Quick Links ------------------------- Apply Admissions BC in the Media BC News Campus Bookstore Campus Cafeteria Campus Security Calendar Continuing Education Fast Facts Financing Your Education Graduate Programs Maps and Directions Request Information Student Services Undergraduate Programs

Home: Our Faculty: Brooklyn College Faculty:

Natalie A. Kacinik

Asst Professor   Department: Psychology   Location: 5309c James Hall   Phone: 718-951-5000 x6019   Fax: 718-951-4814   Email:

Dr. Natalie Kacinik is originally from Toronto, Canada, and has a BA (Hons) and MA in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario, in London, ON, Canada. She earned her PhD at the University of California, Riverside in 2003, and then spent several years as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of California, Davis, before starting as an Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College this fall. My research investigates how the mind and brain process language, ranging from simple individual words like TABLE or DOG, to complex figurative expressions like "a bird in the hand is better than two in a bush". Other areas of interest involve memory and attention as they relate to language comprehension, as well as more social aspects of communication like discourse, theory of mind, and pragmatics. I'm currently teaching Intro Psych and a grad seminar on Language and Communication, but I've also taught Neuropsychology & Aging, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Psycholinguistics. Education: Doctor of Philosophy, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE - 2003 (PSYCHOLOGY, Cognitive) Master of Arts, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO - 1998 (PSYCHOLOGY, Experimental) Bachelor of Arts (Hons), UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO - 1995 (PSYCHOLOGY) Areas of Expertise: Psycholinguistics and Cognitive Neuroscience. One line of research examines the representation and activation of word meanings in semantic memory. The other deals with the comprehension of higher-levels of language (i.e., figurative expressions, discourse, and pragmatics). These issues are investigated behaviorally using word recognition and priming procedures, and with methods from cognitive neuroscience like visual half-field presentation, event-related potentials (ERPs), and structural MRI. Books and Publications Kacinik, N. A., & Chiarello, C. (2007). Understanding metaphors: Is the right hemisphere uniquely involved? Brain and Language, 100, 188-207. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2007 Chiarello, C., Kacinik, N. A., Shears, C., Arambel, S., Halderman, L., & Robinson, C. (2006). Exploring cerebral asymmetries for the verb generation task. Neuropsychology, 20, 88-104. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2006 Chiarello, C., Lombardino, L. J., Kacinik, N. A., Otto, R., & Leonard, C. M. (2006). Neuroanatomical and behavioral asymmetry in an adult compensated dyslexic. Brain and Language, 98, 169-181. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2006 Chiarello, C., Kacinik, N., Manowitz, B., Otto, R., & Leonard, C. (2004). Cerebral asymmetries for language: Evidence for structural-behavioral correlations. Neuropsychology, 18, 219-231. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2004 Kacinik, N. A., & Chiarello, C. (2003). An investigation of hemisphere differences for moderately imageable words across high and low image contexts. Brain and Cognition, 53, 239-242. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2003 Kacinik, N., & Chiarello, C. (2002). Predicting noun and verb latencies: Influential variables and task effects. In W. D. Gray & C. D. Schunn (Eds. ), Proceedings of the 24th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 524-529). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. (Books and Publications: Peer Reviewed Article) 2002