Project Language as a Window into Cognition: The Case of Weak Syntactic Islands in Native Speakers of English Program Margo Katherine Wilke Undergraduate Research Internship Program Term Fall 2025 Status Closed Research Area Linguistics Description What do speakers know about the way that their native language works, and how do they use that knowledge to understand the language? These are fundamental questions in psycholinguistics, and my research program seeks to contribute by investigating how speakers interpret sentences as they unfold one word at a time. Specifically, my current set of studies seek to determine whether native speakers of English attempt in such cases to interpret sentences in ways that are logical but actually ungrammatical. The studies do this by conducting experiments in which participants press a key to move from one word to the next as they read a sentence and by comparing the amount of time it takes to read important words in different types of sentences. Based on prior research, it is predicted that speakers will not consider interpretations that are logical but ungrammatical, which would mean that knowledge of grammar plays a determining role in our moment-by-moment linguistic perceptions. Supervisor Kyle Robert Swanson Mentor Kyle Robert Swanson Type of work required Intern tasks may include:
- Reading seminal articles,
- Developing stimuli,
- Setting up experiments on online platforms,
- Recruiting participants,
- Cleaning and analyzing data in Excel and R,
- Participating in the Undergraduate Research Conference, and/or
- Participating in meetings of ExLing, the Purdue Experimental Linguistics Lab.

** No prior knowledge is necessary; comprehensive training can be provided in all areas. Websites Qualifications - Ability to communicate clearly - Attentiveness to detail - Interest in language - Willingness to learn Credit Hours 0 Weekly Hours 5 (estimated)