Episodic retrieval plays a functional-adaptive role in supporting divergent creative thinking, the ability to creatively combine different pieces of information. However, the same constructive memory process that provides this benefit can also lead to memory errors. Prior behavioral work has shown that there is a positive correlation between the…

In recent years, converging evidence has suggested that prediction plays a role in language comprehension, as it appears to do in information processing in a range of cognitive domains. Much of the evidence for this comes from the N400, a neural index of the processing of meaningful stimuli which has been argued to index the extent to which a word…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is clinically characterized by social and communication difficulties as well as repetitive behaviors. Many children with ASD also suffer from anxiety, which has been associated with alterations in amygdala structure. In this work, the association between amygdala subnuclei volumes and anxiety was assessed in a cohort…

The present dissertation reports two experiments that investigate the processing of English wh-dependencies by including language-specific (experiment I) and domain-general (experiment II) factors. We looked into both event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and time-frequency representations (TFRs) of the EEG signal so as to obtain a more thorough…

Reading is a complex, uniquely human invention for communication through print. It is a critical ability for making progress in education. Students with reading difficulties, the most common learning disability, struggle with reading fluency and accuracy. Skilled reading is enabled by the coordination of a network of brain regions interconnected…

Purpose: This study investigated whether sensory inhibition in children may be associated with speech perception-in-noise performance. Additionally, gating networks associated with sensory inhibition were identified via standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA), and the detectability of the cortical auditory evoked…

Background: Humans often use co-speech gestures to promote effective communication. Attention has been paid to the cortical areas engaged in the processing of co-speech gestures. Aims: To investigate the neural network underpinned in the processing of co-speech gestures and to observe whether there is a relationship between areas involved in…

In this thesis, I use a combination of simulations and empirical data to demonstrate that a small set of structural and functional principles - the basic tenets of predictive coding theory - succinctly accounts for a very wide range of properties in the language processing system. Predictive coding approximates hierarchical Bayesian inference via…

As science and technology rapidly progress, it becomes increasingly important to understand how individuals comprehend expository technical texts that explain these advances. This study examined differences in individual readers' technical comprehension performance and differences among texts, using functional brain imaging to measure regional…

Accelerated longitudinal designs (ALDs) provide an opportunity to capture long developmental periods in a shorter time framework using a relatively small number of assessments. Prior literature has investigated whether univariate developmental processes can be characterized with data obtained from ALDs. However, many important questions in…

Previous research links resting frontal gamma power to key developmental outcomes in young neurotypical (NT) children and infants at risk for language impairment. However, it remains unclear whether gamma power is specifically associated with language or with more general cognitive abilities among young children diagnosed with autism spectrum…

Understanding language requires readers and listeners to cull meaning from fast-unfolding messages that often contain conflicting cues pointing to incompatible ways of interpreting the input (e.g., "The cat was chased by the mouse"). This article reviews mounting evidence from multiple methods demonstrating that cognitive control plays…

Eye movement patterns and consistency during face recognition are both associated with recognition performance. We examined whether they reflect different mechanisms through EEG decoding. Eighty-four participants performed an old-new face recognition task with eye movement pattern and consistency quantified using eye movement analysis with hidden…

Associations between age, resting-state (RS) peak-alpha-frequency (PAF = frequency showing largest amplitude alpha activity), and thalamic volume (thalamus thought to modulate alpha activity) were examined to understand differences in RS alpha activity between children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically-developing children (TDC)…

Purpose: The biological mechanisms underlying developmental stuttering remain unclear. In a previous investigation, we showed that there is significant spatial correspondence between regional gray matter structural anomalies and the expression of genes linked to energy metabolism. In the current study, we sought to further examine the relationship…