Latest Update: Oct 26, 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.

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).
• 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).

Manuscripts Under Review

• Language Impairment as a Lens onto Large Language Models Muxuan He, Wang Bill Zhu, Yue Chen, Elsi Kaiser, Weizhi Du, Yao Du, Samuel Nastase, Yanjun Gao Preprint, 2026.

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 Presentations and Posters

• Chen, Y., Wan, E., Xiao, Y., Balarin de Siqueira, C., Noh, S., Fuchs, Z., Yue, Y., Wu, H., & Du, Y. (2027, March). Classifiers in bilingual Mandarin-English child language assessment [Poster]. Convergence 2027, California Speech-Language-Hearing Association (CSHA), Long Beach, CA.
• Breiss, C., Huang, P.-H., Chen, Y., Hsu, H., Grachek, D., Charan, D., He, M., Wang, Y., & Li, J. (2027, January). What conditions variation in Italian Troncamento? A large-scale corpus investigation of spontaneous speech. [Talk]. 2027 Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting (LSA 2027), San Francisco, CA.
• Chen, Y., Lyu, J., Kaiser, E. (2027, January). Who Is Whom? Influences of Theta Roles and Discourse Topicality on the Resolution of Mandarin Reflexives. [Talk]. 2027 Linguistic Society of America Annual Meeting (LSA 2027), San Francisco, CA.
• Chen, Y., Kaiser, E. (2026, November). Same Cues, Different Minds: Individual Variation in Mandarin Reflexive Resolution. [Poster] California Meeting on Psycholinguistics 9 (CAMP9), Santa Barbara, CA.
• 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)