Micaela Portilla Research Center, Office 3.2
Linguistics and Basque Studies
University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
tkohatsu001@ikasle.ehu.eus
How and under what conditions do bilingual speakers control two languages in the brain? My PhD project explores the mechanism of language processing of bilingual speakers within social communication. More concretely, my PhD project addresses the interconnections between interlocutor’s emotions and language by examining whether and how does the perception of interlocutors’ emotions influence bilingual lexical access during language comprehension and production and message planning and sentence production.
I am now a PhD candidate under the supervision of Dr. Mikel Santesteban and Dr. Kepa Erdozia.
Research Interests:
Bilingualism, Language Comprehension, Language Production, Embodied Cognition, Linguistic Relativity, Emotion, Personality
Education:
September 2021 – July 2023
- Faculty of Art, Theoretical and experimental linguistics, University of the Basque Country
April 2019 – September 2021
- Department of British and American Studies, Language Education, Okinawa International University
September 2013- March 2019
- Department of British and American Language and Culture, Okinawa International University
Publications:
Kohatsu, T., Akamine, S., Sato, M., & Niikuni, K. (2022). 文理解時の視点取得に共感性の個人差が及ぼす影響: 主語省略文と文脈情報の利用に着目して (Individual differences in empathy affect perspective adoption in language comprehension). Cognitive Studies, 30(3), 206-216.
Talks:
Akamine, S., Omine, A., Kohatsu, T., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2021, June) Visual Perception of Vertical Motions Improves Valence Word Learning [Paper to be presented] The Japanese Society for Language Sciences 22nd Annual International Conference 2021, Okinawa, Japan (Peer-reviewed international conference)
Akamine, S., Omine, A., Kohatsu, T., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2024). Visual perception and physical action in valence word learning [Paper to be presented]. Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing Asia 2020, Hong Kong, China. (Peer-reviewed international conference)
Posters:
Oshiro, A., Kohatsu, T., Omine, A., Schafer, A. J., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2023). The Effect of Facial Expressions on Event Comprehension in Children with Different Empathy Skills. Poster at the 13th International conference on Cognitive Science, Seoul, Korea.
Kohatsu, T., Oshiro, A., Omine, A., Schafer, A. J., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2023). From Observer to Actor: Facial Expressions Affect Children’s Preferences in Perspective Adoption. Poster at the 13th International conference on Cognitive Science, Seoul, Korea.
Akamine, S., Kohatsu, T., Oshiro, A., & Sato, M. (2022). Vertical motions in the learning of spatial, emotion, and social words. Poster at the 29th Annual Meeting of the Association for Natural Language Processing, Okinawa, Japan.
Oshiro, A., Kohatsu, T., Akamine, S., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2022). 表情の閾下呈示が事象における視点取得に与える影響 (The effect of subliminal facial expression on perspective adoption during event aprehension in Japanese). Poster at the 29th Annual Meeting of the Association for Natural Language Processing, Okinawa, Japan.
Kohatsu, T., Akamine, S., Oshiro, A., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2022). The effect of subliminal facial expression on perspective adoption during language comprehension in Japanese. Poster at the 29th Annual Meeting of the Association for Natural Language Processing, Okinawa, Japan.
Kohatsu, T., Akamine, S., Sato, M., & Niikuni, K. (2022). Individual differences in empathy affect perspective adoption in language comprehension. Poster presented at the 39th Annual Meeting of Japanese Cognitive Science Society, online.
Akamine, S., Kohatsu, T., Niikuni, K., Schafer, A. J., & Sato, M. (2022). Emotions in language processing: Affective priming in embodied cognition. Poster presented at the 39th Annual Meeting of Japanese Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2022), online.
Kohatsu, T., Akamine, S., Omine, A., & Sato, M. (2022). The role of predictability and sense of agency in time estimation. Poster presented at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2022), Toronto, Canada.
Omine, A., Akamine, S., Kohatsu, T., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2021, June). Facial expression influences ambiguous sentence interpretation in second language [Poster to be presented] The Japanese Society for Language Sciences 22nd Annual International Conference 2021, Okinawa, Japan (Peer-reviewed international conference)
Akamine, S., Omine, A., Kohatsu, T., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2020, September). Who to blame? The underlying representation of Japanese sentences with unspecified agents of blamable acts. The 37th Annual Meeting of Japanese Cognitive Science Society, Gifu, Japan (Virtually). (Peer reviewed international conference)
Omine, A., Akamine, S., Kohatsu, T., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2020, September). Facial expression and body posture influence ambiguous sentence interpretation. (Peer-reviewed international conference) The 37th Annual Meeting of Japanese Cognitive Science Society, Gifu, Japan (Virtually).
Kohatsu, T., Omine, A., Akamine, S., Niikuni, K., & Sato, M. (2020, September). Long time or much time? How do different languages alter the perception of temporal events. The 37th Annual Meeting of Japanese Cognitive Science Society, Gifu, Japan (Virtually). (Peer-reviewed international conference)
Scholarships and awards:
2024 Pre-doctoral scholarship for the training of researchers at the UPV/EHU (PIF2024)
2021-2023 Bank of the Ryukyus Study Abroad Scholarship
Languages: Japanese (Native), English (B2), Spanish (B2)
