FACULTY

SAKAI Hiromu

SAKAI, Hiromu (酒井 弘), Professor

ResearchMap site : https://researchmap.jp/read0186063

E-mail : [hsakai@waseda.jp]

My current research interest centers around the following question--- how we human being can connect our thoughts to language and language to our thoughts. Though this is one of the classical problems in the fields of philosophy, psychology, and linguistics, I approach using experimental methodology in neuroscience ---measuring neural activities and decoding the activities using computational models.

Education

  • B.A., Kyoto University, 1984
  • Ph.D., University of California - Irvine, 1996 (Dissertation: Derivational Uniformity: A Study on Syntactic Derivation in Parametric Setting)

Current CELESE responsibilities

Administrative roles : CELESE Director

Courses : Academic Lecture Comprehension, Communication Strategies, Special Topics in Functional English, Introduction to Brain Science of Language (Global Education Center), Syntactic Theory and Its Application (Global Education Center)

Research areas and interests

Neuroscience (Nerobiology of language), Neurolinguistics, Psycholinguistics

Representative works

  • Tanaka, K., Sakai, H., et al.: Superconducting Self-Shielded and Zero-Boil-Off Magnetoencephalogram Systems: A Dry Phantom Evaluation, Sensors 24(18), 6044, 2024. https://doi.org/10.3390/s24186044
  • Lai, Y-Y., Makuuchi, M., Sakai, H.: Neural underpinnings of processing combinatorial unstated meaning and the influence of individual cognitive style, Cerebral Cortex 33(18), 10013-10027, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhad261
  • Ito, A., Sakai, H.: Everyday language exposure shapes prediction of specific words in listening comprehension: A visual world eye-tracking study, Frontiers in Psychology, 2021. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.607474
  • Hestvik, A., Shinohara, Y., Durvasula, K., Verdonschot, R., Sakai, H.: Abstractness of human speech sound representations. Brain Research, 1732, 146664, 2020. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.brainres.2020.146664
  • Rodrigo, L., Igoa, J.-M.,, Sakai, H.: The Interplay of Relational and Non-relational Processes in Sentence Production: The Case of Relative Clause Planning in Japanese and Spanish, Frontiers in Psychology, 2019, https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.

Other

  • Linguistics Society of Japan
  • English Linguistics Society
  • Society for the Neurobiology of Language
  • Academy of Aphasia