Blog CRC1646

Psycholinguistics in Flanders (PiF) was first organized in 2002 at Ghent University as a workshop for young researchers with a keen interest in psychology of language. The 22^nd edition took place this year at University of Pavia, on 12-13 May with the participation of projects C01 and C05. The conference brought together researchers from a broad range of areas and approaches within language and cognition, primarily targeting early career researchers, fostering a collaborative environment for scientific exchange.

Over the course of two days, the participants had the chance to attend presentations on various topics including bilingualism and language control, metaphor processing, and statistical learning. The diversity of research questions, methods, and theoretical perspectives provided insights and stimulated engaging discussions on current developments in the field, with the valuable contributions of two keynote speakers Louisa Bogaerts (Ghent University) on “Statistical learning and language ability. Insights from individual differences” and Valentina Bambini (University of Pavia) on “Metaphor comprehension as a model case of inferential and multimodal brain dynamics”.

Project C01 presented two dissertation projects in the form of a poster. Amelie Ewald’s contribution was titled “Punsters vs. non-punsters: Individual differences in wordplay affinity in German” where she presented her ongoing work on investigating individual differences in wordplay affinity in German and its role for linguistic creativity. Dilara Balaban presented her poster titled “When Less Becomes More: The Effect of Lack of Inhibition on Linguistic Creativity” on the role that inhibition plays in the production of creative word formations. Valentina Alimenti, from project C05, presented her poster "The Affective Architecture of Semantic Memory: Evidence from the Verbal Fluency Task", examining the organization of semantic memory and the interplay between emotion and language, by analyzing and comparing semantic spaces of concepts derived from affective and non-affective verbal fluency tasks, contributing to the broader research on creativity and communication through the investigation of semantic memory dynamics and their relation to creative cognition.

Overall, participation in Psycholinguistics in Flanders provided C01 and C05 with an excellent opportunity for scientific exchange and engagement with current research in psycholinguistics. The conference offered valuable feedback on ongoing projects, introduced new methodological and theoretical perspectives, and facilitated discussions with researchers working on related topics. The insights gained from these interactions will contribute to future research within the CRC and to a deeper understanding of the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms underlying linguistic creativity.

See here for the book of abstracts

©Dilara Balaban

from left to right: Valentina Alimenti (C05), Amelie Ewald & Dilara Balaban (C01)

©Amelie Ewald

Conference Hall

©Amelie Ewald

Valentina Alimenti (C05) at her Poster