Montserrat Comesaña

In 2007, I obtained my PhD in Basic Psychology with the qualification of cum laude in the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) thanks to the funding from the Galician Government. In 2008, I started my post-doctoral career as an auxiliary researcher at the CIPsi (Centro de Investigação em Psicologia, School of Psychology, University of Minho) to give support a new created area in Basic Psychology Department (Language area), thanks to the funding from the Foundation for Science and Technology -FCT (Programme Ciência 2008). Since that year I have been combining Psycholinguistic research and teaching. Regarding Psycholinguistics research, I have published more than 40 papers in highly respected journals, such as Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition and PLoS One, and a book chapter. At the end of the contract (April 2013), I still working at CIPsi thanks to the funding from the Galician Government (Plan I2C, from April 2013 to Dezember 2013). In Dezember 2013 I got a new contract as an Auxiliar Researcher at CIPsi, again funded by the FCT (Concurso Investigador, 2013 –a highly competitive programme). I am currently the PI of a project on bilingualism funded by the FCT (IF/00784/2013), which gives continuity to another project previously funded by the same entity (PTDC/PSI-PCO/104671/2008). Besides, I am a regular reviewer for a number of international respected scientific journals such as Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Behavior Research Methods, among others, and also an expert evaluator of research proposals for the  executive government agency of National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki – NCN, Poland; http://www.ncn.gov.pl). Regarding teaching, I have taught courses in an integrated Master’s in Experimental Psychology and its Applications at the School of Psychology, as well as in the Basic Psychology program (University of Minho). Besides, I have been giving classes on Bilingualism in other institutions (e.g., University of Lille, University of Rovira I Virgili) and I integrate the group of teachers of the PhD Program in Psychological Processes and Social Behavior (USC).

My main area of research focuses on the functional architecture of the bilingual memory and how this organization changes throughout the lifespan, as well as on second language acquisition (SLA). Specifically, I am particularly motivated to understand the interplay of linguistic (i.e., age of acquisition, lexical frequency, cognate status, etc.) and contextual factors (i.e., language exposure, learning methods) in the cerebral representation and processing of two languages. Moreover, I am interested in how perceptual factors affect the way readers understand words with impressive efficiency.