João Veríssimo

I'm a researcher in psycholinguistics. My research focuses on how words are mentally represented and processed by monolingual and bilingual speakers. The main goals of my work are: (a) the description and explanation of contrasts between native speakers and second language learners; (b) the characterisation of individual differences in language and cognition; and (c) the development of computational models of morphology and lexicon.

I'm an assistant professor at the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon.

I am also a guest scientist at the University of Potsdam (as part of the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Limits of variability in language’), and a statistical advisor for Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.

Here is a complete and updated CV. You can also find me on Google Scholar and ResearchGate.

Please contact me by email, if you have any questions.

News

• Much press about our paper on age-related improvements in attention: The Times, Público, NIH, Evening Standard, and many others. | October

• I was teaching at the summer school on Statistical Methods for Linguistics and Psychology; applications are open for 2022. | September

• Our new paper reporting age-related improvements in attention/executive functions; now out in Nature Human Behaviour. | August

• A new paper on analyses of rating scales with ordinal models; now out in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. | August

New preprints

• Veríssimo. When fixed and random effects mismatch: Implications for model comparisons.

• Ciaccio & Veríssimo. Investigating variability in morphological processing with Bayesian distributional models.

Recent publications

(click here for a full list)

• Karatas, Özemir, Lovelett, . . . , Veríssimo, Erçetin, & Ullman (2021, online). Improving second language vocabulary learning and retention by leveraging memory enhancement techniques: A multidomain pedagogical approach. Language Teaching Research. [doi]

• Veríssimo, Verhaeghen, Goldman, Weinstein, & Ullman (2021, online). Evidence that ageing yields improvements as well as declines across attention and executive functions. Nature Human Behaviour. [doi]

• Marimon, Hofmann, Veríssimo, Männel, Friederici, . . . & Wartenburger (2021). Children's learning of non-adjacent dependencies using a web-based computer game setting. Frontiers in Psychology, 12:734877. [doi]

• Veríssimo (2021). Analysis of rating scales: A pervasive problem in bilingualism research and a solution with Bayesian ordinal models. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 24, 842–848. [doi] [preprint]

• Veríssimo (2021). BLC mini-series: New statistical approaches and research practices for bilingualism research. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 24, 799–800. [doi] [preprint]

• Stone, Veríssimo, Schad, Oltrogge, Vasishth, & Lago (2021). The interaction of grammatically distinct agreement dependencies in predictive processing. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 36, 1159–1179. [doi] [preprint]

• Reifegerste, Veríssimo, Rugg, Pullman, Babcock, . . . & Ullman (2021). Early-life education may help bolster declarative memory in old age, especially for women. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 28, 218–252. [doi]

• Reifegerste, Estabrooke, Russell, Veríssimo, Johari, . . . & Ullman (2020). Can sex influence the neurocognition of language? Evidence from Parkinson's disease. Neuropsychologia, 148, 107633. [doi]

• Pliatsikas, Meteyard*, Veríssimo*, DeLuca, Shattuck, & Ullman (2020). The effect of bilingualism on brain development from early childhood to young adulthood. Brain Structure and Function, 225, 2131–2152. [*Equal contribution] [doi] [preprint]

• Pañeda, Lago, Vares, Veríssimo, & Felser (2020). Island effects in Spanish comprehension. Glossa, 5, 21. [doi]

• Ruberg, Rothweiler, Veríssimo, & Clahsen (2020). Childhood bilingualism and Specific Language Impairment: A study of the CP-domain in German SLI. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23, 668–680. [doi]