Faculty of Linguistics & Literary Studies  

Modern psycholinguistics investigates the cognitive foundations of human communication, and in particular communication involving spoken language. In contrast to classical linguistics, which is mainly interested in the structure of language, psycholinguistics focuses on language use. As a subfield of cognitive science, psycholinguistics is a highly multidisciplinary field, involving cognitive psychology, computer science, neurocognitive sciences, philosophy and linguistics.

The primary question guiding the psycholinguistics research group at Bielefeld University is what the cognitive processes are that enable humans to communicate effectively and coherently with one another. Face-to-face dialogue is taken to be the canonical interaction format for which the human communicative faculty (including language) has evolved. To study this faculty, combining several research methods is essential. In addition to ?classical? psycholinguistic methods such as reaction time and EEG experiments, mathematical modelling and qualitative analysis of videotaped interaction sequences in lab or natural situations are essential tools to enhance our understanding of human communication.

As the human cognitive and communicative skills have not primarily evolved in order to press buttons or generate electrical skull signals, one of the explicit goals of the psycholinguistics research group in Bielefeld is to try to maximize the ecological validity of the research.

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