Isabella Fritz

I work as a postdoctoral researcher on the EPSRC-funded Pertinacity grant. My current research focusses on phonological processing in L1 and L2 with EEG as my main experimental method. I am particularly interested in loanword and cognate processing.

Until 2023, I worked on the experimental strand of our Journey of words: Manuscript to Mind project which combined psycho- and neurolinguistic investigations with historical linguistic analyses.

I am also interested in making linguistic findings (theoretical and experimental) accessible to language teachers in order to bridge linguistic research and classroom practice.

Before joining the Language and Brain Lab in September 2020, I worked on different levels of language processing. As a postdoctoral researcher at NTNU in Trondheim (Norway), I investigated semantic and syntactic composition looking at how our brain combines single words in order to make sense of phrases and sentences. For my PhD studies at the University of Birmingham, I conducted experiments investigating how iconic gestures and speech interact during discourse comprehension and sentence production.

Selected publications:

Fritz, I., Lahiri, A., & Kotzor, S. (2023). Shared loanword recognition in German-English bilinguals: An ERP fragment priming study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_02063

Fritz, I., & Baggio, G. (2021). Neural and behavioural effects of typicality, denotation and composition in an adjective–noun combination task. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2021.2004176

Fritz, I., Lahiri, A., & Kotzor, S. (2021). The role of metrical stress differences in learner word recognition. ExLing 2021: pp. 85-88.

Fritz, I., Kita, S., Littlemore, J., & Krott, A. (2021). Multimodal language processing: How preceding discourse constrains gesture interpretation and affects gesture integration when gestures do not synchronise with semantic affiliates. Journal of Memory and Language, 117, 104191. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2020.104191

Fritz I., & Baggio, G. (2020). Meaning composition in minimal phrasal contexts: Distinct ERP effects of intensionality and denotation, Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 1-19. Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2020.1749678

Olstad, A. M. H. *, Fritz, I. *, & Baggio, G. (2020). Composition decomposed: Distinct neural mechanisms support processing of nouns in modification and predication contexts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 46(11), pp. 2193-2206. Link: https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000943 *equal contribution

Fritz I., Kita S., Littlemore J., & Krott A. (2019). Information packaging in speech shapes information packaging in gesture: The role of speech planning units in the coordination of speech-gesture production. Journal of Memory and Language, 104, 56-69. Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2018.09.002

Vulchanova M., Vulchanov V., Fritz I. & Milburn E. (2019). Language and perception: introduction to the special issue speakers and listeners in the visual world. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science. 1-10. Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41809-019-00047-z