Psychology Faculty Profiles
William S. Horton [Sid], Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Cognitive Psychology
Office: Swift 217
Phone: (847) 467-1293
E-mail: whorton@northwestern.edu
Links
Research Interests
My research investigates the processes and memory representations underlying routine language use. Much of my work falls within the domain of pragmatics, the study of the social and contextual factors that affect how people use and understand language. I have carried out this agenda in two parallel domains: one domain concerns the role of common ground and memory processes in language production, while the other relates to the role of extralinguistic information in text processing. More recently, I have begun examining potential age-related changes in language use.
Selected Publications
Horton, W. S. (2013). Character intimacy influences the processing of metaphoric utterances during narrative comprehension. Metaphor and Symbol, 28, 148-166.
Lysander, K., & Horton, W. S. (2012). Conversational grounding in younger and older adults: The effect of partner visibility and referent abstractness. Discourse Processes, 49, 29-60.
Horton, W. S., & Slaten, D. G. (2012). Anticipating who will say what: The influence of speaker-specific memory associations on reference resolution. Memory & Cognition, 40, 113-126.
Kim, M., Horton, W. S., & Bradlow, A. R. (2011). Phonetic convergence in spontaneous conversations as a function of interlocutor language distance. Laboratory Phonology, 2, 125-156.
Gerrig, R. J., Horton, W. S., & Stent, A. (2011). Production and comprehension of unheralded pronouns: A corpus analysis. Discourse Processes, 48, 161-182.
Horton, W. S., Spieler, D. H., & Shriberg, E. (2010). A corpus analysis of patterns of age-related change in conversational speech. Psychology and Aging, 25, 708-713.
Horton, W. S., & Spieler, D. H. (2007). Age-related differences in communication and audience design. Psychology and Aging, 22, 281-290.
Horton, W. S., & Gerrig, R. J. (2005). Conversational common ground and memory processes in language production. Discourse Processes, 40, 1-35.
