I am a Ph.D. candidate (!) in
Linguistics at USC.
I am interested in psycho- and computational
linguistics, and pragmatics / semantics.
B.S. Computer science, Northeastern University, 1998
M.A. Linguistics, University of Southern California, 2007
Email: tavano at usc dot edu
Research
My current work in psycholinguistics is in experimental pragmatics, specifically on processing of scalar implicature, for which I do a fair amount of eyetracking and eyetracking methodology research. CUNY 09 / XPRAG 09 poster
I also study pronouns and did a another eyetracking experiment on interpretation of stressed and unstressed pronouns under varying discourse coherence relations (based on Andrew Kehler's work) Abstract CUNY 08 Poster
Info on current experiments for potential participants
Emphatic reflexives are also a good time.
In computational linguistics, I have worked with the Pedagogical Discourse Project (PedDiscourse) group at ISI, and in Andrew Gordon's group at ICT studying commonsense psychology among other things. I believe strongly that working NLP applications based on psycholinguistics study and brain models are desirable and possible, and I am working on implementing one using Wordnet that originated as a project for CSCI 564 Brain Theory and Artificial Intelligence, taught by Prof. Arbib.
Non-research
My husband, James Honaker, wrote Amelia, which continues to save babies all across the world.
You can hear me read some public domain audiobooks at Librivox.
Get some relentlessly-branded coffee and internet, in Eagle Rock.
last updated 1/23/09