Physiology, 102, pp. 59-70.

- two papers from the list as follows:

1. Adornetti, I., Chiera, A., Ferretti, F. (2018). Embodied cognition e origine del linguaggio: il ruolo cruciale del gesto. Lebenswelt, 13, 43 - 56
2. Al-Azary, H., Katz, A.N. (2021). Do metaphorical sharks bite? Simulation and abstraction in metaphor processing, Memory & Cognition, 49, 557 - 570
3. Chiricò, D. (2019). La voce. Prima opera d'arte dell'umanità. Reti, saperi, linguaggi, 6, 279-294
4. Chu, R., Qingqing, Z., Kathleen, A., Zhao, W., Yunfei, L. (2025). Linguistic synesthesia and embodiment: A study based on Mandarin modality exclusivity norms. Language Sciences, 109, 1-15
5. Dove G. (2020), More than a scaffold: language is a neuroenhancement, Cognitive neuropsychology, 37(5-6), 288-311
6. Fernyhough C., Borghi A. M. (2023). Inner speech as language process and cognitive tool. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 27, 1180-1993
7. Garello, S., Ferroni, F., Gallese, V., Cuccio, V., Ardizzi, M. (2024) From breaking bread to breaking hearts: embodied simulation and action language comprehension. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 39, 489-500
8. Rucińska, Z., Fondelli, T., Gallagher, S. (2021). Embodied Imagination and Metaphor Use in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Healthcare, 9, 200
9. Sanches de Oliveira, G. & Bullock Oliveira, M. (2022). Bilingualism is always cognitively advantageous, but this doesn’t mean what you think it means. Frontiers in Psychology, 13:867166
10. Secora, K. Emmorey, K. (2015). The Action-Sentence Compatibility Effect in ASL: the role of semantics vs. perception. Language and Cognition, 7, 305– 318
11. Villani C. (2018). L'Embodied Cognition e la sfida dei concetti astratti. Un approccio multidimensionale. Rivista internazionale di filosofia e psicologia, 9, 239-253
12. Vulchanova, M., Vulchanov, V., Allen, M. (2023). Word learning in ASD: the sensorimotor, the perceptual and the symbolic. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 7, 9-22

The articles can be found online from the Unibo library portal. To download them remotely from your computer, when you are not connected to the Unibo Wifi network, you need to access via the Unibo proxy service (link: http://www.biblioteche.unibo.it/portale/strumenti/proxy).

Students who have problems finding the article, are invited to contact the professor.
Students who are interested in other specific subjects (for degree thesis or research projects, etc.), are asked to contact the professor.

Teaching methods

Lectures with power point presentations and shared discussion of the articles presented by the students, moderated and integrated by the professor.

During each lecture, specific research studies in the psycholinguistics filed will be presented and discussed.

The Power Point presentation will be available on Virtuale

Assessment methods

The final exam will be an oral exam.

Those who have chosen to take the 12 credits exam will have to take the first part (Psycholinguistics 1 - 6 credits) in written mode (multiple choice test) and the second part (Psycholinguistics 2 - 6 credits) in oral mode.

To take the Psycholinguistics exam (1) (first part - 6 credits) one, please refer to the exams published on Almaesami.

To take the Psycholinguistics exam (2) (second part - 6 credits), please contact the professor by email (l.lugli@unibo.it).

The exam aims at verifying:

1. the competence of the acquired contents

2. the level of assimilation and critical-conceptual elaboration of the proposed contents

3. the ability to orientate between the main lines of interpretation

They will be evaluated with marks of excellence:

• the students' acquisition of an organic vision of the topics addressed in class together with their critical use

They will be evaluated with discrete marks:

• a mnemonic knowledge of the subject,
• a capacity for synthesis and analysis

They will be evaluated with insufficient marks:

• knowledge gaps
• lack of orientation in the bibliographic materials offered during the course

The exam offers a further opportunity for discussion with the teacher, a comparison that the student is invited to look for during the lessons, intervening in person with the request for clarification or with proposals for further information.

Foreign students who feel more confortable to take the exam in English, are kindly asked to contact the professor in order to arrange the examination procedure.

Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders have the right to special accommodations according to their condition, following an assessment by the Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD. Please do not contact the teacher but get in touch with the Service directly to schedule an appointment. It will be the responsibility of the Service to determine the appropriate adaptations. For more information, visit the page:

https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students

Teaching tools

Participation (also online) in experimental sessions for the deepening of experimental paradigms

Office hours

See the website of Luisa Lugli