Professor Evan Kidd

BBSc(Hons) PhD (La Trobe)
Professor
ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences

Areas of expertise

  • Psychology 1701
  • Linguistics 2004
  • Linguistic Processes (Incl. Speech Production And Comprehension) 170204

Research interests

Psycholinguistics (Language Acquisition & Language Processing); Developmental Psychology; Social Cognition.

Biography

I was awarded my BBSc(Hons) in 1999 and my PhD (Psycholinguistics) in 2004, both from La Trobe University. Over my career I have worked at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, The University of Manchester, and La Trobe University. I came to the ANU in 2012, originally working in the Research School of Psychology. In 2022 I moved over to SLLL to take up a position as Professor of Linguistics.

My research is in psycholinguistics. I work both on language acquisition (inc. first language acquisition, bilingualism, & second language acquisition) and adult language processing. My recent research has focused on individual differences in language acquisition and use, the relationship between language acquisition and on-line sentence processing in crosslinguistic perspective, and the influence of typological diversity on sentence planning and production. Accordingly, my research group works on several typologically-diverse languages. I also have a keen interest in how language interfaces with other social and cognitive processes. Along these lines, over the past 10 years or so my students and I have been investigating the relationship between language acquisition and symbolic play.  

Unfortunately this site does not update publications regularly. For an updated list see: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ebwNPG0AAAAJ&hl=en

Most of my past papers are downloadable from here: https://www.mpi.nl/people/kidd-evan/publications

Researcher's projects

Current Grants

2021 – 2024: How free is free? Word order in Australian indigenous languages. (Funding body: ARC, $AUD321,000) (CIs: Rachel Nordlinger, Evan Kidd, Ina Bornkessel-Scheslewsky, Matthias Scheslewsky). 

Past grants

2014 - 2022: ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language ($AUD28 million). 

2016 – 2020: Discovering sources of individual differences in first language acquisition. (Funding body: ARC, $AUD274,000) (CIs: Evan Kidd, Joanne Arciuli, Michael Smithson)

2016 – 2017: What lurks beneath: using electroencephalography (EEG) to study psychological processes in special populations (Funding body: ANU MEC grant, $70,000) (CIs: Evan Kidd, Michael Kyrios, Deborah Apthorp, Bruce Christensen)

2012: Our Aussie Lingo: How and Why we use Australian Diminutives (Funding Body: Australian Geographic: $AUD1771). Nenagh Kemp (UTas) & Evan Kidd (ANU).

2012 – 2013: Language socialisation and the transmission of Qaqet Baining (Papua New Guinea): Towards a documentation project. (Funding body: Endangered Languages Documentation Project (UK): £8406). Birgit Helliwig (La Trobe) & Evan Kidd (ANU).

2010 – 2012: Language processing in children with high functioning autism: Evidence from eye tracking. (Funding body: ARC, $AUD150K). Edith Bavin (La Trobe), Cheryl Dissanayake (La Trobe), Evan Kidd (ANU), Margot Prior (UMelb).

2008 – 2011: Charles La Trobe Research Fellowship, La Trobe University ($AUD 250K).

2007 – 2009: Investigating the memory systems that support the acquisition of morphology: evidence from Finnish (Funding body: ESRC: £93K). (CI: Evan Kidd).

2007 – 2008: Investigating the memory systems responsible for syntactic priming during language acquisition. (Funding body: The Nuffield Foundation: £6, 440). (CI: Evan Kidd).

2006 – 2007: The influence of readers’ goals on the online construction and updating of situation models. (CIs: Andrew Stewart, Evan Kidd, ESRC, £39K). 

2006 – 2007: What exactly do preferential looking studies measure? Eye-tracking as a more sensitive measure of young children’s knowledge of argument structure. (Funding body: The Royal Society, £15K). (CI: Evan Kidd).

2006: An investigation of the memory mechanisms underlying the acquisition of past tense morphology (Funding body: The British Academy, £6, 777). (CI: Evan Kidd, co-applicant: Jarrad Lum).

2006: Leonardo da Vinci travel grant to support fieldwork in Romania (£1485.62).

Publications

Projects and Grants

Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.

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Updated:  03 July 2024 / Responsible Officer:  Director (Research Services Division) / Page Contact:  Researchers