Educational Background & Work Experience

My background is in cognitive psychology, and my areas of interest include abstract language processing, mental lexicon, and individual differences within these domains. I am currently accepting applications for both Master’s and Doctorate students. Below are some qualities I think most researchers value, and I hope you do, too. Please feel free to contact me via email (xu.xu@sjtu.edu.cn) if you are interested to apply or just seek advice.
1. Intellectually curious. Consider research not just a part of the process of getting publications, but more importantly, a way to satisfy one's curiosity.
2. Good language skills, ideally, in both English and your native language if they are not the same.
3. Meticulous. As we need to program experiments and process data, paying attention to details goes a long way.
4. Friendly and responsible. Know how to communicate and collaborate with others.
5. Openness and eagerness to explore and develop empirical research skills.

 

Recent work:

 

Wang, T., Xu, X., Xie, X., & Ng, M.L. (in press). Probing lexical ambiguity in Chinese characters via their word formations: Convergence of perceived and computed metrics. Cognitive Science.

Wang, T., & Xu, X. (in press). The good, the bad, and the ambivalent: Extrapolating affective values for 38,000+ Chinese words via a computational model. Behavior Research Methods.

Li, F., & Xu, X. (in press). The effects of lexical representation on the dynamic process of phrase comprehension. Journal of Neurolinguistics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2023.101145

Chen, H., Xu, X., & Wang, T. (in press). Assessing lexical ambiguity of simplified Chinese characters: Plurality and relatedness of character meanings. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218231178787

Peng, C., Xu, X. & Bao, Z. (2023). Sentiment annotations for 3827 simplified Chinese characters. Behavior Research Methods.  https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-023-02068-7  

Bao, Z., & Xu, X. (2022). Evaluating word lists against word frequency, lexical age-of-acquisition and concreteness. Lingua, 278, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2022.103417

Li, F., & Xu, X. (2022). Impairment of semantic composition in schizophrenia: An ERP study with lexical stimuli, Neuropsychologia, 171, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108241

Xu, X., Li, J., & Chen, H. (2022). Valence and arousal ratings for 11,310 simplified Chinese words. Behavior Research Methods, 54, 26–41. https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13428-021-01607-4

Li, F., & Xu, X. (2021). Electrophysiological evidence for the coexistence of expectancy fulfillment and semantic integration during the processing of binding and compound nouns, International Journal of Psychophysiology, 166, 25-37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2021.05.004

Xu, X., Li, J., & Guo, S. (2021). Age of acquisition ratings for 19,716 simplified Chinese words. Behavior Research Methods, 53, 558–573. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01455-8

Xu, X., & Li, J. (2020) Concreteness/abstractness ratings for two-character Chinese words in MELD-SCH. PLoS ONE 15(6): e0232133. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232133

Xu, Xu., Kang, C., & Guo, T. (2019). Brain electrophysiological responses to emotion nouns versus emotionless nouns, Journal of Neurolinguistics, 49, 144-154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2018.10.003

Xu, X, Kang, C., Pascucci, D., & Guo, T. (2018). The relationship between semantic access and introspective awareness, Brain and Cognition, 123, 47-56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandc.2018.02.005