Prior to moving to Birmingham, Linda Wheeldon was a scientific staff member of the Max Planck institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen, in The Netherlands.

Introduction to Psycholinguistics; Speaking and Reading.

The bulk of my research focuses on language production processes, in particular, the processes underlying the generation of spoken sentences. One of my major interests is in the nature and timing of sentence planning processes, in particular how much planning we usually accomplish before we begin to speak. I have investigated the advanced planning of grammatical structure, using both reaction time and eye-tracking paradigms.

I am also interested in the generation of the phonological structure of speech. i.e., how we generate the syllabic and segmental structure of words in context and how the rhythmic and intonational structure of utterances is planned.

I am also interested in the acquisition of phonological and prosodic structure in young children and the role of phonological structure in reading. More recent research aims to investigate the representation of morphological structure in the adult mental lexicon using fMRI techniques. 

Recent research grants

Principal investigator, ESRC Research Grant: L. R Wheeldon, Aditi Lahiri (Oxford) and Peter Hansen, Putting morphology back in the mental lexicon: An fMRI study of derivational processes in English (2011-2012).

Principal investigator, ESRC Research Grant: L. R Wheeldon, Aditi Lahiri (Oxford) Producing words in connected speech: the role of prosodic units (2009-2010).

Co-investigator, ESRC Research Grant: A.S. Meyer and L.R Wheeldon, Speech planning in multiple object naming (2002-2004).

Wheeldon, L. R., (2012). Producing Spoken Sentences: The Scope of Incremental Planning. In S. Fuchs, M. Weirich, D. Pape & P. Perrier (Eds.), Speech production and perception volume1: Speech planning and dynamics. (pp. 97-118). Peter Lang. Germany.

Meyer, A. S. & Wheeldon, L. R. & Konopka, A. & van de Meulen (2012) Effects of speech rate and practice on the gaze-to-speech alignment in multiple object naming. Frontiers in Cognition.

Wheeldon, L. R., Smith, M. C., & Apperley, I. (2011). Repeating words in sentences: effects of sentence structure.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition. 37,5, 1051–1064.

Wheeldon, L. R. (2011). Generating spoken sentences: The relationship between words and syntax. Language and Linguistic Compass. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford. 

Lahiri, A. & Wheeldon, L. R. (2011). Phonological trochaic grouping in language planning and language change. In  S. Frota et al. (Eds.) Prosodic categories: production, perception and comprehension. Springer.

Wheeldon, L. R. (2010). Incremental processing, production. In H. Pashler (Ed) The Encyclopedia of Mind. SAGE Reference, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Allum, P. & Wheeldon, L. R. (2009). Scope of lexical access in spoken sentence production: Implications for the conceptual-syntactic interface. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition. Vol 35 (5), 1240-1255. See PDF - (121KB)

Allum, P. & Wheeldon, L. R. (2007). Planning Scope in Spoken Sentence Production: The Role of Grammatical Units. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition. Vol 33 (4), 791-810. See PDF - (420KB)

Wheeldon L. R., Meyer, A. S.  & Van der Meulen, F. (2007). Speech-to-gaze alignment in anticipation errors. In R. van Gompel (Ed.) Eye movements: A window on mind and brain. Elsevier.  ISBN-13: 978-0-08-044980-7.

Meyer, A. S., Krott, A. & Wheeldon, L. R. (2007). Automaticity and control in Language Processing. Psychology Press. ISBN 1-84169-650-1. 

Meyer, A. S. & Wheeldon, L. R. (2006). Language production across the life span. Psychology Press. Vols 1,2 &3 of Language and Cognitive Processes. 

Smith, M. C. & Wheeldon L. R. (2004). Horizontal Information Flow in Spoken Sentence Production. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 30, 675–686. See PDF - (78KB) 

Wheeldon, L. R., & Waksler, R. (2004). Phonological underspecification and mapping  mechanisms in the speech recognition lexicon.  Brain and Language, 90, 401-412.

Wheeldon, L. R. (2003). Inhibitory form priming of spoken word production. Language and Cognitive processes, 18, 81-109. 

Wheeldon, L. R., Meyer, A. S. & Smith, M. C. (2003). Incrementality. Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. Macmillan. Nature.

Wheeldon L. R. & Smith, M. C. (2003). Phrase structure priming: a short lived effect. Language and Cognitive processes, 18, 431-442. See PDF (109KB)

Morgan, J. L., & Wheeldon, L. R. (2003). Syllable monitoring in internally and externally generated English words. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32(3), 269-296.

Wheeldon, L. R. & Lahiri, A. (2002). The minimal unit of phonological encoding: prosodic or lexical. Cognition, 85, B31-B41.

Wheeldon, L. R., & Morgan, J. L. (2002). Phoneme monitoring in internal and external Speech. Language and Cognitive Processes, 17, 503-535.     

Smith, M.C., & Wheeldon, L.R. (2001). Syntactic priming in spoken sentence production: An online study. Cognition, 78, 123-164. See PDF - (121KB)

Fitzpatrick-Cole, J., & Wheeldon, L. R. (2001). Phonology and phonetics in psycholinguistic models of speech perception. In N. Burton-Roberts, P. Carr, & G. Docherty (Eds.) Conceptual and empirical foundations of phonology. Oxford University Press.

Wheeldon, L. R. (2000) Aspects of language production.  Psychology Press.Wheeldon, L. R. (2000) Generating prosodic structure. In L. Wheeldon (Ed.) Aspects of language production. Psychology Press.

Wheeldon, L. R. (1999). Competitive processes during word form encoding. Comment on "A theory of lexical access in speech production”,  By  W. J. M. Levelt, A. Roelofs & A. S. Meyer. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 59-60. 

Smith, M., & Wheeldon, L. R. (1999). High level processing scope in spoken sentence production. Cognition,73, 205-246.

Wheeldon, L. R. & Lahiri, A. (1997). Prosodic units in language production. Journal of   Memory and Language,37, 356-381. See PDF (257KB)

Wheeldon, L. R. & Levelt, W. J. M. (1995). Monitoring spoken word production. Journal of Memory and Language, 34, 311-334.

Levelt, W. J. M., & Wheeldon, L. R. (1994). Do speakers have access to a mental syllabary? Cognition, 50, 239-269.

Wheeldon, L. R. & Monsell, S. (1994). Semantic competitor priming of spoken word production. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 332-356.

Wheeldon, L. R. & Monsell, S. (1992). The locus of repetition priming of spoken word production. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,44, 723‑761.