The goal of this research is to understand individuals’ understanding of emotions that are conveyed nonverbally (healthy individuals and individuals with acquired brain injuries including stroke and traumatic brain injury). Research questions are as follows: Do healthy individuals demonstrate appropriate understanding of emotions conveyed during nonverbal movies (e.g., positive/negative, happy/sad, funny/tragic, etc.)? Do cognitive-communicatively impaired individuals demonstrate appropriate understanding of emotions conveyed during nonverbal movies (e.g., positive/negative, happy/sad, funny/tragic, etc.)?

The goal of this project is to explore figurative language comprehension in both healthy individuals and those with an acquired brain injury. This project looks at multiple types of figurative language and examines the existing assessment tools for measuring comprehension. This project also looks at the relationship between figurative language comprehension and factors such as age, cultural background, geographic location.