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Psycholinguistics

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👩‍💻 Era

Latest Update: June 29, 2026

Notes: I study how perspective/empathy and discourse structure shape reference in different languages, using corpora, experiments, and computational models.

Journal Articles

  • Fuchs, Z., Kealey, E., Eldem, E., Mermelstein, L., Pham, L., Runova, A., Chen, Y., Oguz, M., Hong, S., Pan, C., Subramony, J., (2025). Measuring Adult Heritage Language Lexical Proficiency for Studies on Facilitative Processing of Gender. In O. Ivanova & Ó. Loureda (Eds.), Language Processing in Spanish Heritage Speakers [Special issue]. Languages, 10(8), 189. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10080189
  • Mai, Z., Wong, P. C., Matthews, S., Yip, V., Liao, H., Nie, J., Chen, Y. (2025). Zhuang-Mandarin bilingual children in rural China and the role of grandparental input in early bilingualism. PloS one, 20(6), e0326671. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0326671

Invited Talks

  • Wang, Z., He, M., Chen, Y. (2026, July). Simulating Language Impairment via Causal Head Ablation. [Invited Talk] Health, Educational, & Assistive Technology (HEAT) Lab, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.

Conference Proceedings

  • Chen, Y. (2026). From um to words: The role of disfluency interactions in shaping early language development. In Proceedings of the 50th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 50). https://www.lingref.com/bucld/50/BUCLD50-14.pdf
  • Chen, Y., Shang, M., Mai, Z. (2025). Cross-Linguistic Influence and Developmental Patterns in Reflexive Pronoun Use Among Monolingual, Bilingual, and Trilingual Children. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 47). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7xs6k5h2

Conference Presentations and Posters

  • Chen, Y., Lyu, J., Kaiser, E. (2026, September). On the Interplay of Topicality and Perspectival Information in Reference Resolution: Insights from Anaphoric Reflexives. [Talk] Discourse Expectations: Theoretical, Experimental and Computational Perspectives (DETEC 2026), Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
  • Chen, Y., Lyu, J., Kaiser, E. (2026, September). Topic and Experiencer Both Matter: Multiple Cues in Mandarin Reflexive Resolution. [Poster] Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2026), Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
  • Lyu, J., Chen, Y. (2026, September). Syntactic knowledge drives cataphora resolution beyond BERT’s reach. [Talk] Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 2026), Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany.
  • Charan, D., Chen, Y., Grachek, D., Huang, P.-H., He, M., Hsu, H., Li, J., Wang, Y., & Breiss, C. (2026, April). A large-scale corpus investigation of Italian troncamento. [Poster] Southern California April Meeting on Phonology (SCAMP), University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA.
  • Chen, Y. (2026, March). Too Much Information? Mandarin Classifiers from Humans to LLMs. [Poster] 39th Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing (HSP 39), Cambridge, MA.
  • Chen, Y. (2025, November). From ‘Um’ to Words: The Role of Disfluency Interactions in Shaping Early Language Development. [Poster] (One of the top-rated student submissions; Paula Menyuk Award) 50th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Boston, MA.
  • Chen, Y., Mai, Z., Shang, M. (2025, July). Cross-Linguistic Influence and Developmental Patterns in Reflexive Pronoun Use Among Monolingual, Bilingual, and Trilingual Children. [Poster] CogSci 2025, San Francisco, CA.
  • Fuchs, Z., Kealey, E., Eldem, E., Mermelstein, L., Pham, L., Runova, A., Hong, S., Oguz, M., Chen, Y., Pan, C., Subramony, J. (2025, June). Predicting facilitative processing of gender in Heritage Spanish using measures of lexical proficiency. [Poster] 16th Heritage Language Research Institute (HLRI), Madison, WI.
  • Chen, Y., Mai, Z., Chen, Y. (2024, November). Employing Machine Learning and Language Models to Differentiate Language Patterns in Mandarin-Speaking Preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder. [Poster] California Meeting on Psycholinguistics 7 (CAMP7), San Diego, CA.
  • Chen, Y., Su, Y. (2024, November). Exploring Reflexive Pronoun Development and Usage in Mandarin-Learning Toddlers: A Comparative Study of ASD and TD Groups. [Poster] California Meeting on Psycholinguistics 7 (CAMP7), San Diego, CA.
  • Chen, Y., Mai, Z., Hu, X., Shang, M. (2024, July). Reflexive pronouns in Chinese-learning monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual toddlers, and their parental input. [Poster] Child Language Symposium 2024, Newcastle, UK.
  • Chen, Y. (2024, May). Unveiling the Parallel Function Hypothesis on Personal Pronouns: A Corpus Analysis Utilizing Eye-Tracking Data. [Poster] The 11th Conference on Language, Discourse, and Cognition, Taipei, Taiwan. 
  • Chen, Y. (2023, February). Acquisition of English Reflexive Pronouns: Evidence from Naturalistic Observation. [Poster], 22nd Meeting of the Texas Linguistics Society, Austin, TX.

Undergraduate Publication

  • Chen, Y., Neer, E., Zhang, E., Sandhofer, C.M., (2024). Acquisition of English Reflexive Pronouns: Evidence from Naturalistic Observation. UCLA Undergraduate Psychology Journal, 11(1), 6-16.

Manuscripts & Ongoing Projects

Psycholinguistics

  • Mapping Minds in Language: Children’s Acquisition of Psychological Verbs (project in development)
  • Who Is Whom? Influences of Theta Roles and Discourse Topicality on the Resolution of Mandarin Reflexives (manuscript in preparation)

Computational Linguistics

  • Who Feels, Who Causes? Empathy Locus and Discourse Coherence in Large Language Models (project in development)
  • From Words to Social Worlds: Psych Verbs as Linguistic Probes of Social Cognition in Language Models (project in development)