I am a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese and I did my PhD at the University of Arizona, USA, under the mentorship of Professor Ken Forster. Before joining Macquarie University, I held academic positions in Singapore and the UK. 

I study how language is processed, represented, and controlled in the bilingual mind and brain, the intersection of language, cognition, and bilingualism. My work has contributed to advancing theoretical models of bilingual lexical access and cross-language processing. Using advanced methodologies, including masked priming, Eye-tracking and EEG/MEG, my work captures cross-language processing with millisecond precision. Across both spoken and visual word recognition, I have shown that bilingual language processing is automatic, parallel, and interactive at multiple linguistic levels, including phonology, morphology, and semantics. I am also dedicated to building bridges between experimental insights and practical questions in language learning, multilingual education, and inclusive communication. 

I lead a Psycholinguistic and Neurolinguistic Lab comprising PhD students, research interns, and research assistants, with an emphasis on rigorous experiment design and interdisciplinary thinking. I also regularly host and mentor international visitors (usually funded by CSC), including senior academics and graduate students from leading institutions in China and beyond, contributing to sustained global collaboration.  

Areas of Interest: Lexical Access and Retrieval; Bilingualism; Multilingualism; Second Language Processes; Spoken Word Recognition/Speech Perception

Research Student Supervision: I am accepting PhD applications and the following is a brief overview of my research.

Students are expected to have the following skills before they enter the program

1) Excellent English skills (if English is your L2, your IELTS score is expected to be 7.5 or above). 

2) You have led an empirical project which is publishable (if you have already published a paper as the first author, better).

3) Basic programming skills (R, Python, or Matlab),

Cross-language activation (Bilingual/Multilingual Lexical Processing, Bilingual/Multilingual Word Recognition)

My earlier work in Masked Translation Priming has advanced our understanding of the bilingual lexicon – an integrated system at the semantic level while lexical access can be achieved through independent orthographic systems for cross-script readers (e.g., Chinese-English bilinguals). This work has advanced bilingual lexical models showing language-specific senses/meanings contribute to different priming patterns in different tasks (lexical decision vs. semantic categorization) and supports bilingual theories that specify language-specific mechanisms in bilingual language processing (Wang & Forster, 2010; Wang & Forster, 2015). In addition, my work has demonstrated how language proficiency and language dominance contribute to different priming patterns and thus their roles in bilingual lexical models (Wang, 2013). 

Recently, we have continued to use masked priming technique to investigate cross-language activation at the morphological level, and propose a lemma-based bilingual model specifying the representations for morphemes (Wang, Taft, et al, 2021).    In another paper, we also address the nature of script (logographic and alphabetic) in this cross-language dynamics (Wang & Li, 2025).  These lines of work have potential to develop. If future students and collaborators are interested, please get in touch. I welcome discussions, idea exchanges, sharing materials, and collaborations. 

We have successfully extended this line of work to the trilingual lexicon, showing an integrated tri-lingual lexicon at the semantic level (Wang et al, 2023). This paper shows that three languages are interconnected at the conceptual level, even though their semantic representations can be asymmytrical. However, our recent paper on trilinguals contradicts this proposal in one way: Qun, Jiang, Taft and Wang (2025) found that L1-Korean and L2_Mandarin are interconnected at the conceptual level and that L3-English is only connected to L2 Mandarin, but not L1. This paper shows that L3, which was learned in classroom, was only associated with L2 Mandarin which was the instruction language. Again, I welcome discussions, idea exchanges, sharing materials, and collaborations. Please get in touch.   

Lexical tone in cross-language activation (Bilingual Spoken Word Recognition)

My recent work in bilingual speech has demonstrated two processing mechanisms that specify the necessity of lexical tones in cross-language activation (Wang, 2021). Chinese-English bilinguals provide a unique opportunity to understand the interaction between a tonal language (e.g., Mandarin Chinese) and non-tonal language (e.g., English) at the linguistic/cognitive level. One cross-language processing mechanism requires implicit activation of lexical tonal representations in a top-down/lateral manner, shown in the Visual World Paradigm (Wang et al., 2017). This activation is positively associated with language proficiency. The other cross-language processing mechanism is driven by the phonological overlap between languages, but cross-language activation in Chinese-English bilinguals still requires the availability of lexical tones (Wang, et al., 2020;  Wang & McMurray, 2025). These novel findings have not only advanced our understanding of the role of supra-segmental information in the bilingual context, but further support the theory that lexical tones are equally important as segments in language processing, a traditional debate that attracts many psycholinguists. 

Language Control during bilingual language production

A unique property of a bilingual is the ability to switch between two languages. My previous work has also investigated how bilinguals inhibited one language for the output of the target language (Wang et al., 2013; Wang, 2015). In particular, with my collaborators, we designed an innovative switching paradigm where two bilinguals are present for the same picture stimuli but in different roles during the Picture Naming task (speaker vs. listener). We found that the language control mechanism (i.e., the ability to switch between languages involves cognitive control) during production (maybe comprehension) can be associated with various factors (Zhang, Wang et al, 2019; Tong, Kong, Wang, et al, 2019; Liu, Li, Wang et al, in press). Language-specific properties can be one of those. We have more recent papers on this line of work, with Junjie Wu (Wu et al, 2025; . Dong et al, 2025; Wu et al, 2024).

Current primary HDR student projects

1) The online effects of processing instruction on second language acquisition and the role of input modality (Amin Pouresmaeil)

2) The neural mechanisms of cross-language tone processing: evidence from MEG studies (XinDong Zhang)

I, as the lead CI, am currently working on 2 research projects related to Mandarin tones 

1) Setting the tone: learning a tonal language (HK Mobility Grant, 2019-2020)

Lexical tones are a prevalent phonetic cue in human languages, but learning these tones can be very challenging for second/foreign language learners, both in terms of listening and speaking. This project investigates how cross-modal learning and high talker variability can lead to effective learning of lexical tones as well as their association to lexical meanings. 

2) Beyong the segments: towards a lexical model for tonal bilinguals (ARC DP project 2021-2025, PI: Bob McMurray @ University of Iowa). 

This project aims to understand how healthy adult bilinguals resolve competition from their unintended language to communicate successfully in the intended language. In both bilingual language comprehension and production, the project will characterise the role of an under-explored linguistic dimension, lexical tone, in cross-language processing. Expected outcomes include enhanced understanding of bilingual communication and theories of bilingual language use, and practical implications for optimal language learning for bilinguals and intervention for clinical populations who speaks two languages.

To respond to COVID-19, I am co-organizing an online Psycholinguistics Research Forum by inviting psycholinguists to give talks and tutorials to engage research in the region of Asia and Asia Pacific. If you want to know more about this, please get in touch and/or click on the link above for more information. Have FUN! 

I teach/convene 3-4 courses: 

LING2214. Introduction to Psycholinguistics

LING3386. Bilingualism/Multilingualism

LING1121 Language Myths and Realities

SPHL3390 Language as Evidence