About Me
I am Ruihua Mao, PhD in Linguistics from the Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle, Université Paris Cité.
I am supervised by Dr. Anne Abeillé (Université Paris Cité), Dr. Barbara Hemforth (CNRS, UPC), and Dr. Edward Gibson (MIT).
In 2023, I spent a semester at the TedLab at MIT, where I conducted research on noisy channel processing in Mandarin Chinese.
Research Interests
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Psycholinguistics
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Experimental Linguistics
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Information theory
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Language development
Non-degree Programs
- Visiting Student, Department of Brain & Cognitive Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Feb 2023-July 2023
Supervisor: Dr. Edward Gibson - Introduction to Bayesian Statistics, Summer School on Statistical Methods for Linguistics and Psychology.
University of Potsdam, Germany (Sep 2024) - LSA Summer Institute. Amherst, USA (Jul 2023)
- Birmingham Statistics for Linguistics Summer School. Birmingham, UK (Jul 2022)
- The Python4NLP Summer School. Nancy, France (May 2022)
Contact
For research discussions or collaboration inquiries, please contact me at ruihuamauri@gmail.com.
Research Output
📚 Journal Articles
- Ruihua Mao, Sihan Chen, Edward Gibson (2024). Decoding the Implausible: Mandarin Sentence Interpretation through the Noisy Channel Model. Memory and Cognition.https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-025-01774-1
- Ruihua Mao, Anne Abeillé, Edward Gibson, Barbara Hemforth (2025). How Strong are “Strong” Islands? Discourse constraints best explain long-distance extraction from English adjunct clauses. Cognition (Revised and Resubmitted).
- Ruihua Mao, Anne Abeillé, Edward Gibson, Barbara Hemforth (2025). Extraction from subjects and objects in Chinese.
- Ruihua Mao,Ruxandra Ionescu, Barbara Hemforth (2026). What is Hiding behind a Foreign Accent? </ul>
### 🎤 Conferences - Anne Abeillé, Barbara Hemforth, **Ruihua Mao**, Edward Gibson (2022). Acceptability of extraction out of English adjunct clauses: the role of topicalization. *the 35th Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing*, UC Santa Cruz, US. - **Ruihua Mao**, Edward Gibson, Barbara Hemforth, Anne Abeillé (2022). Extraction out of Mandarin and English if-adjunct clauses: the role of topicalization. *the 28th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP)*, University of York, UK. - **Ruihua Mao** (2022). Testing extraction (out) of subjects and objects in Mandarin Relative Clauses. *Linguistic Evidence 2022*, Université Paris Cité, France. - **Ruihua Mao**, Edward Gibson, Barbara Hemforth, Anne Abeillé (2022). Topicalization out of English and Mandarin if-clauses and that-clauses. *ExLing 2022 Paris conference*, Université Paris Cité, France. - **Ruihua Mao**, Barbara Hemforth, Anne Abeillé (2023). An empirical investigation of Mandarin subject island. *the 29th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP)*, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Spain. - **Ruihua Mao**, Barbara Hemforth, Anne Abeillé (2023). Extraction out of Mandarin Clauses: Topic vs. Focus. *AMLaP Asia*, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. - **Ruihua Mao**, Sihan Chen, Edward Gibson (2023). How do Mandarin Natives interpret implausible sentences. *AMLaP Asia*, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. - **Ruihua Mao**, Sihan Chen, Edward Gibson (2023). How do Mandarin Natives interpret implausible sentences. *XL Workshop*, Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle, Université Paris Cité. - **Ruihua Mao**, Barbara Hemforth, Anne Abeillé (2024). The Discourse Function Explains "Islands". *Proceedings of the 30th Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP)*, The University of Edinburgh, UK
## Teaching - **Advanced Experimental Syntax** (Master level; Co-taught with Dr. Anne Abeillé; 2024 Spring) - **Advanced Experimental Syntax** (Master level; Teaching assistant for Dr. Anne Abeillé; 2025 Spring)