Roberto G. de Almeida, PhD

Education

PhD (Rutgers University, Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive Science)

Research interests

My interests are in cognitive science, and in particular on the nature of mental representations (i.e., how the mind/brain represents information; more specifically, semantic or conceptual representations), psycholinguistics (mostly on verbs and their role in sentence  comprehension) and interfaces between linguistic and conceptual systems, and between language and vision. My empirical and theoretical research investigates more specific issues within these areas, involving diverse methods and populations. (see web page for details)

[see up-to-date information at the Psycholinguistics & Cognition Lab site]

Books

• de Almeida, R. G. & Gleitman, L. (Eds.) (2018). On Concepts, Modules, and Language: Cognitive Science at its Core. Oxford University Press. [link to book]
• de Almeida, R. G. & Manouilidou, C. (Eds.) (2015). Cognitive Science Perspectives on Verb Representation and Processing. New York: Springer. [link to book]
  

Journal Articles / Chapters

[see up-to-date information at the Psycholinguistics & Cognition Lab site]

• Antal, C., de Almeida, R. G., & Johns, B. T. (2025, submitted). Semantic properties and categorization norms for the 260 Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) objects: A 45-year conceptual update to a classic set. [draft: request]

• Antal, C., Salehi, K., Rich, S. K., White, C. R. de A., & de Almeida, R. G. (2025, submitted). The effect of social usage on visual word recognition. [draft: request]

• Salehi, K. & de Almeida, R. G. (2025, submitted). Form, then meaning, in visual word recognition: Evidence from a dichoptic word-picture relatedness task.​

• Ungerer, T., Antal, C., & de Almeida, R. G. (2025, submitted). Sneezing the napkin off the table: Understanding grammatically creative, coerced sentences in real time.

• Pissani, L. & de Almeida, R. G. (2025, submitted). Aptness, familiarity, concreteness, and linguistic variables for 300 two-word metaphor combinations in context and in isolation.

• de Almeida, R. G., Antal, C., & Salehi, K. (2025). Early morpho-orthographic and semantic effects in word recognition: Evidence from a foveal-splitting dichoptic paradigm with anaglyphs. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. [.pdf] [link to article]

• Antal, C., Johns, B. T., & de Almeida, R. G. (2025). The effect of contextual and semantic diversity in lexical and conceptual access: Evidence from a picture-word semantic congruency task. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 40(2), 1-8. [.pdf] [link to article]

• de Almeida, R. G., Gallant, J., Antal, C., & Libben, G. (2025). Semantic access of ambiguous word roots cannot be stopped by affixation—not even in sentence contexts: Evidence from eye tracking and the maze task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. [link to article]

• ​Antal., C., & de Almeida, R. G. (2024). Grasping the concept of an object at a glance: Category information accessed by brief dichoptic presentation. Cognitive Science, 48(10), e70002. ​[link to article]

• Buchanan, L. & de Almeida, R. G. (2024). Gary Libben's mental lexicon. The Mental Lexicon, 19(2), 189-190. [.pdf]

• de Almeida, R. G. (2024). Interview with Gary Libben. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Lingusitics, 21​(1), 169-180. [link to article]

• Ungerer, T. & de Almeida, R. G. (2024). Context affects the comprehension of implicit arguments. Evidence from the maze task. In L. K. Samuelson, S. L. Frank, M. Toneva, A. Mackey, & E. Hazeltine (Eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 5566-5572). ​Rotterdam: Cognitive Science Society. [link to article]

• Pissani, L. & de Almeida, R. G. (2023). Early birds can fly: Awakening the literal meaning of conventional metaphors further downstream. Metaphor and Symbol, 38(4), 346-362. [link to article]

• Antal, C. & de Almeida, R. G. (2023). The units of gating and access to lexical representations during spoken word recognition. In M. Goldwater, F. Anggoro, B. Hayes, & D. Ong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3439-3446). Sydney: Cognitive Science Society. [link to article]

• Salehi, K. & de Almeida, R. G. (2023). Semantic access to constituents of compounds and pseudocompounds: Evidence from dichoptic presentation. In M. Goldwater, F. Anggoro, B. Hayes, & D. Ong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 45th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3647-3654). Sydney: Cognitive Science Society. [link to article]

• Antal, C., de Almeida, R. G., & Johns, B. T. (2022). Which semantic properties of a feature affect access to an object concept? In J. Culbertson, A. Perfors, H. Rabagliati, & V. Ramenzoni (Eds.), Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2364-2371). Toronto, ON: Cognitive Science Society. [.pdf] [link to article]

• Antal, C., & de Almeida, R. G. (2021). Indeterminate and enriched propositions in context linger: Evidence from an eye-tracking false memory paradigm. Frontiers in Psychology, 4376(12), 1-9. [link to article]

• Pissani, L. & de Almeida, R. G. (2021). Can you mend a broken heart? Awakening conventional metaphors in the maze. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29​, 253-261. [link to article]

• de Almeida, R. G., Mobayyen, F., Antal, C., Kehayia, E., Nair, V., & Schwartz, G. (2021). Category-specific verb-semantic deficits in Alzheimer’s disease: Evidence from static and dynamic action naming. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 38(1), 1-26. [.pdf] [link to journal]

• Roncero, C., de Almeida, R. G., Pissani, L., & Patalas, I. (2021). A metaphor is not like a simile: reading-time evidence for distinct interpretations for negated tropes. Metaphor and Symbol, 36(2), 85-98. [.pdf] [link to journal]

• de Almeida, R. G., & Antal, C. (2021). How can semantics avoid the troubles with the analytic/synthetic distinction? In S. Löbner, T. Gamerschlag, T. Kalenscher, M, Schrenk, & H. Zeevat. (Eds.), Concepts, Frames and Cascades in Semantics, Cognition and Ontology (pp. 103-120). Springer. [.pdf] [book]

• Riven, L., & de Almeida, R. G. (2021). Context breeds false memories for indeterminate sentences. Frontiers in Psychology, 12:616065. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.616065. [link to article]

• de Almeida, R. G., Dumassais, S., & Antal, C. (2020) Morphological parsing by foveal split: Evidence from Anaglyphs. In S. Deninson, M. Mack, Y. Xu, & B. C. Armstrong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3055-3061). Toronto, ON: Cognitive Science Society. [.pdf ]

• de Almeida, R. G., Di Nardo, J., Antal, C., & von Grünau, M.W. (2019). Understanding events by eye and ear: Agent and verb drive non-anticipatory eye movements in dynamic scenes. Frontiers in Psychology, 10:2162. [link to article]

• Patalas, I. & de Almeida, R. G. (2019). Interpreting metaphors in real-time: cross-modal evidence for exhaustive access. In In A.K. Goel, C.M. Seifert, & C. Freksa (Eds.), Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2530-2536). Montreal, QC: Cognitive Science Society. [.pdf]

• Ashby, J., Roncero, C., de Almeida, R. G., & Agauas, S. (2018). The early processing of metaphors and similes: Evidence from eye movements. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71(1), 161-168. [link to article]

• de Almeida, R. G. (2018). Composing meaning and thinking. In G. Preyer (Ed.), Beyond Semantics and Pragmatics. Oxford University Press. [link to chapter]

• de Almeida, R. G. & Lepore, E. (2018). Semantics for a module [link to chapter]

• de Almeida, R. G. (2018). A Fodor's guide to Cognitive Science. [link to chapter]

• de Almeida, R. G., Riven, L., Manouilidou, C., Lungu, O., Dwivedi, V., Jarema, G., & Gillon, B. (2016). The neuronal correlates of indeterminate sentence interpretation: an fMRI study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 10: 614. [link to article]

• Roncero, C., de Almeida, R. G., Martin, D., & de Caro, M. (2016). Aptness predicts metaphor preference in the lab and on the Internet. Metaphor & Symbol, 31, 31-46. [link to article] 

• de Almeida, R. G. & Manouilidou, C. (2015). The study of verbs in cognitive science. In R. G. de Almeida & C. Manouilidou (Eds.), Cognitive Science Perspectives on Verb Representation and Processing. New York: Springer. [link to article] 

• Roncero, C., & de Almeida, R. G. (2014). The importance of being apt: Metaphor comprehension in Alzheimer's disease. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8. [link to article]

• Manouilidou, C. & de Almeida, R. G. (2013). Processing correlates of verb typologies: Investigating internal strucutre and argument realization. Linguistics, 51, 767-792. [.pdf]

• de Almeida, R. G. & Riven, L. (2012). Indeterminacy and coercion effects: Minimal representations with pragmatic enrichment. In A. M. Di Sciullo (Ed.), Towards a biolinguistic understanding of grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [.pdf]

• Manouilidou, C., de Almeida, R. G., Schwartz, G., & Nair, N. P. V. (2009). Thematic roles in Alzheimer’s disease: Hierarchy violations in psychological predicates. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 22, 167-186. [.pdf]

• de Almeida, R. G. & Libben, G. (2005). Changing morphological structures: The effect of sentence context on the interpretation of structurally ambiguous English trimorphemic words. Language and Cognitive Processes, 20, 373-394. [Reprinted in: R. Frost, J. Grainger & K. Rastle (Eds.), Current Issues in Morphological Processing. London: Psychology Press] [.pdf]

• de Almeida, R. G. (2004). The effect of context on the processing of type-shifting verbs. Brain and Language, 90, 249-261.[.pdf]

• de Almeida, R. G. (1999). What do category-specific semantic deficits tell us about the representation of lexical concepts? Brain and Language, 68, 241-248. [.pdf]