Jiaqi Wang will be starting her PhD in October 2024. Jiaqi will be looking at the effects of different characteristics of visual metaphors from advertising on emotional responses in viewers. She will use both behavioural and electrophysiological measures, and compare viewers from different cultures.

Yanxi Lu, PhD student, is working on the effect of culture and language (native vs. second language) on emotional engagement during language comprehension.

Dr. Francesca Citron, lab founder, is currently developing future research on intercultural pragmatics, and on the comprehension and affective responses to creative metaphors, in native as well as second language speakers. She is also working on several ongoing projects: a) Effects of culture of the text and of readers on immersion during narrative reading; b) Visual metaphors in print advertising; c) Aesthetic perception in response to poetic metaphors; d) A database of written and spoken natural stories containing idiomatic expressions. Download CV here.

Alumni – Previous PhD students, visiting students and interns

Dr. Nikoletta Alexandri, postdoctoral researcher at the Huygens Institute, KNAW Humanities Cluster, Amsterdam. 

Dr. Carina Rasse, postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for English and American Studies, University of Klagenfurt, Austria.

External collaborators:
Vicky Lai, University of Arizona;
Jeannette Littlemore, University of Birmingham;
Cristina Soriano, Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, Geneva, Switzerland;
Ana Werkmann Horvat, University of Osijek, Croatia;
Marianna Bolognesi, University of Bologna, and Francesca Strik-Lievers, University of Genoa, Italy;
Kate Cain, Lancaster University, Psychology, UK;
Padraic Monaghan, Lancaster University, Psychology, UK;
Kyungmee Lee, Lancaster University, Education, UK;
Carina Rasse and Alexander Onysko, University of Klagenfurt, Austria;
Chun-Ting Hsu, Kokoro Research Centre, Kyoto, Japan;
Adele Goldberg, Princeton University, NJ;
Friedemann Pulvermueller, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.