João Veríssimo

Verified

João verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

Verified

João verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

Learn more

• PhD
• Assistant Professor at University of Lisbon

Does the language processing system make use of abstract grammatical categories and representations that are not directly visible from the surface form of a linguistic expression? This study examines stem-formation processes and conjugation classes, a case of 'pure' morphology that provides insight into the role of grammatical structure in language...

Two opposing viewpoints have been advanced to account for morphological productivity, one according to which some knowledge is couched in the form of operations over variables, and another in which morphological generalization is primarily determined by similarity. We investigated this controversy by examining the generalization of Portuguese verb...

Is there an ideal time window for language acquisition after which nativelike representation and processing are unattainable? Although this question has been heavily debated, no consensus has been reached. Here, we present evidence for a sensitive period in language development and show that it is specific to grammar. We conducted a masked priming...

Many but not all cognitive abilities decline during ageing. Some even improve due to lifelong experience. The critical capacities of attention and executive functions have been widely posited to decline. However, these capacities are composed of multiple components, so multifaceted ageing outcomes might be expected. Indeed, prior findings suggest t...

Research in bilingualism often involves quantifying constructs of interest by the use of rating scales: for example, to measure language proficiency, dominance, or sentence acceptability. However, ratings are a type of ordinal data, which violates the assumptions of the statistical methods that are commonly used to analyse them. As a result, the va...

Determining the onset of experimental effects in timeseries data is important in psycholinguistics, because it allows for a more precise evaluation of accounts of the timecourse of different types of information during language processing, as well as their impact on predictive computations. Different methods have been proposed to determine the onse...

Determining the onset of experimental effects in timeseries data is important in psycholinguistics, because it allows for a more precise evaluation of accounts of the timecourse of different types of information during language processing, as well as their impact on predictive computations. Different methods have been proposed to determine the onse...

Determining the onset of experimental effects in timeseries data is important in psycholinguistics, because it allows for a more precise evaluation of accounts of the timecourse of different types of information during language processing, as well as their impact on predictive computations. Different methods have been proposed to determine the onse...

What makes Mandarin tones challenging for second language (L2) learners? Several recent studies suggest that two phonological universals, the Obligatory Contour Principle and the Tonal Markedness Scale, may constrain the L2 acquisition of Mandarin lexical tones, regardless of learners' first language. We assessed the role of these universals in L2...

Bayesian analyses have been increasingly adopted in psychology and linguistics as an addition (or replacement) to traditional frequentist methods. However, Bayesian methods are not yet widely applied in bilingualism research, possibly because existing introductions and tutorials have not been directed specifically at our field. The current paper hi...

We investigated whether learning and retaining vocabulary in a second language (L2) can be improved by leveraging a combination of memory enhancement techniques. Specifically, we tested whether combining retrieval practice, spacing, and related manipulations in a ‘multidomain’ pedagogical approach enhances vocabulary acquisition as compared to a ty...

Research shows that as toddlers grow and their vocabulary expands, their ability to recognize a referent after hearing its name worsens when they encounter similar-sounding words (e.g., dog-door) or words from the same category (e.g., dog-chicken) compared to unrelated words (e.g., dog-boat). This study investigated the impact of phonological and s...

Processing action words (e.g., fork, throw) engages neurocognitive motor representations, consistent with embodied cognition principles. Despite age-related neurocognitive changes that could affect action words, and a rapidly aging population, the impact of healthy aging on action-word processing is poorly understood. Previous research suggests tha...

We propose a novel statistical method for comparing the onsets of experimental effects in visual world eye-tracking data. Existing approaches do not allow researchers to statistically compare the onset of differences between experimental conditions or participant groups, although this is often of psycholinguistic relevance. One solution to this pro...

van Doorn et al. (2021) outlined various questions that arise when conducting Bayesian model comparison for mixed effects models. Seven response articles offered their own perspective on the preferred setup for mixed model comparison, on the most appropriate specification of prior distributions, and on the desirability of default recommendations. T...

Second language (L2) learners make gender errors with possessive pronouns. In production, these errors are modulated by the gender match between the possessor and possessee noun. We examined whether this so‐called match effect extends to L2 comprehension by attempting to replicate a recent study on gender predictions in first language (L1) German s...

van Doorn et al. (2021) outlined various questions that arise when conducting Bayesian model comparison for mixed effects models. Seven response articles offered their own perspective on the preferred setup for mixed model comparison, on the most appropriate specification of prior distributions, and on the desirability of default recommendations. T...

Mixed-effects models that include both fixed and random effects are widely used in the cognitive sciences because they are particularly suited to the analysis of clustered data. However, testing hypotheses about fixed effects in the presence of random effects is far from straightforward and a set of best practices is still lacking. In the target ar...

We investigated the processing of morphologically complex words adopting an approach that goes beyond estimating average effects and allows testing predictions about variability in performance. We tested masked morphological priming effects with English derived (‘printer’) and inflected (‘printed’) forms priming their stems (‘print’) in non-native...

Infants show impressive speech decoding abilities and detect acoustic regularities that highlight the syntactic relations of a language, often coded via non-adjacent dependencies (NADs, e.g., is singing). It has been claimed that infants learn NADs implicitly and associatively through passive listening and that there is a shift from effortless asso...

Infants show impressive speech decoding abilities and detect acoustic regularities that highlight the syntactic relations of a language, often coded via non-adjacent dependencies (NADs, e.g., is singing). It has been claimed that infants learn NADs implicitly and associatively through passive listening and that there is a shift from effortless asso...

Editorial introduction to the mini-series on ‘New statistical approaches and research practices for bilingualism research’, now in press at Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. Features contributions on: open data and materials (Bolibaugh, Vanek, & Marsden, 2021), preregistration (Mertzen, Lago, & Vasishth, 2021), statistical power (Brysbaert, 202...

Previous research has found that comprehenders sometimes predict information that is grammatically unlicensed by sentence constraints. An open question is why such grammatically unlicensed predictions occur. We examined the possibility that unlicensed predictions arise in situations of information conflict, for instance when comprehenders try to pr...

Although declarative memory declines with age, sex and education might moderate these weaknesses. We investigated effects of sex and education on nonverbal declarative (recognition) memory in 704 older adults (aged 58–98, 0–17 years of education). Items were drawings of real and made-up objects. Age negatively impacted declarative memory, though th...

Previous research has found that comprehenders sometimes predict information that is grammatically unlicensed by sentence constraints. An open question is why such grammatically unlicensed predictions occur. We examined the possibility that unlicensed predictions arise in situations of information conflict, for instance when comprehenders try to pr...

Parkinson’s disease (PD), which involves basal ganglia degeneration, affects language as well as motor function. However, which aspects of language are impaired in PD and under what circumstances remain unclear. We examined whether lexical and grammatical aspects of language are differentially affected in PD, and whether this dissociation is modera...

Bilingualism affects the structure of the brain in adults, as evidenced by experience-dependent grey and white matter changes in brain structures implicated in language learning, processing, and control. However, limited evidence exists on how bilingualism may influence brain development. We examined the developmental patterns of both grey and whit...

Bilingualism affects the structure of the brain in adults. This is indicated by experience-dependent gray and white matter changes in brain structures implicated in language learning, processing, or control. However, limited evidence exists on how bilingualism may influence brain development. We examined the developmental trajectories of both grey...

A growing body of experimental syntactic research has revealed substantial variation in the magnitude of island effects, not only across languages but also across different grammatical constructions. Adopting a well-established experimental design, the present study examines island effects in Spanish using a speeded acceptability judgment task. To...

This study addresses the question of whether and how growing up with more than one language shapes a child’s language impairment. Our focus is on Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in bilingual (Turkish–German) children. We specifically investigated a range of phenomena related to the so-called CP (Complementizer Phrase) in German, the hierarchical...

The study of bilingualism has charted a dramatically new, important, and exciting course in the 21st century, benefiting from the integration in cognitive science of theoretical linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology (especially work on the higher-level cognitive processes often called executive function or executive control). Cur...

The field of cognitive aging has seen considerable advances in describing the linguistic and semantic changes that happen during the adult life span to uncover the structure of the mental lexicon (i.e., the mental repository of lexical and conceptual representations). Nevertheless, there is still debate concerning the sources of these changes, incl...

This study addresses the question of how age of acquisition (AoA) affects grammatical processing, specifically with respect to inflectional morphology, in bilinguals. We examined experimental data of more than 100 participants from the Russian/German community in Berlin, all of whom acquired Russian from birth and German at different ages. Using th...

The medial-temporal-lobe-based declarative memory system is critical for everyday life. Evidence suggests that learning verbal information in declarative memory declines with age, but that sex and early-life education may moderate these weaknesses. However, the status of nonverbal declarative memory in aging remains unclear. We examined nonverbal m...

The field of cognitive aging has seen considerable advances in describing the linguistic and semantic changes that happen during the adult life span to uncover the structure of the mental lexicon (i.e., the mental repository of lexical and conceptual representations). Nevertheless, there is still debate concerning the sources of these changes, incl...

Speaking a late-learned second language (L2) is supposed to yield more variable and less consistent output than speaking one’s first language (L1), particularly with respect to reliably adhering to grammatical morphology. The current study investigates both internal processes involved in encoding morphologically complex words – by recording event-r...

To what extent is morphological representation in different languages dependent on semantic information? Unlike Indo-European languages, the Semitic mental lexicon has been argued to be purely “morphologically driven”, with complex stems represented in a decomposed format (root + vowel pattern) irrespectively of their semantic properties. We have e...

Working memory (WM), which underlies the temporary storage and manipulation of information, is critical for multiple aspects of cognition and everyday life. Nevertheless, research examining WM specifically in older adults remains limited, despite the global rapid increase in human life expectancy. We examined WM in a large sample (N = 754) of healt...

This study extends research on morphological processing in late bilinguals to a rarely examined language type, Semitic, by reporting results from a masked-priming experiment with 58 non-native, advanced, second-language (L2) speakers of Hebrew in comparison with native (L1) speakers. We took advantage of a case of 'pure morphology' in Hebrew, the s...

The keynote article (Mayberry & Kluender, 2017) makes an important contribution to questions concerning the existence and characteristics of sensitive periods in language acquisition. Specifically, by comparing groups of non-native L1 and L2 signers, the authors have been able to ingeniously disentangle the effects of maturation from those of early...

Do properties of individual languages shape the mechanisms by which they are processed? By virtue of their non-concatenative morphological structure, the recognition of complex words in Semitic languages has been argued to rely strongly on morphological information and on decomposition into root and pattern constituents. Here, we report results fro...

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: We compared the processing of morphologically complex derived vs. inflected forms in native speakers of German and highly proficient native Russian second language (L2) learners of German. Design/methodology/approach: We measured morphological priming effects for derived and inflected German words. T...

This chapter discusses the role of morphological and morphosyntactic information in learning and processing inflected word forms, a controversial issue in language acquisition and language processing research. We present results from i) the development of verb inflection (specifically perfective vs. imperfective past tense) in Greek child language...

In this article we discuss methods for investigating grammatical processing in bilinguals. We will present a methodological approach that relies on: (i) linguistic theory (in our case, morphology) for the construction of experimental materials; (ii) a design that allows for direct (within-experiment, within-participant, and within-item) comparisons...

The GSC model presented in the keynote article constitutes a significant theoretical development, not only as a model of bilingual code-mixing, but also as a general framework that brings together symbolic grammars and graded representations. The authors are to be commended for successfully integrating a theory of grammatical knowledge with the vol...

The Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) posits that Specific Language Impairment (SLI) can be largely explained by abnormalities of brain structures that subserve procedural memory. The PDH predicts impairments of procedural memory itself, and that such impairments underlie the grammatical deficits observed in the disorder. Previous studies have in...

In the present thesis, the mental representation and processing of conjugational stems in Portuguese is investigated. Verbal stems in Romance languages are a case of ‘pure’ morphology, which provides insight into the role of grammatical structure in language processing. The motivation for the present work is the striking discrepancy in Portuguese v...

The Big Five Inventory (BFI) is a self-report measure designed to assess the high-order personality traits of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness. As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, the BFI was translated from English into 28 languages and administered to 17,837 individuals from 56 nati...

As part of the International Sexuality Description Project, 16,954 participants from 53 nations were administered an anonymous survey about experiences with romantic attraction. Mate poaching--romantically attracting someone who is already in a relationship--was most common in Southern Europe, South America, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe and w...

Gender differences in the dismissing form of adult romantic attachment were investigated as part of the International Sexuality Description Project—a survey study of 17,804 people from 62 cultural regions. Contrary to research findings previously reported in Western cultures, we found that men were not significantly more dismissing than women acros...

Evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that men and women possess both long-term and short-term mating strategies, with men's short-term strategy differentially rooted in the desire for sexual variety. In this article, findings from a cross-cultural survey of 16,288 people across 10 major world regions (including North America, South America,...