My research focuses on early stages of
word recognition during reading.
Reading feels like an effortless activity, but it is an extremely
complex process. In alphabetic languages, words are first analyzed
based on their physical characteristics, such as straight and curved
lines; then, letter position and identity are computed; finally, the
particular combination of letters is analyzed in terms of orthographic,
phonological and semantic information. These operations are carried out
automatically during the first 500 ms, and carried out even in the
absence of awareness. We can
chart the time course of these processes with
special behavioral and neuroimaging
methods. In the lab, we are using
the Event-Related Potential (ERP) technique.
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Relevant
publications and conference presentations (go to my Publications
webpage to download these papers)
Grossi, G., & Donatien-Coder, D. (2009). The effect of non-adjacent
letter combinations on letter identification. Presented at the 21st
Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science, May 22
- 25, 2009, San Francisco.
Stillwell, M., & Grossi, G. (2008). No influence of articulatory
suppression on word and pseudoword superiority effects. Presented at
the 49th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Chicago, November
13-16, 2008.
Grossi, G. (2006). Relatedness proportion effects on masked associative
priming: An ERP study. Psychophysiology,
43 (1), 21-30.
Grossi, G., & Coch, D. (2005). Automatic word form processing in
masked priming: an ERP study. Psychophysiology,
42 (3), 343-355.
Grossi, G., Coch, D., Coffey-Corina, S., Holcomb, P. J. & Neville,
H. J. (2001). Phonological processing in a rhyming task: A
developmental ERP study. Journal of
Cognitive Neuroscience, 13 (5), 610-625.
Cognitive and neural organization for
language in bilingual individuals I recently
extended my interests in word recognition to bilingualism and started
collaboraring with the ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism at
Bangor University, Wales. The main questions are how two languages are
cognitively and neurally represented in bilinguals and how they
interact.
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Relevant
publications and conference presentations (go to my Publications
webpage to download these papers)
Grossi, G., Murphy, J., & Boggan, J.
(2009). Word and pseudoword superiority effects in
Italian-English bilinguals. Bilingualism:
Language and Cognition, 12 (1), 113-120.
Grossi, G., Thierry, G., Thomas, E., & Di Pietro, J. (2008).
Word and pseudoword superiority effects in early/native Welsh-English
bilinguals. Presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic
Society, Chicago, November 13-16, 2008.
Research on sex differences in cognitive
abilities
Recently I
have started inquiring about the research on sex differences in
cognition, especially in regards to mathematics and scientific
abilities. My critique focuses on methodological and epistemological
problems that characterize this research.
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Relevant publications and conference presentations (go to my Publications
webpage to download these papers)
Grossi,
G. (2008). Science or belief? Bias in gender difference research. In S.
Badaloni, C. A. Drace, O. Gia, C. Levorato, F. Vidotto (Eds.), Under-representation of Women in Science
and Technology, pp. 93-106. Padova, Italy: Cleup.
Grossi, G.
(2008). Differenze di genere per la matematica? [Gender differences in
mathematics?] in A. Capitani (Ed.), Un
altro genere di tecnologia (pp. 46-54). Edizione Stampa Lulu
Enterprises Inc.
Nash, A.,
& Grossi, G. (2007). Picking Barbie’s™ brain: Inherent sex
differences in scientific ability? Journal
of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought, 2 (1), 29-42.
Collaborations
I collaborate
with several researchers around the world on projects focusing on
language (both oral and signed) and visual processes.
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Relevant publications and conference presentations (go to my Publications
webpage to download these papers)
Capek, C., Grossi, G., Newman, A., McBurney, S., Corina, D., Roeder,
B., & Neville, H. (2009). Brain systems mediating semantic
and syntactic processing in deaf native signers: Biological invariance
and modality specificity. Proceedings
of the National Science Academy of Science, 106 (21), 8784-8789.
Coch, D., Skendzel, W., Grossi, G., & Neville, H. J. (2005). Motion
and color processing in school-age children and adults: an ERP study. Developmental Science, 8 (4),
372-386.
Coch, D., Grossi, G., Skendzel, W. & Neville, H. J. (2005). ERP
nonword rhyming effects in children and adults. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17,
168-182.
Fernandez-Duque, D., Grossi, G., Thornton, I. M. & Neville, H. J
(2003). Representation of change: Separate electrophysiological markers
of attention, awareness, and implicit processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15
(4), 491-507.
Rafal, R., Danziger, S., Grossi, G., Machado, L., & Ward, R.
(2002). Visual detection is gated by attending for action:
Evidence from hemispatial neglect. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Science, 99 (25), 16371-16375.
Coch, D., Grossi, G., Coffey-Corina, S., Holcomb, P. J. & Neville,
H. J. (2002). A developmental investigation of the ERP auditory rhyming
effect. Developmental Science, 5
(4), 467-489.