Minna Lehtonen
PhD, Professor
minna.h.lehtonen@utu.fi |
Psycholinguistics; Cognitive Neuroscience; Psychology of Language; Multilingualism; Bilingualism; Executive Functions; Morphological Processing
I started as a Professor at University of Turku in August 2020. Before this, I worked as a professor and associate professor at University of Oslo. I hold a Title of Docent at University of Helsinki.
My research focuses on the neurocognitive basis of processing and learning of language, with an emphasis on bilingualism/multilingualism. I am interested in possible neurocognitive and linguistic consequences of bilingualism as well as the relationship between executive functions and language. We are utilizing a range of brain imaging and behavioural experimental techniques, as well as surveys and meta-analytic methods. We are also developing and using digital tools such as mobile applications and games to study the learning of Finnish and other Nordic languages (see, e.g., the NordForsk-funded TEFLON project: https://teflon.aalto.fi/). In these projects, our study participants include, for example, bilingual and multilingual adults and children, learners of Finnish, and persons with aphasia.
I teach
psycholinguistics and bilingualism and am currently in charge of bachelor’s and master’s
thesis seminars. I also supervise BA,
MA, and PhD students.
- Video gaming and working memory: A large-scale cross-sectional correlative study (2019)
- Computers in Human Behavior
- Working memory updating training modulates a cascade of event-related potentials depending on task load (2019)
- Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
- A facilitatory effect of rich stem allomorphy but not inflectional productivity on single-word recognition (2018)
- Applied Psycholinguistics
- Beyond volume: A surface-based approach to bilingualism-induced grey matter changes (2018)
- Neuropsychologia
- Bilingualism and working memory performance (2018)
- PLoS ONE
- Cognitive consequences of bilingualism (2018)
- Language, cognition and neuroscience
- Information properties of morphologically complex words modulate brain activity during word reading (2018)
- Human Brain Mapping
- Is Bilingualism Associated With Enhanced Executive Functioning in Adults? A Meta-Analytic Review (2018)
- Psychological Bulletin
- Neural signatures for active maintenance and interference during working memory updating (2018)
- Biological Psychology
- No Effects of Stimulating the Left Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex with tDCS on Verbal Working Memory Updating (2018)
- Frontiers in Neuroscience
- The relationship between general executive functions and bilingual switching and monitoring in language production (2018)
- Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
- The role of general executive functions in receptive language switching and monitoring (2018)
- Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
- TMS uncovers details about sub-regional language-specific processing networks in early bilinguals (2018)
- NeuroImage
- Using Statistical Models of Morphology in the Search for Optimal Units of Representation in the Human Mental Lexicon (2018)
- Cognitive Science
- Working memory and the Big Five (2018)
- Personality and Individual Differences
- Bilingualism modulates the white matter structure of language-related pathways (2017)
- NeuroImage
- Language control mechanisms differ for native languages: neuromagnetic evidence from trilingual language switching. (2017)
- Neuropsychologia
- Relationship between language switching experience and executive functions in bilinguals: an Internet-based study (2017)
- Journal of Cognitive Psychology
- Acquisition and consolidation of novel morphology in human neocortex: A neuromagnetic study (2016)
- Cortex
- Editorial (2016) Morphologically Complex Words in the Mind/Brain Leminen A, Lehtonen M, Bozic M, Clahsen H