Charles A. Perfetti
PhD, University of Michigan
University Professor
of Psychology
Senior Scientist and
Associate Director, Learning
Research & Development Center
University
of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Phone: (412) 624-7071
Email: perfetti@pitt.edu
Curriculum
Vitae
Research Program:
My central research interest is
in the cognitive science of language and reading processes, including lower and
higher level processes and the nature of reading ability. My approach involves
research in a cognitive (behavioral) lab, ERPs, and
collaborative research in neuroimaging (fMRI), and, recently, MEG. The general goal is to achieve a
richer view of language processes by the combination of methods. Current
projects include the following:
- The identification of
universal and writing-system specific components of reading. Comparisons
of Chinese and English word identification processes are the heart of this
empirical program, and recent papers develop a theoretical model of
Chinese word identification. These studies include neuroimaging
(fMRI) and ERP studies. Currently, more active
work concerns learning across writing systems.
- The Lexical Quality
Hypothesis. This work represents my long-standing interest in
understanding the components of reading ability. Our experiments suggest
the importance of lexical representations as a major source of individual
differences in simple comprehension tasks, consistent with our earlier
theories of individual differences in comprehension (Perfetti,
1985, 1992).
- Learning new words.
Connected to the lexical quality work is research on learning the meanings
(and forms) of new words. Both children and adults, and both behavioral
and ERP studies.
- Text comprehension:
Word-based and inference processes. ERPS provide word by word records of
comprehension allowing tests of word-to-text integration processes and
processes that the reader uses to fill the implicit information in a text.
- Learning a second language
as an adult. Emphasis on reading in L2, but also learning the language
itself. Studies of English learners of Chinese and learners of English as
a second language. This work is carried out through the Pittsburgh Science
of Learning Center. http://www.learnlab.org/
Recent Publications:
2009
Frishkoff, G.
A., Perfetti, C. A., & Westbury, C. (2009).
ERP measures of partial semantic knowledge: Left temporal indices of skill
differences and lexical quality. Biological Psychology, 80, 130-147.
Perfetti, C. A. (2009). La Maison
hypertext. In M. Bernstein & D.
Greco (Eds.), Reading hypertext (pp. 19-20).
Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems.
2008
Bolger, D. J., Balass, M., Landen,
E. & Perfetti, C. A. (2008). Contextual variation and definitions in
learning the meaning of words. Discourse
Processes, 45(2), 122-159.
Frishkoff, G.
A., Collins-Thompson, K., Perfetti, C. A., & Callan, J. (2008). Measuring incremental changes in
word knowledge: Experimental validation and implications for learning
assessment. Behavioral Research Methods 40(4), 907-925.
Hart, L., & Perfetti, C. A. (2008).
Learning words in Zekkish: Implications for
understanding lexical representation. In E. L. Grigorenko
& A. J. Naples (Eds.), Single word reading: Behavioral and biological
perspectives (pp. 107-128). New York: Taylor & Francis.
Perfetti, C. A., & Dunlap, S. (2008). Learning to read:
General principles and writing system variations. In K. Koda
& A. Zehler (Eds.). Learning to read across
languages (pp. 13-38). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Perfetti, C., & Frishkoff, G.
A. (2008).The neural bases of text and discourse processing. In B. Stemmer
& H. A. Whitaker (Eds.), Handbook of the neurosciencce
of language (pp. 165-174). Cambridge, MA: Elsevier.
Perfetti, C. A., Yang, C-L., &
Schmalhofer, F. (2008). Comprehension skill and word-to-text processes. Applied
Cognitive Psychology, 22(3), 303-318.
Siok, W. T., Niu, Z. Jin, Z., Perfetti, C. A.
& Tan, L. H. (2008). A structural-functional basis for dyslexia in
the cortex of Chinese readers. PNAS (Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences), 105(14), 5561-5566.
Verhoeven, L.,
& Perfetti, C. A. (2008). Introduction.
Advances in text comprehension: Model, process and development. Applied
Cognitive Psychology, 22(3), 293-301.
2007
Chen,
B. G., Zhou, H. X., Dunlap, S., & Perfetti, C. A. (2007). Age of
acquisition effects in reading Chinese: Evidence in favor of the Arbitrary
Mapping Hypothesis. British Journal of Psychology, 98(3), 499-506.
Landi,
N., & Perfetti, C. A. (2007). An electrophysiological investigation of semantic and phonological
processing in skilled and less-skilled comprehenders.
Brain and Language, 102, 30-45.
Liu,
Y., Dunlap, S., Fiez, J., & Perfetti, C.A. (2007). Evidence for neural accommodation to a writing
system following learning. Human Brain
Mapping,28, 1223-1234.
Liu, Y., Wang, M., & Perfetti, C. A.
(2007). Threshold-style processing of Chinese characters for adult
second-language learners. Memory and
Cognition, 35(3), 471-480.
Perfetti, C. A. (2007). Reading ability: Lexical quality to
comprehension. Scientific Studies of
Reading,11(4), 357-383.
Perfetti, C. A.,
Liu, Y., Fiez, J. Nelson, J., Bolger, D. J., &
Tan, L-H. (2007). Reading in two writing systems: Accommodation and
Assimilation in the brain’s reading network. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 10(2), 131-146. Special issue on “Neurocognitive approaches to bilingualism: Asian
languages”, P. Li (Ed.).
Schmalhofer, F., & Perfetti, C. A.
(2007). Neural and behavioral indicators of integration processes across
sentence boundaries. In F. Schmalhofer & C. Perfetti (Eds.), Higher level language processes in the
brain: Inference and comprehension processes (pp. 161-188). Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Yang, C-L., Perfetti, C. A., & Schmalhofer, F. (2007). Event-related potential
indicators of text integration across sentence boundaries. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33(1), 55-89.
2006
Goldberg, R.F., Perfetti, C.A.,
Schneider, W. (2006). Distinct and common cortical activations for
multimodal semantic categories. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral
Neuroscience, 6(3), 214-222.
Landi, N., Perfetti, C. A.,
Bolger, D. J., Dunlap, S., & Foorman, B. R.
(2006). The role of discourse context in developing word form representations:
A paradoxical relationship between reading and learning. Journal of
Experimental Child Psychology, 94(2), 114-133.
Liu,
Y., Perfetti, C. A., & Wang, M. (2006). Visual analysis and lexical access of Chinese characters by Chinese as
second language readers. Linguistics and
Language, 7(3), 637-657.
Massaro, D. W., Liu, Y., Chen, T. H., & Perfetti, C. A. (2006). A multilingual embodied
conversational agent for tutoring speech and language learning. Proceedings
of the Ninth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (Interspeech 2006 - ICSLP, September, Pittsburgh, PA) (pp.
825-828). Universität Bonn, Germany.
Perfetti, C. A.,
& Liu, Y. (2006). Reading Chinese characters: Orthography, phonology,
meaning, and the Lexical Constituency Model. In P. Li, L. H. Tan, E. Bates,
& O. J. L. Tzeng (Eds.), Handbook of East Asian psycholinguistics (pp. 225-236). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Perfetti, C. A.,
Tan, L. H., & Siok, W. T. (2006). Brain-behavior relations in reading and
dyslexia: Implications of Chinese results.
Brain and Language, 98,
344-346.
2005
Bolger, D. J., Perfetti, C. A., &
Schneider, W. (2005). A cross-cultural effect on the brain revisited:
Universal structures plus writing system variation. Journal of Human Brain
Mapping, 25(1), 83-91.
Nelson, J. R., Balass, M., & Perfetti, C. A. (2005). Differences between written
and spoken input in learning new words. Written Language &
Literacy, 8(2), 25-44.
Perfetti, C. A.,
Landi, N., & Oakhill, J. (2005). The
acquisition of reading comprehension skill. In M. J. Snowling
& C. Hulme (Eds.), The science of reading: A
handbook (pp. 227-247). Oxford: Blackwell.
Perfetti, C. A.,
& Liu, Y. (2005). Orthography to phonology and meaning: Comparisons
across and within writing systems. Reading and Writing, 18(3), 193-210.
Perfetti, C. A.,
Liu, Y., & Tan, L. H. (2005). The Lexical Constituency Model: Some
implications of research on Chinese for general theories of reading. Psychological
Review, 12(11), 43-59.
Perfetti, C. A.,
Wlotko, E. W., & Hart, L. A. (2005).
Word learning and individual differences in word learning reflected in
Event-Related Potentials. Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 31(6),
1281-1292.
Tan, L. H., Spinks, J. A., Eden, G., Perfetti,
C. A., & Siok, W. T. (2005). Reading
depends on writing, in Chinese. PNAS, 102, 8781-8785.
Tokowicz, N.,
& Perfetti, C. A. (2005). Introduction to
section II: Comprehension. In J. F. Kroll & A. M. B. de Groot
(Eds.), Handbook of bilingualism: Psycholinguistic approaches (pp.
173-177). New York: Oxford University Press.
Wang, M., Perfetti, C. A., & Liu, Y.
(2005). Chinese-English biliteracy
acquisition: Cross-language and writing system transfer. Cognition, 97,
67-88.
Yang, C. L., Perfetti, C. A., & Schmalhofer, F. (2005). Less skilled comprehenders’ ERPs show
sluggish word-to-text integration process.
Written Language & Literacy, 8(2),
233-257.
2004
Perfetti, C. A.,
& Bolger, D. J. (2004). The brain might read that way. Scientific
Studies of Reading, 8(3), 293-304.
Siok, W. T.,
Perfetti, C. A., Jin, Z., & Tan, L. H. (2004). Biological abnormality of impaired reading
constrained by culture: Evidence from Chinese. Nature, September 1,
71-76.
Wang, M., Liu, Y., & Perfetti, C. A.
(2004). The implicit and explicit learning of orthographic structure and
function of a new writing system. Scientific Studies of Reading, 8(4),
357-379.
2003
Liu, Y., & Perfetti, C. A. (2003).
The time course of brain activity in reading English and Chinese: An ERP study
of Chinese bilinguals. Journal of Human Brain Mapping, 18(3), 167-175.
Liu, Y., Perfetti, C. A., & Hart, L.
(2003). ERP evidence for the time course of graphic, phonological, and
semantic information in Chinese meaning and pronunciation decisions. Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29(6),
1231-1247.
McCandliss, B.,
Beck, I. L., Sandak, R., & Perfetti,
C. (2003). Focusing attention on decoding for children with poor reading
skills: Design and preliminary tests of the Word Building intervention. Scientific
Studies of Reading, 7(1), 75-104.
Perfetti, C.A. (2003). The universal grammar of reading. Scientific
Studies of Reading, 7(1), 3-24.
Reichle, E. D., & Perfetti, C. A.
(2003). Morphology in word identification: A word-experience model that
accounts for morpheme frequency effects. Scientific Studies of Reading. 7(1),
219-238.
Verhoeven, L.,
& Perfetti, C. A. (2003). Introduction to
This Special Issue: The role of morphology in learning to read. Scientific
Studies of Reading, 7(3), 209-218.
Wang, M., Koda, K., &, Perfetti, C. A. (2003). Alphabetic and nonalphabetic L1 effects in English word identification: A
comparison of Korean and Chinese English L2 learners. Cognition, 87, 129-149.
Wang, M., Perfetti, C. A., & Liu, Y.
(2003). Alphabetic readers quickly acquire orthographic structure in
learning to read Chinese. Scientific Studies of Reading, 7(2),
183-208.
2002
Perfetti, C.A.,
& Hart, L. (2002). The lexical quality hypothesis. In L. Vehoeven. C. Elbro, & P. Reitsma (Eds.), Precursors of functional literacy (pp.
189-213). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Perfetti, C. A.,
Liu, Y., & Tan, L.H. (2002). How the mind can meet the brain in
reading: A comparative writing systems approach. In H. S. R. Kao, C-K. Leong,
& D-G. Gao (Eds.), Cognitive neuroscience
studies of the Chinese language (pp. 36-60). Hong Kong University
Press.
Yoon, H-K., Bolger, D. J., Kwon, O-S., & Perfetti,
C. A. (2002). Subsyllabic units in reading: A
difference between Korean and English. In L. Verhoeven.
C. Elbro, & P. Reitsma
(Eds.), Precursors of functional literacy (pp. 139-163).
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
2001
Perfetti, C. A. (2001). Reading skills. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes
(Eds.). International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (pp.
12800-12805). Oxford: Pergamon.
Perfetti, C.A,
& Hart, L. (2001). The lexical bases of comprehension skill. In D. Gorfien (Ed.), On the consequences of meaning selection (pp.
67-86). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Perfetti, C.A. & Sandak, R.
(2001) Literacy education. In N. J. Smelser & P.
B. Baltes (Eds.) International encyclopedia of the
social and behavioral sciences (pp. 8975-8981). Oxford: Pergamon.
Perfetti, C.A.,
Van Dyke, J.A., & Hart, L. (2001). The psycholinguistics of basic
literacy. In M. McGroarty (Ed.), Annual Review of
Applied Linguistics, 21, 127-149.
Rayner, K., Foorman, B.R., Perfetti, C.A., Pesetsky, D. & Seidenberg, M.S. (2001). How
psychological science informs the teaching of reading. Psychological science
in the public interest, 2(2), 31-74. A supplement to Psychological
Science.
Tan,
L.H., Liu, H.L., Perfetti, C.A., Spinks, J.A., Fox,
P.T., & Gao, J.H.
(2001). The neural system underlying Chinese logograph reading. NeuroImage, 13, 836-846.
2000
Booth,
J., Perfetti, C., MacWhinney,
B., & Hunt, S. (2000). The association of rapid temporal perception with
orthographic and phonological processing in children and adults with reading
impairment. Scientific Studies of Reading, 4 (2), 101-132.
Britt,
M. A., Perfetti, C. A., Van Dyke, J. & Gabrys, G. (2000) The Sourcer’s
Apprentice: A tool for document-supported history instruction. In P. Stearns,
P. Seixas, & S. Weinberg (Eds.), Knowing,
teaching and learning history: National and international perspectives (pp.
437-470). New York University Press.
Perfetti, C.A.,
& Sandak, R. (2000). Reading optimally
builds on spoken language. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 5(1),
32-50.
Spinks J.A., Liu, Y., Perfetti, C.A.,
& Tan, L.H. (2000). Reading Chinese characters for meaning: the role
of phonological information, Cognition 76(1), B1-B11.
Tan
L. H., Spinks J. A., Gao, J. H., Liu, H.L., Perfetti, C. A., Xiong, J., Stofer, K. A., Pu, Y., Liu, Y.,
& Fox, P. T. (2000). Brain activation in the processing of Chinese
characters and words: A functional MRI study. Human Brain Mapping, 10(1),
16-27
1999
Booth, J. R., Perfetti, C. A., & MacWhinney, B. (1999). Quick, automatic, and general
activation of orthographic and phonological representations in young readers. Developmental
Psychology, 35, 3-19.
Britt, M. A., Rouet, J.-F., & Perfetti, C. A. (1999). Content integration and
source separation in learning from multiple texts. In S. R. Goldman, A. C. Graesser, & P. van den Broek
(Eds.), Narrative comprehension, causality, and coherence: Essays in honor
of Tom Trabasso. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Perfetti, C. A. (1999). Comprehending written language: A
blueprint of the reader. In C. Brown & P. Hagoort
(Eds.), The neurocognition of language (pp.
167-208). Oxford University Press.
Perfetti, C.A., Rouet, J.-F., & Britt, M.A. (1999). Toward a
theory of documents representation. In H. van Oostendorp
& S. Goldman (Eds.), The construction of mental representations during
reading (pp. 99-122). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tan, L. H., & Perfetti, C. A. (1999).
Phonological activation in visual identification of Chinese two-character
words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,
25, 382-393.
Tan, L.H., & Perfetti, C.A. (1999).
Phonological and associative inhibition in the early stages of English word
identification: Evidence from backward masking. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25, 382-393.
Xu, B. And Perfetti, C.A. (1999)
Nonstrategic subjective threshold effects in phonemic masking. Memory and
cognition, 27(1), 26-36.
Zhang, S., Perfetti, C.A., & Yang, Hui (1999). Whole-word, frequency-general phonology
in semantic processing of Chinese characters. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 25 (4), 858-875.
1998
Perfetti, C. A. (1998). The limits of co-occurrence: Tools
and theories in language research. Discourse Processes, 25,
363-377.
Perfetti, C.A.,
& Marron, M. A. (1998). Learning to read:
Literacy acquisition by children and adults. In D.A. Wagner (Ed.). Advances
in adult literacy research and development. Hampton Press.
Perfetti, C.A.,
& Tan, L.H. (1998). The time course of graphic, phonological, and
semantic activation in Chinese character identification. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24,
101-118.
Tan, L.H., & Perfetti, C.A. (1998).
Phonological codes as early sources of constraint in Chinese word
identification: A review of current discoveries and theoretical accounts. In
"Cognitive processing of Chinese and Japanese" special issue. Reading
and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 10, 165-200. Reprinted in
C.K. Leong and K. Tamaoka (Eds),
Cognitive Processes of the Chinese and the Japanese languages. Series in
Neuropsychology and Cognition, R. Joshi, Series Editor. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998.