Language allows us to share our thoughts and feelings and to make social connections with others. To lose language is to leave someone isolated from others and to take away a fundamental part of what it is to be human. My lab investigates the mechanisms that support language understanding and explores how these systems go wrong or are different in some individuals.
Current areas of research:
Current areas of research:
- Neural basis of dynamic visual (sign language, lip reading) and spoken language processing.
- Perceptual processing in people with reduced imagery.
- Perceptual processing in people that are prone to hallucinations.
- The perception of taboo language.
Key publications:
Evans, S., Price, C.J., Diedrichsen, J., Gutierrez-Sigut, E. & MacSweeney, M. 2019. Speech and sign share partially overlapping representations. Current Biology.
Evans, S. and McGettigan, C. 2017. Comprehending auditory speech: previous and potential contributions of functional MRI. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. 32 (7), pp. 829-846.
Evans, S. and Davis, M.H. 2015. Hierarchical organization of auditory and motor representations in speech perception: Evidence from searchlight similarity analysis. Cerebral Cortex. 25 (12), pp. 4772-4788.
*Evans, S., *Kyong, J.S., Rosen, S., Golestani, N., Warren, J.E., McGettigan, C., Mourão-Miranda, J., Wise, R.J.S. and Scott, S.K. 2014. The Pathways for Intelligible Speech: Multivariate and Univariate Perspectives . Cerebral Cortex. 24 (9).