Headshot of Dr.Matthew W. Lowder

Dr. Matthew W. Lowder

Associate Professor of Psychology
Interdisciplinary Program Coordinator of Cognitive Science
Linguistics Advisory Board Member
Data Science Advisory Board Member
Curriculum Vitae

  • Profile

    Dr. Matthew Lowder is a cognitive scientist whose research draws on principles of experimental psychology and linguistic theory to understand how the mind processes and comprehends language. Some of the overarching questions that motivate his work include: What is the nature of the memory processes that support language comprehension? How do we represent sentence structure and sentence meaning in the mind, and how do these representations interact? What cognitive constructs best account for individual variability in reading behavior? To what extent does the language comprehension system anticipate and predict upcoming linguistic input? To address these questions, his research relies primarily on eyetracking methodology, but also incorporates approaches from cognitive neuroscience and computational linguistics.

    Dr. Lowder earned a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed postdoctoral training at the University of South Carolina and the University of California, Davis.

  • Publications
    Journal Articles

    *Denotes University of Richmond undergraduate student

    Lowder, M. W., & *Ryan, G. (2026). Retrieval interference in the processing of relative clauses: Evidence from the visual-world paradigm. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 41, 663-675. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2026.2649499

    Lee, S., Lim, C., Lowder, M. W., & Choi, W. (2026). Dominance norms for 274 Korean homonyms. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 55, Article 35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-026-10223-2

    Baek, H., Lowder, M. W., & Choi, W. (2026). The interaction of focus prosody and lexical stress on lexical processing during online sentence comprehension by native and non-native English listeners. Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics, 26, 396-417. https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.26..202603.396

    Kang, J., Lowder, M. W., & Choi, W. (2025). Comparing sustained attention performance across laboratory-based versus web-based settings. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 87, 2029-2040. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-025-03126-2

    Lowder, M. W., *Zhou, A., & Gordon, P. C. (2024). The lab discovered: Place-for-institution metonyms appearing in subject position are processed as agents. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 50, 1152-1166. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001314    

    Lowder, M. W., *Cardoso, A., *Pittman, M., & *Zhou, A. (2023). Effects of syntactic structure on the processing of lexical repetition during sentence reading. Memory & Cognition, 51, 1249-1263. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-022-01380-5

    Kim, D., Lowder, M. W., & Choi, W. (2023). Emotionality effects in Korean visual word recognition: Evidence from lab-based and web-based lexical decision tasks. Acta Psychologica, 237, 103944. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103944

    Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2021). Relative clause effects at the matrix verb depend on type of intervening material. Cognitive Science, 45, e13039. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13039

    Kim, D., Lowder, M. W., & Choi, W. (2021). Effects of print exposure on an online lexical decision task: A direct replication using a web-based experimental procedure. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 710663. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.710663

    Lowder, M. W., *Ryan, G., *Opie, J., & *Kaminsky, E. (2021). Effects of contrastive focus on lexical predictability during sentence reading: The case of not only…but also constructions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 74, 179-186. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021820949155

    Lowder, M. W., Maxfield, N. D., & Ferreira, F. (2020). Processing of self-repairs in stuttered and non-stuttered speech. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 35, 93-105. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2019.1628284

    Gordon, P. C., Moore, M., Choi, W., Hoedemaker, R. S., & Lowder, M. W. (2020). Individual differences in reading: Separable effects of reading experience and processing skill. Memory & Cognition, 48, 553-565. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-019-00989-3

    Lowder, M. W., & Ferreira, F. (2019). I see what you meant to say: Anticipating speech errors during online sentence processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148, 1849-1858. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000544

    Lee, H., Seong, E., Choi, W., & Lowder, M. W. (2019). Development and assessment of the Korean Author Recognition Test (KART). Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72, 1837-1846. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021818814461

    Lowder, M. W., Choi, W., Ferreira, F., & Henderson, J. M. (2018). Lexical predictability during natural reading: Effects of surprisal and entropy reduction. Cognitive Science, 42, 1166-1183. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12597

    Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2017). Print exposure modulates the effects of repetition priming during sentence reading. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24, 1935-1942. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1248-1

    Choi, W., Lowder, M. W., Ferreira, F., Swaab, T. Y., & Henderson, J. M. (2017). Effects of word predictability and preview lexicality on eye movements during reading: A comparison between young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 32, 232-242. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000160

    Lowder, M. W., & Ferreira, F. (2016). Prediction in the processing of repair disfluencies: Evidence from the visual-world paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 42, 1400-1416. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000256

    Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2016). Eye-tracking and corpus-based analyses of syntax-semantics interactions in complement coercion. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31, 921-939. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2016.1183798

    Henderson, J. M., Choi, W., Lowder, M. W., & Ferreira, F. (2016). Language structure in the brain: A fixation-related fMRI study of syntactic surprisal in reading. NeuroImage, 132, 293-300. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.02.050

    Lowder, M. W., & Ferreira, F. (2016). Prediction in the processing of repair disfluencies. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31, 73-79. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2015.1036089

    Choi, W., Lowder, M. W., Ferreira, F., & Henderson, J. M. (2015). Individual differences in the perceptual span during reading: Evidence from the moving window technique. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 77, 2463-2475. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-015-0942-1

    Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2015). Focus takes time: Structural effects on reading. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22, 1733-1738. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-015-0843-2

    Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2015). The manuscript that we finished: Structural separation reduces the cost of complement coercion. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 526-540. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000042

    Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2015). Natural forces as agents: Reconceptualizing the animate-inanimate distinction. Cognition, 136, 85-90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.11.021

    Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2014). Effects of animacy and noun-phrase relatedness on the processing of complex sentences. Memory & Cognition, 42, 794-805. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-013-0393-7

    Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2013). It’s hard to offend the college: Effects of sentence structure on figurative-language processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 993-1011. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031671

    Lowder, M. W., Choi, W., & Gordon, P. C. (2013). Word recognition during reading: The interaction between lexical repetition and frequency. Memory & Cognition, 41, 738-751. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-012-0288-z

    Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2012). The pistol that injured the cowboy: Difficulty with inanimate subject-verb integration is reduced by structural separation. Journal of Memory and Language, 66, 819-832. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2012.03.006

    Gordon, P. C., & Lowder, M. W. (2012). Complex sentence processing: A review of theoretical perspectives on the comprehension of relative clauses. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6, 403-415. https://doi.org/10.1002/lnc3.347

    Johnson, M. L., Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C. (2011). The sentence-composition effect: Processing of complex sentences depends on the configuration of common noun phrases versus unusual noun phrases. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 707-724. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024333

    Book Chapters

    Ferreira, F., & Lowder, M. W. (2016). Prediction, information structure, and good-enough language processing. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 65, 217-247. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.plm.2016.04.002

    Gordon, P. C., Lowder, M. W., & Hoedemaker, R. S. (2016). Reading in normally aging adults. In Wright, H. H. (Ed.), Cognition, Language and Aging (pp. 165-191). Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1075/z.200.07gor