IRIS BERENT

Education

• B.A. in Musicology, 1987 Tel-Aviv University
• B.Mus. in Flute performance, 1987, The Rubin Academy of Music
• M.S. in Cognitive Psychology, 1990, University of Pittsburgh
• M.A. in Music Theory, 1990, University of Pittsburgh
• Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology, 1993, University of Pittsburgh

Professional Experience

• 2006- Professor, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University.
• 1995-1996  Post doctoral fellowship, Arizona State University.
• 1997-2002  Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University.
• 2002-present  Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University.
• 2002-present  Member, Center for Complex systems and Brain Sciences, Florida Atlantic University.
• 2006-2007  Visiting faculty, Department of Cognitive Sciences, Johns Hopkins University.

Grants and Awards

• 1994-1996  The two cycles model of phonology assembly. National Research Science Award for Individual Postdoctoral Fellows (NIH).
• 1998-2004  Title: The assembly of consonant and vowel phonology in reading. First Independent Support & Transition (FIRST) Award (DC 23277; NIH).
• 2006-2011  Title: Phonological markedness constraints on reading. R01DC003277 NIH (NIDCD).

Honors

• 1989-1990  The Andrew Mellon Pre-doctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh.
• 1991  The Tim Post Memorial Award. Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh.
• 1991-1992  Andrew Mellon Pre-doctoral Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh.
• 2003  Researcher of the Year, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Florida Atlantic University.
• 2006  Researcher of the Year, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Florida Atlantic University.
• 2006  Research Incentive Award, Florida Atlantic University.
• 2006  Researcher of the year, Florida Atlantic University.

Research Description

My research examines the nature of linguistic competence, its origins, and its interaction with reading ability. I seek to identify the constraints shaping the organization of the language system and determine the extent to which this system is specialized for the processing of linguistic information. My work also explores the link between linguistic competence and reading ability and disability.

1. The nature of linguistic competence and its origins.

A large body of research demonstrates that speakers, including young infants, are excellent language learners: They can quickly pick up on various statistical properties of the linguistic input. There is indeed little doubt that linguistic experience is necessary for linguistic competence. Whether linguistic experience is sufficient to account for the adult’s linguistic competence is less clear. My work attempts to examine whether certain aspects of linguistic knowledge might be available in the absence of direct evidence. Generative linguistics has assumed two general innate properties of the language system: One is the distinction between the grammar and the lexicon; the second is a set of innate constraints that are both language and species-specific. My work examines these two assumptions.

1. Is the grammar autonomous from the lexicon? One motivation for the view of the grammar as autonomous from the lexicon is offered by the role of variables in the grammar. Linguistic theory has assumed that grammatical principles and constraints operate on variables-- abstract placeholders that can stand for a class of instances, irrespective of the familiarity with specific instances or their statistical properties (e.g., the variable noun might stand for instances such as dog, cat, constitution). For instance, the English plural rule concatenates a suffix to the variable Noun-stem. By appealing to variables, linguistic processes can generalize across the board, irrespective of the properties of specific lexical instances. The assumption that linguistic processes appeal to variables has been challenged by many connectionist accounts. My work examines the role of operations over variables using two case studies:
   • The restriction on identical consonants in Hebrew roots (a restriction allowing for xyy roots, but not xxy roots).
   • The distinction between regular and irregular forms in inflectional morphology (cf., rats vs. mice) in English and Hebrew (in collaboration with Steven Pinker).
   To determine whether speakers’ knowledge appeals to variables, I have examined the scope of generalizations exhibited by speakers. In each case, my colleagues found that speakers generalize the relevant constraint across the board, irrespective to the statistical properties of test items. In fact, such generalizations are attested even in the absence of any relevant statistical knowledge--for novel items with novel phonological features. Computational work by Gary Marcus suggests that such knowledge might be unlearnable by networks that are not equipped with the capacity to operate over variables innately (i.e., prior to learning). These observations suggest that speakers are innately equipped with a computational mechanism that operates over variables, a conclusion consistent with the hypothesis of distinct lexical and grammatical components.
2. Is the grammar constrained by universal, language-specific principles? Linguists have long noted that certain linguistic patterns are more frequent and natural than others. Furthermore, the existence of frequent patterns asymmetrically implicates rare ones. Such regularities have been attributed to markedness scales: Frequent, natural patterns are unmarked, whereas those that are rare and less natural are relatively marked. The cross-linguistic universality of markedness restrictions renders them as plausible candidates for innate linguistic constraints. My work examines whether speakers are sensitive to markedness restrictions, their nature and origins using several case studies:
   • Markedness restrictions concerning sonority (in collaboration with Donca Steriade, Paul Smolensky and Tracy Lennertz). Linguistic evidence suggests that onset clusters with a small sonority rise (e.g., bnif) are preferred to those with a sonority plateau (e.g., bdif), which, in turn, are favored relative to sonority falls (e.g., lbif). Our research demonstrates that this universal preference is available to English speakers despite the fact that their language does not systematically tolerate either sonority profile.
   • Markedness restrictions on syllable structure (in collaboration with Kayla Causey). Syllables such as CVC are considered unmarked relative to VCC. This project examines whether speakers represent syllable frames and explores the source of their relative markedenss.
   • Markedness restrictions on semantic number (in collaboration with Steven Pinker and Yossi Tzelgov). Linguistic evidence suggests that, by default, semantic number is assigned only to plural nouns (e.g., dogs)--singulars (e.g., dog) remain unmarked for number. We examine whether this constraint automatically shapes the representation of nouns presented in isolation.
   • The restrictions on identical consonants in Hebrew (in collaboration with Gary Marcus, Jacques Mehler, Marina Nespor and Vered Vaknin). Many languages constrain the presence and/or location of identical phonological elements. Our work examines the origins of this constraint and its specificity to language.

2. The interaction between reading and linguistic skill.

Many complex cognitive skills are erected upon domain-specific systems of core knowledge observed early in ontogeny and phylogeny. Reading is a case in point. Reading is the skill of mapping spelling onto linguistic representations. Although reading is typically acquired laboriously, late in development, its mastery hinges on the adequacy of the phonological system—a system of core knowledge. Although the link between phonological knowledge and reading skill is widely recognized, relatively little is known about what it entails. Much of the existing literature on skilled reading has examined the question of whether readers are sensitive to the phonological structure of printed words--the structure of their representation is rarely addressed in detail. My research seeks to examine the nature of phonological constraints on skilled and disabled readers. The findings suggest that the representation assembled by skilled readers to print encodes various aspects of linguistic structure, including consonant identity, feature identity, skeletal structure, sonority, and morphological number. Furthermore, these structural aspects are assembled automatically, even when reading is not required (i.e., using Stroop-like tasks). Such findings suggest that reading skill is contingent on adequate linguistic competence.

Selected Publications

Berent, I. & Perfetti, C. A. (1993). An on-line method in studying music parsing. Cognition, 46, 203-222.

Berent, I. & Perfetti, C. A. (1995). A rose is a REEZ: The two cycles model of phonology assembly in reading English. Psychological Review, 102, 146-184.

Berent, I. & Shimron, J. (1997). The representation of Hebrew words: Evidence from the Obligatory Contour Principle. Cognition, 64, 39-72.

Berent, I. (1997). Phonological priming in the lexical decision task: Regularity effects are not necessary evidence for assembly. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 23, 1-16.

Berent, I., Pinker, S. & Shimron, J. (1999). Default nominal inflection in Hebrew: Evidence for mental variables. Cognition, 72, 1-44.

Berent, I. & Van Orden, G. (2000). Homophone dominance modulates the phonemic-masking effect. Scientific studies of reading, 42, 133-167.

Berent, I. (2001). Can connectionist models of phonology assembly account for phonology? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8(4), 661-76.

Berent, I., Bouissa, R. & Tuller, B. (2001). The effect of shared structure and content on reading nonwords: evidence for a CV skeleton. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27(4), 1042-57.

Berent, I., Everett, D. L. & Shimron, J. (2001). Do phonological representations specify variables? Evidence from the obligatory contour principle. Cognitive Psychology, 42(1), 1-60.

Berent, I., Shimron, J.& Vaknin, V. (2001). Phonological constraints on reading: Evidence from the Obligatory Contour Principle. Journal of Memory and Language, 44(4), 644-665.

Berent, I. (2002). Identity avoidance in the Hebrew lexicon: implications for symbolic accounts of word formation. Brain and language, 81(1-3), 326-41.

Berent, I., Marcus, G. F., Shimron, J.& Gafos, A. I. (2002). The scope of linguistic generalizations: evidence from Hebrew word formation. Cognition, 83(2), 113-39.

Berent, I., Pinker, S.& Shimron, J. (2002). The nature of Regularity and Irregularity: Evidence from Hebrew Nominal Inflection. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31(5), 459-502.

Berent, I. (2002). A review of Gary F. Marcus (2001). The algebraic mind: Integrating connectionism and cognitive science. Cambridge: MIT Press. Language, 78(3), 569-571.

Berent, I. & Shimron, J. (2003). Co-occurrence restrictions on identical consonants in the Hebrew lexicon: Are they due to similarity? Journal of Linguistics, 39(1), 31-55.

Berent, I. & Van Orden, G. C. (2003). Do null phonemic masking effects reflect strategic control of phonology? Reading and Writing, 16(4), 349-376.

Marcus, G. F., & Berent, I. (2003). Are there limits to statistical learning? Science, 300, 53-55.

Berent, I., Vaknin, V. & Shimron, J. (2004). Does a theory of language need a grammar? Evidence from Hebrew root structure. Brain and Language, 90 (1-3), 170-182.

Berent, I. & Marom, M. (2005). The skeletal structure of printed words: Evidence from the Stroop task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 31, 328-338.

Berent, I., Pinker, S., Tzelgov, J., Bibi, U., & Goldfarb, L. (2005). Computation of Semantic Number from Lexical, Morphological, and Conceptual Information. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 342-358.

Berent, I., Tzelgov, J. , & Bibi, U. (2006). The autonomous computation of morphophonological structure in reading: Evidence from the Stroop task. The Mental Lexicon, 1-2, 201-230.

Berent, I., Steriade, D., Lennertz, T & Vaknin, V. (2007). What we know about what we have never heard: Evidence from perceptual illusions. Cognition, 104, 591-630.

Berent, I.,Lennertz, T, (2007). What we know about what we have never heard: Beyond Phonetics. Reply to Peperkamp. Cognition, 104, 638-643.

Berent, I., Vaknin, V., & Marcus. G. (2007). Roots, stems, and the universality of lexical representations: Evidence from Hebrew. Cognition, 104, 254-286.

Berent, I., & Pinker, S. (2008). The Dislike of Regular Plurals in Compounds: Phonological or Morphological? The Mental Lexicon, 2, 129-181.

Berent, I., Lennertz, T., Jun, J., Moreno, M., A., & Smolensky, P. (2008). Language universals in human brains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 5321-5325. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0801469105v1

Berent, I., & Pinker, S. (in press). Compound formation is constrained by morphology: A reply to Seidenberg, MacDonald & Haskell. The Mental Lexicon.

last updated 12/28/2006