Dr. Laura Anna Ciaccio

Adresse: Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin    Raum: JK 31/224    E-Mail: laura.ciaccio@fu-berlin.de    Telefon: +49 (0)30 838-60982

Short bio:

I joined the Brain Language Lab as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in 2021. Before this, I studied foreign languages and linguistics in Milan, and then obtained a PhD in cognitive science at the University of Potsdam. During my linguistics studies, I developed an interest in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. For my master's thesis, I worked on a project testing the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in German and Italian speakers with color anomia, as well as on language unimpaired speakers. I then moved to the University of Potsdam, where I worked from 2016 to 2021, first as a research assistant, and then as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer. In Potsdam, I mostly worked on how morphologically complex words are processed in the human mind/brain, in both language impaired and unimpaired populations, as well as in multilingual speakers, combining behavioral and EEG data. My research interests broadly encompass the mechanisms underlying word learning and processing in the human mind/brain, and specifically how humans process the meaning (semantics) and internal structure (morphology) of words.

Publications:

• Sulpizio, S., Günther, F., Badan, L., Basclain, B., Brysbaert, M., Chan, Y. L., Ciaccio, L. A., Dudschig, C., Duñabeitia, J. A., Fasoli, F., Ferrand, L., Filipović Đurđević, D., Guerra, E., Hollis, G., Job, R., Jornkokgoud, K., Kahraman, H., Kgolo-Lotshwao, N., Kinoshita, S., … Marelli, M. (2024). Taboo language across the globe: A multi-lab study. Behavior Research Methods. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-024-02376-6
  Ciaccio, L. A., Bürki, A., & Clahsen, H. (2023). Inter-individual variability in morphological processing: An ERP study on German plurals. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 67, 101138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2023.101138
• Ciaccio, L. A., & Veríssimo, J. (2022). Investigating variability in morphological processing with Bayesian distributional models. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29, 2264-2274. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-022-02109-w
• Ciaccio, L.A., Burchert, F., & Semenza, C. (2020). Derivational morphology in agrammatic aphasia: A comparison between prefixed and suffixed words. Frontiers in Psychology, 11 1070. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01070
• Ciaccio, L.A., Kgolo, N., & Clahsen, H. (2020). Morphological decomposition in Bantu: a masked priming study on Setswana prefixation, Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2020.1722847
• Ciaccio, L.A., & Clahsen, H. (2020). Variability and consistency in first and second language processing: A masked morphological priming study on prefixation and suffixation. Language Learning, 70(1), 103- 136. https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12370
• Ciaccio, L.A., & Jacob, G. (2019). Native speakers like affixes, L2 speakers like letters? An overt visual priming study investigating the role of orthography in L2 morphological processing. PLoS One, 14(12):e0226482. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226482
• Ciaccio, L.A. (2015). Color terms and color perception: Reconciling universalism and relativism. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, 9(2), 1-13. http://www.rifl.unical.it/index.php/rifl/article/view/328
• Ciaccio, L. A., & Bormann, T. (2013). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in the domain of colors: evidence from healthy and aphasic speakers. Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, 7(3), 1-14. http://www.rifl.unical.it/index.php/rifl/article/view/171