Alba Tuninetti, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

 

Office: T-273
Phone: +90 312 290 1340
E-mail: alba.tuninetti@bilkent.edu.tr
Web Page: https://sites.google.com/view/alba-tuninetti/home

 

 

 

Education

  • PhD, University of Pittsburgh, USA (2015)

Research

Dr Alba Tuninetti is broadly interested in second language learning, bilingualism, and speech perception. Her PhD work examined how similarity to the first language, training, feedback, and cue strength influenced the neural and behavioural processing of nonnative (second language) phonemes using EEG and behavioral methods. She is also interested in bilingual speech and accent perception (as well as language processing more generally), investigating how the first language influences the second language. She uses EEG and behavioural methods to answer the questions of: what makes a language easier or harder to learn? How does bilingualism influence language learning and speech perception? What leads to humans perceiving accents, dialects, and languages differently?

Awards

  • 2016: Endeavour Fellowship Programme, Australia Department of Education
  • 2014 – 2015: Provost’s Development Fund Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh
  • 2013 – 2014: LRDC Director’s Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh
  • 2011 – 2013: Behavioral Brain (B2) Research Training Program Grant (CNBC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), University of Pittsburgh 
  • 2011: Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT), National Science Foundation (NSF), CNBC
  • 2011: Elizabeth Baranger Excellence in Teaching Award (Nomination)
  • 2010: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, Honorable Mention
  • 2010: K. Leroy Irvis Summer Fellow, University of Pittsburgh
  • 2009 – 2010: K. Leroy Irvis Fellow, University of Pittsburgh

Publications

Tuninetti, A., & Tokowicz, N. (2018). Nonnative speech perception in adult learners: A training EEG study. Language, Cognition, & Neuroscience, 33, 750-768. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2017.1421318

Tuninetti, A., Chladkova, K., Peters, V., Schiller, N.O., & Escudero, P. (2017). When speaker identity is unavoidable: pre-attentive neural responses to natural speech. Brain & Language, 174, 42-49. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2017.07.001

Tuninetti, A., Warren, T., & Tokowicz, N. (2014). Cue strength in second language processing: An eye-tracking study. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68, 568-584. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.961934