Dr. Iva Ivanova

Iva Ivanova

My research aims to advance the understanding of how people produce, comprehend and communicate through language, with a special focus on bilingual individuals. Producing and understanding language seems effortless for most of us, yet involves a complex host of processes and mechanisms, which are even more complex for individuals speaking more than one language. I study these processes and mechanisms with a range of behavioral methodologies. My research has examined how bilinguals retrieve the words they need to speak, how they control their two languages to prevent saying words in the wrong language, and how the two languages of bilinguals decline in Alzheimer’s Disease. My current work investigates how and why we mimic the words and sentence structures of our conversational partners in dialogue, how we are able to understand ungrammatical utterances, and how working memory is involved in speaking. These issues are relevant for devising successful therapies for language-impaired individuals in their first and second language, as well as for educational programs for improving language and communication skills.

UTEP Faculty Profile

Sample Publications:

(*denotes undergraduate mentee)

Ivanova, I., *Seanez, A., *Cochran, M., & Kleinman, D. (2022). The temporal dynamics of bilingual language control. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 30(2), 774-791.

Ivanova, I. & *Hernandez, D. C. (2021). Within-language lexical interference can be resolved in a similar way to between-language interference. Cognition, 214. 104760.

Contemori, C. & Ivanova, I. (2021). Bilingual referential choice in cognitively demanding situations. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 24(1), 83-95.

Ivanova, I., Horton, W. S., Swets, B., Kleinman, D., & Ferreira, V.S. (2020). Structural alignment in dialogue and monologue (and what attention may have to do with it). Journal of Memory and Language, 110.

Ivanova, I., & Ferreira, V.S. (2019). The role of working memory for syntactic formulation in language production. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 45(10), 1791-1814.

Ivanova, I., Salmon, D.P., & Gollan, T.H. (2014). Which language declines more? Longitudinal versus cross-sectional decline of picture naming in bilinguals with Alzheimer’s Disease. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 20, 534-546.

Ivanova, I., Pickering, M.J., Branigan, H.P., McLean, J.F., & Costa, A. (2012). The comprehension of anomalous sentences: Evidence from structural priming. Cognition, 122, 193-209.

Ivanova, I. & Costa, A. (2008). Does bilingualism hamper lexical access in speech production? Acta Psychologica, 127, 277-288.