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Addresses

Education

  • Ph.D. Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego, Winter 1997 
  • M.S. Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego, Spring 1992 
  • B.A. Philosophy, Wellesley College, Spring 1988 

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Employment

  • 1999-present 

    • Assistant Professor. Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego
  • 1997-1999 

    • Post-Doctoral Research Associate. Department of Psychology, University of Arizona 
  • 1989-1990 

    • Research Assistant. Department of Psychology, Hunter College CUNY 
  • 1988-1989 

    • Production Editor. Garland Publishing, New York, NY 

Books

  • Coulson, S. 2000. Semantic Leaps: Frame-shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning Construction. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Excerpt  

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Papers

    Coulson, S. & Federmeier, K.D. (In Press). Words in context: ERPs and the lexical/postlexical distinction. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research HTML Version  

    Coulson, S., Federmeier, K.D., Van Petten, C., & Kutas, M. (In Press). Right hemisphere sensitivity to word and sentence level context: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. PDF Version (manuscript)

    Coulson, S. & Oakley, T. (In Press). Blending and coded meaning: Literal and figurative meaning in cognitive semantics. Journal of Pragmatics. (manuscript) PDF Version

    Coulson, S., Urbach, T., & Kutas, M. (In Press). Looking back: Joke comprehension and the space structuring model. Humor.  PDF Version (manuscript)

    Coulson, S. & Williams, R.F. (In Press). Hemispheric asymmetries and joke comprehension. Neuropsychologia. PDF Version

    Coulson, S. & Wu, Y.C. (In Press). Right hemisphere activation of joke-related information: An event-related brain potential study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. PDF Version (manuscript)

    Coulson, S. & Lovett, C. (2004). Handedness, hemispheric asymmetry, and joke comprehension. Cognitive Brain Research 19: 275-288. PDF Version

    Kemmer, L., Coulson, S., De Ochoa, E. & Kutas, M. (2004). Syntactic processing with aging: An event-relaed potential study. Psychophysiology 41(3):372-384. PDF Version

    Coulson, S. (2002). Review of FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE AND FIGURATIVE THOUGHT by Albert N. Katz, Cristina Cacciari, Raymond Gibbs, Jr., and Mark Turner. Journal of Pragmatics 34: 335-340.   HTML Version   PDF Version

    Coulson, S. & Van Petten, C. (2002). Conceptual Integration and Metaphor: An event-related potential study. Memory & Cognition 30: 958-968. PDF Version 

    Coulson, S. & Kutas, M. (2001). Getting it: Human event-related brain response to jokes in good and poor comprehenders. Neuroscience Letters 316: 71-74.      PDF Version 

    Coulson, S. & Matlock, T. (2001). Metaphor and the space structuring model. Metaphor & Symbol 16(3): 295-316.      HTML Version 

    Coulson, S. & Oakley, T. (2000). Blending Basics. Cognitive Linguistics11-3/4     PDF Version 

    Van Petten, C., Coulson, S., Plante, E., Rubin, S., & Parks, M. (1999). Timecourse of word identification and semantic integration in spoken language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition 25 (2): 394-417. PDF Version

    Coulson, S. & Kutas, M. (1998). Frame-shifting and sentential integration. UCSD Cognitive Science Technical Report 98-03 Postscript Version  

    Coulson, S., King, J.W., Kutas, M. (1998a). Expect the unexpected: Event-related brain response to morphosyntactic violations. Language and Cognitive Processes13 (1): 21-58. PDF Version

    Coulson, S., King, J.W., Kutas, M. (1998b). ERPs and domain specificity: Beating a straw horse. Language and Cognitive Processes 13 (6): 653-672. PDF Version

    Flor, N. & Coulson, S. (1996). Activity without intersubjectivity: A case study of side-by-side collaborative problem-solving. Cognitive Science Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society 3: 63-76. 

    Valian, V. & Coulson, S. (1988). Anchor points in language learning: The role of marker frequency. Journal of Memory and Language 27 (1): 71-86. PDF Version

Chapters

    Coulson, S. (In Press). What's so funny: Conceptual Blending in Humorous Examples. In V. Herman, (Ed.) The Poetics of Cognition: Studies of Cognitive Linguistics and the Verbal Arts. Cambridge University Press. HTML Version  

    Coulson, S. & Oakley, T. (In Press). Purple Persuasion: Conceptual Blending and Deliberative Rhetoric. In J. Luchenbroers, (Ed.) Cognitive Linguistics: Investigations across languages, fields, and philosophical boundaries. Amsterdam: John H. Benjamins.      HTML Version  

    Coulson, S. (2004). Electrophysiology and pragmatic language comprehension. In I. Noveck and D. Sperber (Eds.), Experimental Pragmatics. San Diego: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 187-206. PDF Version (manuscript)

    Coulson, S. (2003). Reasoning and rhetoric: Conceptual blending in political and religious rhetoric. In Elzbieta H. Oleksy & Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (Eds.) Research and Scholarship in Integration Processes. Lodz, Poland: Lodz University Press, pp. 59-88.

    Coulson, S. & Oakley, T. (2003). Metonymy and Conceptual Blending. In Klaus-Uwe Panther and Linda L. Thornburg (Eds.) Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.  HTML Version  (looks best in explorer)

    Kutas, M., Federmeier, K., Coulson, S., King, J.W., Muente, T.F. (2000). Language. In J.T. Cacioppo, L.G. Tassinary, & G.G. Berntson (Eds.), Handbook of Psychophysiology, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press. PDF Version     

    Coulson, S. & Fauconnier, G. (1999). Fake Guns and Stone Lions: Conceptual Blending and Privative Adjectives. In B. Fox, D. Jurafsky, & L. Michaelis (Eds.) Cognition and Function in Language. Palo Alto, CA: CSLI.     HTML Version  

    Grady, J., Oakley, T., & Coulson, S. (1999). Conceptual Blending and Metaphor. In R. Gibbs (Ed.) Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.      HTML Version 

    Coulson, S. (1996). The Menendez Brothers Virus: Analogical Mapping in Blended Spaces. In Adele Goldberg (Ed.) Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language. Palo Alto, CA: CSLI, pp. 67-81.      ASCII Version  

    Flor, N. & Coulson, S. (1996). Activity without intersubjectivity: A case study of side-by-side collaborative problem-solving. Cognitive Science Studies: Bulletin of the Japanese Cognitive Science Society 3: 63-76. 

    Coulson, S. (1994). Cognitive Science. Entry in Handbook of Pragmatics. (Ed.) Jan Blommaert. Wilrijk, Belgium: International Pragmatics Research Center. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Be    njamins. 

    Coulson, S. & Flor, N. (1994). Rational choice and framing devices: Argumentation and computer programmers. Proceedings of the sixteenth annual conference of the cognitive science society. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Coulson, S. (1992). Is Incest Best? The Role of Pragmatic Scales and Cultural Models in Abortion Rhetoric. Center for Research in Language Newsletter 7(2).     ASCII Version
     

Invited Presentations

    April, 2004. Embodiment and Language Comprehension: Event-Related Brain Potential Studies. Workshop on "Neurobiology of the Good Life" sponsored by the UCLA Center for Governance. Political Science Department, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA.

    April, 2004. Getting the Message Across: ERP Studies of Extra-Linguistic Processing. CogLunch, Psychology Department, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA.

    March, 2004. Getting the Message Across: ERP Studies of Extra-Linguistic Processing. Evoked Potentials International Conference (EPIC), (Keynote Lecture). Leipzig, Germany.

    October, 2003. The Right Stuff: Hemispheric Asymmetry and Joke Comprehension. Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. Chicago, IL.

    July, 2003. Conceptual Blending and the Literal/Nonliteral Distinction. International Cognitive Linguistics Association Congress. Logrono, Spain.

    July, 2003. The Right Stuff: Hemispheric Asymmetry and Joke Comprehension. (Keynote Presentation in the Panel on Humor and Cognitive Linguistics), International Cognitive Linguistics Association Congress. Logrono, Spain.

    March, 2003. Nested Locatives: An Event-Related Brain Potential Study. Paper presented at the CUNY Sentence Processing Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.

    October, 2002. Nested Locatives: An Event-Related Brain Potential Study. Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language conference, Rice University, Houston, TX.

    August, 2002. Blending, Context, and Figuration (Joint Lecture with Todd Oakley). The Way We Think: A Research Symposium on Conceptual Integration & the Nature and Origin of Cognitively Modern Human Beings (Plenary Lecture), University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.

    June, 2002. Reasoning and Rhetoric. Interdisciplinary Conference on Research and Scholarship in the Integration Process (Keynote Lecture), Lodz, Poland.

    April, 2002. Metaphor and the Space Structuring Model. Presentation at the Parmenides Center for the Study of Thinking: Workshop on Metaphor and Analogy, Calipoveri, Elba, Italy.

    December, 2001. Reasoning and Rhetoric. Jacob Marschak Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Mathematics in the Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA. 

    November, 2001. The Right Stuff: Hemispheric Assymmetries and Language Comprehension. Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences Colloquium. University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

    October, 2001. Does the left hand know what the right hemisphere is doing? Handedness and Figurative Language Comprehension. CogLunch, Psychology Department University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA.

    July, 2001. "I literally ate till I exploded": Literal and nonliteral meanings in conceptual integration networks. Conceptual Integration Theme Session, International Cognitive Linguistics Congress. University of California, Santa Barbara, Goleta, CA.

    June 2001. Semantic Leaps: Experimental Studies of Meaning Construction. Plenary Session: Summer School in Language & Communication. Syddansk University, Odense, Denmark. 

    March 2001. Rationality Reconstrued: Conceptual Blending in Abortion Rhetoric. Biopolitics II at University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA. 

    October 2000. Embodiment and Neuroimaging. Presentation at "The Embodied Mind" Symposium at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. 

    July 2000. Metaphor and the Space Structuring Model. Paper presented in the special session on Processing Figurative Language at the annual meeting of the Society for Text and Discourse, Lyon, France. 

    July 2000. Sarcasm and the Space Structuring Model. Paper presented in the panel session on Irony and Humor, International Pragmatics Association, Budapest, Hungary. 

    March 2000. Lexical and Sentential Context Effects: An ERP study of the difference between life and death and life in prison. Paper presented at the CUNY Sentence Processing Conference, La Jolla, CA. 

    October 1999. Conceptual Blending and Discourse Irony. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Humanities Association, San Diego, CA. 

    July 1999. What's so funny? Paper presented at Centro Internazionale di Semiotica e Linguistica. Urbino, Italy. 

    July 1999. Constructing Meaning. Colloquium. Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience. Leipzeig, Germany. 

    December 1998. Conceptual Blending. 2-week seminar. Center for Semiotic Research, University of Aarhus. Aarhus, Denmark. 

    November 1998. Constructing Meaning: Electrophysiological Approaches to Language. Colloquium -- co-sponsored by Physiology, Educational Science, Psychology, and Linguistics, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL. 

    April 1998. Shifting Conceptions. Psychology Department Colloquium, University of California, Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, CA. 

    March 1998. To be real: Representation and misrepresentation in concept combination. Cognitive Science Colloquium, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. 

    June 1997. What's in a word: ERPs and meaning construction. TENNET Symposium on ERPs and Sentence Processing. Montreal, Canada. 

    May 1997. Fake guns and false eyelashes: Conceptual blending and privative adjectives. Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language, Boulder, CO. 

    May 1997. Conceptual Blending. Cognitive Linguistics Workshop, Boston University, Boston, MA. 

    January 1996. Frame Shifting. Cognitive Linguistics Workshop, University of California, Berkeley, CA. 

    July 1995. Blaming, blending, and framing: Projection geometry in blended spaces. International Cognitive Linguistics Association Meeting. Albequerque, NM. 

    June 1995. Metaphor Theory: Why it's good to budget your time but not your love. San Diego State University, Linguistic Students Association. San Diego, CA. 

    November 1994. The Menendez Brothers Virus: Analogical Mapping in Blended Spaces. Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language Conference. San Diego, CA. 

    March 1994. Pragmatic Scales and Abortion Rhetoric. Concept Analysis Group, Center for Advanced Study of Behavior. Palo Alto, CA. 

    July 1993. (together with Nick Flor) Argumentation and computer programmers. Paper presented and Society for Text and Discourse, Summer Meeting. Boulder, CO. 

    October 1992. Pragmatic scales and abortion rhetoric. Paper presented at the Cognitive Linguistics Workshop, Berkeley, CA. 

    June 1992. Cultural models and pragmatic scales in argumentation on abortion. Paper presented to Society for Text and Discourse, Summer Meeting, San Diego, CA. 

Research Interests

  • Analogical Reasoning
  • Cognitive Electrophysiology
  • Conceptual Blending
  • Counterfactual Reasoning
  • Frame Semantics
  • Human Brain Mapping
  • Human Knowledge Representation
  • Pragmatic Language Comprehension
  • Rhetorical Theory
  • Right Hemisphere Language Capacity 

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Professional Activities 

    Teaching

    Guest Professor, Center for Semiotic Research, University of Aarhus (Aarhus, Denmark): December, 1998.
    Guest Professor, University of Southern Denmark, Summer School in Language and Communication (Odense Denmark): June, 2001.
    Guest Professor, University of Southern Denmark, Summer School on Blending in Context (Odense, Denmark): August, 2002.
    Faculty, LOT Winterschool, Free University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam, The Netherlands): January, 2003.
    Faculty, Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics Workshop, Cornell University (Ithaca, NY): April, 2003.
    Faculty, Summer Institute for Cognitive Science, University of Quebec at Montreal (Montreal, Canada) July, 2003.

    Panels, Workshops Organized

    Co-organizer of Conceptual Blending Theme Session, International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Stockholm, Sweden: July 1999.
    Co-organizer of Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics Workshop, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: April, 2003.
    Co-organizer of Literal/Nonliteral Distinction Theme Session, International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Logrono, Spain: July, 2003.
    Co-organizer of Panel on Right Hemisphere Contributions to Language Comprehension, Society for Psychophysiological Research, Chicago, IL: October, 2003.
    Co-organizer of Literal/Nonliteral Distinction Theme Session, International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Logrono, Spain: July, 2003.

    Editorial Activities

    Editorial Board (2001-present): Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics
    Editorial Board (January 2005-): Cognitive Linguistics
    Associate Editor: The Mental Space Lab (on-line journal)

    Co-edited special issue of Cognitive Linguistics on conceptual blending
    Co-edited special issue of Journal of Pragmatics on conceptual blending

    Review books for: Cambridge University Press, John Benjamins, Mouton de Gruyter, Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan

    Ad hock reviewer for: Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, Brain and Behavioral Sciences, Brain & Cognition, Brain & Language, Cerebral Cortex, Cognition, Cognitive Brain Research, Cognitive Linguistics, Humor, Journal of Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Language and Cognitive Processes, Language and Speech, Memory and Cognition, Metaphor and Symbol, Neuropsychologis, Neuroscience Letters, Nordic Journal of Linguistics, Psychophysiology, and Style.

    Miscellaneous     

    Cognitive Science Society, Member 

    Society for Cognitive Neuroscience, Member 

    International Cognitive Linguistics Society, Member

    Moderator, cogling@ucsd.edu (Cognitive Linguistics Discussion List), 1993-present

     
Copyright ©2002 Seana Coulson