Anna Papafragou

About

Anna Papafragou is a Professor of Linguistics and the Director of the Language & Cognition Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on understanding how the human mind enables language acquisition and use across diverse communities. The lab combines a variety of experimental methods to study the nature, growth, and use of language, with a particular interest in the nature, acquisition, and processing of linguistic meaning and how meaning interacts with context during human learning and communication. Additionally, the research explores the relationship between language and other cognitive systems in both children and adults. The Language & Cognition Lab conducts experiments in various settings including the lab, local daycares, museums, and international sites such as Greece, Germany, Turkey, Korea, China, and indigenous Mayan communities in Mexico. The lab has recently expanded its research to include online studies involving both children and adults. Their work has received funding from prominent organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. The lab is part of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania and is integrated within a vibrant cognitive science community, participating in interdisciplinary groups such as MindCore, ILST, SCEW, SBSI, and the Penn Child Development Labs consortium.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Linguistics
• Natural Language Processing
• Cognitive psychology
• Philosophy
• Communication
• Algorithm
• Neuroscience
• Mathematics

Selected publications

• Pragmatics and social meaning: Understanding under-informativeness in native and non-native speakers

  Cognition · 2020 · 61 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Understanding Other Minds

  Language Learning and Development · 2020 · 49 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Human beings spend vast amounts of time thinking about what other people believe, want, hope, and fear. Understanding other minds is part of our social nature and forms the basis of the social fabr...

  DOI

• Is there an end in sight? Viewers' sensitivity to abstract event structure

  Cognition · 2020 · 31 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Asymmetries in encoding event roles: Evidence from language and cognition

  Cognition · 2024-07-02 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Sources and goals in memory and language: Fragility and robustness in event representation

  Journal of Memory and Language · 2023-12-21 · 6 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Evidential Categories in Language and Cognition

  NSF · $240k · 2010–2016

• Event Structure in Language and Cognition

  NSF · $482k · 2021–2024

• NIH Grant F32MH065020

  NIH · $125k · 2004

Frequent coauthors

• John C. Trueswell

  University of Pennsylvania

  32 shared

• Ercenur Ünal

  Özyeğin University

  19 shared

• Lila R. Gleitman

  University of Pennsylvania

  15 shared

• Myrto Grigoroglou

  University of Toronto

  11 shared

• Ann Bunger

  Indiana University Bloomington

  11 shared

• Yue Ji

  Beijing Institute of Technology

  11 shared

• Sarah Fairchild

  University of Delaware

  9 shared

• Özge Öztürk

  University of Sheffield

  9 shared

Labs

• Department of Linguistics, University of PennsylvaniaPI

Education

• Ph.D., Experimental semantics and pragmatics, language acquisition, language and cognition

  University College London

  1998

Similar researchers at University of Pennsylvania

• Mark Libermanh-41
• Charles Yangh-35
• David Embickh-34