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L hald

Senior Lecturer in Psychology

Teaching responsibilities

  • MPSMD1PSY Introduction to Psychology
  • MPSMD2CPY Cognitive Psychology (Convenor)
  • MPS312 Thinking and Language (Convenor)
  • MPSMD3PRP Psychology Research Project

Research interests

My primary area of research is in the psychological and neurological basis of language processing and semantic memory. In particular I am interested in how you use your knowledge about the world, the discourse context and your knowledge about the speaker during language comprehension and production. I currently utilise event-related potentials and reaction time methods to explore these issues with monolinguals and with bilinguals.

Academic history

  • BA Psychology (University of California, San Diego)
  • MA Psychology and Cognitive Science (University of Arizona)
  • PhD Psychology (University of Arizona) , CLTHE (UCL)

Membership of professional organisations

  • Cognitive Neuroscience Society
  • Fulbright Alumni society– Previously elected board member

Recent publications

  • Hald, L. & Nicol, J. (Under revision). Pseudoword facilitation of naming pictures in a second language. Journal of Memory and Language.
  • Newton, C., Chiat, S., & Hald, L. (2008). Evaluation of a novel technique for assessing speech discrimination in children. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 22(4), 325-333.
  • Hald, L., Steenbeek-Planting, E. & Hagoort, P. (2007). The interaction of discourse context and world knowledge in online sentence comprehension. Evidence from the N400. Brain Research, 1146, 210-218.
  • Swinney, D., Nicol, J., Love, T., & Hald, L. (2006). The on-line study of sentence comprehension: An examination of dual-task paradigms. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 35, 215-231.
  • Hald, L., Bastiaansen, M., & Hagoort, P. (2006). EEG theta and gamma responses to semantic violations in online sentence processing. Brain and Language, 96(1), 90-105.
  • Hagoort, P., Hald, L., Bastiaansen, M., & Peterson, K. M. (2004). Integration of word meaning and world knowledge in language comprehension. Science, 304, (5669), 438-441. 30.927
  • Swinney, D., Love, T., Nicol, J., Bouck, V., Hald, L. (2000). Neuroanatomical Organization of Sentential Processing Operations: Evidence from aphasia on the (modular) processing of discontinuous dependencies. In R. Bastiannse & Y. Grodzinsky (Eds.) Grammatical disorders in aphasia: a neurolinguistic perspective. London: Whurr Publishers.
  • Swinney, D., Nicol, J., Love, T. and Hald, L. (2000). Methodological considerations in structural processing in children and adults. In Schwartz, R. (Ed.) Child Language Disorders. Erlbaum.

Recent conference presentations

  • Garnham, A., Hald, L., & Cowles, W. (2007). Focus and Conceptual distance in noun-phrase anaphor resolution: Testing theories of the mechanism of their interaction. Submitted to AMLaP-2007, Turku, Finland, Aug 24–27 2007.
  • Hald, L., Garnham, A. & Cowles, W. (2006). An ERP study of anaphor resolution with focused and non-focused antecedents. AMLaP-2006, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, Aug 30th–Sept 1st 2006 .
  • Hald, L., Kutas, M., Urbach, T.P. and Parhizkari, B. (2005). The N400 is not a brainwave. Negation and N400 effects for true and false sentences. 12th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society. New York, NY, April 2005.
  • Hald, L., Hagoort, P., and Van Galen, M. (2004). Semantic processing vs. world knowledge processing during on-line language comprehension: An auditory ERP study. 11th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, USA.
  • Hagoort, P., Hald, L., Petersson, K.M., Bastiaansen, M. & Berkum, J. (2003). How the brain handles sense and reference. 16th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Cambridge, MA, USA.
  • Hald, L. and Hagoort, P. (2002). The integration of semantic versus world-knowledge information during on-line sentence processing. 6th Annual Dutch Endo-Neuro Meeting, Doorwerth, the Netherlands.
  • Hagoort, P., Hald, L., Petersson, K.M. and Indefrey, P. (2002). Semantics vs. general knowledge processing. 8th International Conference on Functional Mapping of the Human Brain, Sendai, Japan.
  • Hagoort, P., Hald, L., Petersson, K.M. and Indefrey, P. (2002). Semantic versus world knowledge integration during sentence comprehension. 9th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, USA.
  • Barker, J., Hald, L. and Nicol, J. (2001). The role of suppression in the production and comprehension of agreement. 14th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Invited talks

  • Hald, L. (2006). How do different sources of information contribute to understanding language. Invited speaker at University of Essex Psychology Department, Wivenhoe, UK.
  • Hald, L. (2005). What you know about Amsterdam. World knowledge versus semantic knowledge during language comprehension. Invited speaker at the Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems colloquium series, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.
  • Hald, L. (2005). World knowledge versus semantic knowledge during language comprehension. Invited speaker at Scripps College Psychology Department, Claremont, CA, USA.
  • Hald, L. (2003). The integration of semantic versus world knowledge during on-line sentence comprehension. Invited speaker at the Center for Research in Language colloquium series, San Diego, CA, USA.
  • Hald, L. (2001). Semantic versus world knowledge during on-line sentence comprehension. Invited speaker at the Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics colloquium series, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Grants and fellowships

  • ESRC research grant, 2007
    A 15 month grant for £100,000 to hire a full time research assistant and experiment running supplies for a project using ERPs to look at language processing in discourse.
  • Awarded Max Planck research stipend, 2001-2002
    A one year stipend to study in the Netherlands at the F.C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
  • U.S. National Institute of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2003-2005
    A two year fellowship to work at the Center of Research in Language, UC San Diego, USA.
  • U.S. Fulbright fellowship, 2000-2001
    A one year fellowship to study in the Netherlands at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen.