Dynamic Psycholinguistics

Language as a self-organizing system: nonlinear dynamics and cognitive dynamics as tools for the psychological study of language.

One of my primary interests has always been in the area of psycholinguistics. Specifically, I am most interested in how nonlinear dynamical systems and cognitive dynamics can offer new insights into the study of human language. Both approaches are unique strands of research, but are nevertheless closely related. In dynamical systems, the general thesis is that language operates as a self-organizing system, and thus signatures of nonlinear dynamics should be evident in language representation and use. In cognitive dynamics, the emphasis is on the covariance of cognition and action as it unfolds in real-time. Both strands offer powerful methodological tools, including arm trajectory analysis, cross-recurrence analysis, 1/f analysis, and neural networks. In collaboration with, and using techniques pioneered by Dr. Rick Dale, I explore the psychological study of language as a dynamic psycholinguistics.

Selected papers

  • Dale, R., & Duran, N. D. (2011). The cognitive dynamics of negated sentence verification. Cognitive Science, 35, 983–996. [PDF]
  • Coco, M. I., & Duran, N. D. (2016). When expectancies collide: Action dynamics reveal the interaction between stimulus plausibility and congruency. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23, 1920–1931. [PDF]
  • Crossley, S., Duran, N. D., Kim, Y., Lester, T., & Clark, S. (2018). The action dynamics of native and non-native speakers of English in processing active and passive sentences. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 8, 597–621. [PDF]
  • Dale, R., Fusaroli, R., Duran, N. D., & Richardson, D. C. (2013). The self-organization of human interaction. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 59, 43–95. [PDF]
  • Duran, N. D., Dale, R., & Richardson, D. C. (2014). A mass assembly of associative mechanisms: A dynamical systems account of natural social interaction. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37. [PDF]

See the full list on the publications page.