Nicole Y. Y. Wicha, Ph.D. Office: (210) 458-7013 |
Technical Director, Event Related Potentials Lab Research Imaging Center University of Texas Health Science Center 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, mc 6240 San Antonio, Texas 79229-3900 wicha@uthscsa.edu Office: (210) 567-8016 |
- Cognitive and neural bases of human language
- Adult real-time language comprehension
- Brain basis of bilingualism
- Intersection between language and other aspects of cognition
Dr. Wicha's research focuses on understanding how the brain processes language in real time using both behavioral and brain-imaging techniques, in particular event- related brain potentials (ERPs), which is a non-invasive direct measure of electrical brain activity with excellent precision in the time domain. Dr. Wicha has used these techniques to study the brain processes underlying language comprehension, such as the predictive nature of sentence comprehension in the monolingual and bilingual brain#, and when and how different sources of linguistic information (e.g., grammar and word meaning#) affect our ability to understand an utterance#.Her findings indicate that the brain regions responsible for processing different linguistic information interact over time, and that the brain uses predictive processes to rapidly anticipate upcoming information and facilitate comprehension.
Currently a primary focus in her lab is in understanding the unique processing capabilities of the bilingual brain. Some of the questions include how the bilingual brain predicts and processes two languages simultaneously, such as when reading a sentence that contains language switches, the implicit effects that one language can have on the other during processing or conversely how bilinguals manage to process one language without interference from the other. With postdoctoral fellow Elena Salillas, PhD, she is also investigating how arithmetic is processed in the bilingual brain.
Dr. Wicha also collaborates extensively with investigators who use a cognitive neuroscience approach to study various populations and questions. These include work on how language experience can change basic perception of pitch and tone with Dr. Shalini Narayana (UTHSCSA) and Dr. Peter Pfordresher (SUNY Buffalo), the interaction between gaze direction and facial emotion in face perception with Dr. Reiko Graham (Texas State University), the effect of alcohol on perception of alcohol-related stimuli with Dr. Graham and Dr. Natalie Ceballos (Texas State University) and how executive function is affected in children with ADHD with Dr. Steven Pliszka (UTHSCSA).
Dr. Wicha holds a PhD in Cognitive Science from the University of California at San Diego, where she received interdisciplinary training in behavioral, computational and brain imaging techniques for addressing questions in Cognitive Neuroscience. She continued her training in Cognitive Neuroscience through the Institute of Neural Computation in La Jolla, California as a post-doctoral fellow. She is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and holds a cross appointment with the University of Texas Health Science Center through the Research Imaging Center, where she is the Technical Director of the ERP laboratory. Dr. Wicha shares with her students her expertise in ERP methodology, experimental training and knowledge of research in cognitive neuroscience, through teaching and laboratory mentorship.
EDUCATION
PhD in Cognitive Science, June 2002
The University of California at San Diego
Thesis Chairs: Marta Kutas, PhD and Elizabeth A. Bates, PhD
Thesis Title: “Grammatical gender in real-time language comprehension in Spanish: behavioral and electrophysiological investigations”
MS in Cognitive Science, May 1998
The University of California at San Diego
Thesis Chair: Elizabeth A. Bates, PhD
Thesis Title: “The interplay between gender and semantic priming in a Spanish sentence context.”
Maîtrise Thesis in Experimental Psychology, May 1995
L'Université de Renè Descartes, Paris, France
Thesis Chiar: Michele Kail, PhD
Thesis Title: “Verb agreement in French auditory sentence comprehension”
Honorable Mention (14.5/20)
BA in Psychology, December 1993
The University of Texas at San Antonio
magna cum laude
BA in Spanish, December 1993
The University of Texas at San Antonio
magna cum laude
EMPLOYMENT
University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas
Department of Biology
Assistant Professor (01/05 – present)
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas
Research Imaging Center
Assistant Professor and Technical Director, Event Related Potentials Lab (01/05 – present)
University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California
Institute of Neural Computation
Postdoctoral Fellow (09/02 – 08/04)
AFFILIATIONS
Specialized Neuroscience Research Program – Scientific Advisory Committee
TEACHING
University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas
Assistant Professor,
Human Electrophysiology
Cognitive Neuroscience
GRANTS
ACTIVE
SC1 HD060435 (Wicha, Nicole PI) |
08/01/08-07/31/13 |
Brain and Behavior of Bilingual Language Comprehension |
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This grant focuses on understanding the electrophysiological correlates of language comprehension in the bilingual and monolingual brain. A series of experiments using Event Related Potentials and behavioral measures investigate the timing and type of response associated with processing a code switched word, as well as the prediction and integration of words in sentence context. In addition the interaction between languages is analyzed in fluent and asymmetric bilinguals. |
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Role: PI |
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AWARDS AND HONORS
The University of California at San Diego:
* Institute of Neural Computation, NIH Postdoctoral Training Grant Fellow, 2002
* NIH/NIDCD - Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA), 1998
* NIH/NIMH - Travel Award for Cognitive Neuroscience Society Meeting, 2001
* McDonnell-Pew Fellow in Cognitive Neuroscience, 1998
* NIH - American Psychological Association Minority Fellowship in Neuroscience, 1995
* San Diego Fellowship - UCSD, 1995
Salillas, E. and Wicha, N. (submitted). The importance of LolA: Arithmetic in the bilingual brain.
Rivera, S.M., Bates, E.A., Orozco-Figueroa, A. and Wicha, N.Y.Y. (accepted). “Spoken Verb Processing in Spanish: An Analysis Using a New Online Database”. Applied Psycholinguistics, 2009.
Wicha, N. Y. Y., Orozco-Figueroa, A., Reyes, I., Hernandez, A., Gavaldón de Barreto, L. & Bates, E. A., (2005). When zebras become painted donkeys: Grammatical gender and semantic priming interact during picture integration in a spoken Spanish sentence. Language & Cognitive Processes, 20(4), 553-587.
Wicha, N. Y. Y., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2004). Anticipating words and their gender: An event-related brain potential study of semantic integration, gender expectancy and gender agreement in Spanish sentence reading. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(7), 1272-1288.
Szekely, A., Jacobsen, T., D’Amico, S., Devescovi, A., Andonova, E., Herron, D., Lu, C.C., Pechman, T., Pléh, C., Wicha, N., Federmeier, K., Gerdjikova, I., Gutierrrez, G., Hung, D., Hsu, J., Iyer, G., Kohnert, K., Mehotcheva, T., Orozco-Figueroa, A., Tzeng, A., Tzeng, O., Arévalo, A., Vargha, A., Butler, A., Buffington, R., & Bates, E. (2004). A new on-line resource for psycholinguistic studies. Journal of Memory and language, 51(2), 247-250.
Wicha, N. Y. Y., Bates, E. A., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2003). Potato not Pope: human brain potentials to gender expectation and agreement in Spanish spoken sentences. Neuroscience Letters, 346(3), 165-168.
Wicha, N. Y. Y., Moreno, E. M., & Kutas, M. (2003). Expecting gender: an event related brain potential study onthe role of grammatical gender in comprehending a line drawing within a written sentence in Spanish. Cortex, 39(3), 483-508.
Bentrovato, S., Devescovi, A., D'Amico, S., Wicha, N., & Bates, E. (2003). The effect of grammatical gender and semantic context on lexical access in Italian using a timed word-naming paradigm. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32(4), 417-430.
Bates, E., D'Amico, S., Jacobsen, T., Szekely, A., Andonova, E., Devescovi, A., Herron, D., Lu, C. C., Pechmann, T., Pleh, C., Wicha, N., Federmeier, K., Gerdjikova, I., Gutierrez, G., Hung, D., Hsu, J., Iyer, G., Kohnert, K., Mehotcheva, T., Orozco-Figueroa, A., Tzeng, A., & Tzeng, O. (2003). Timed picture naming in seven languages. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10(2), 344-380.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Kutas, M., Moreno, E.M., & Wicha, N.Y.Y. (2009). Code-Switching and the Brain. In B. Bullock and A.J. Toribio, (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Code-Switching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wicha, N. Y. Y. (2002). Grammatical gender in real-time language comprehension in Spanish: behavioral and electrophysiological investigations. PhD Thesis, University of California - San Diego, La Jolla.
MANUSCRIPTS IN PREPARATION
Wicha, N and Kutas, M (in preparation). Predicting words, predicting palabras: An ERP study of prediction in the bilingual brain.
Wicha, N. Y. Y. and Kutas, M. (in preparation). Code switching and gender agreement violations.
Salillas, E and Wicha, N. (in preparation). Bilingual Arithmetic: Behavioral and electrophysiological correlates for solving simple arithmetic in two languages
Guajardo, L and Wicha, N (in preparation). Electrophysiological correlates for the interaction between semantics and grammatical gender in Spanish sentence comprehension.
Gonzalez, C and Wicha, N (in preparation). The dog and the hueso: An event-related potential analysis of reading bilingual short stories.
Giuliano, R and Wicha, N (in preparation). Thought suppression: an ERP analysis.
Giuliano, R, Pfordresher, P, Stanley, E, Narayana, N. and Wicha, N (in preparation). The effect of native language on non-linguistic pitch discrimination: An event-related potentials study.
Giuliano, R., Stanley, E. M., Pfordresher, P. and Wicha, N. (in preparation). Advantage of Tonal Language Speaking on Pitch Interval Discrimination: Behavioral and ERP analyses.
Bradley, L, Stanley, E and Wicha, N (in preparation). Interference in the bilingual brain: The effect of language proficiency on performance on a bilingual color Stroop task.
Bradley, L, Salillas, E., Stanley, E. M. and Wicha, N. Y. Y. (in preparation). Cross and within language interference on a bilingual Stroop task: An ERP analysis.