Daphna Heller, University of Toronto

Research

psycholinguistics pragmatics context reference common ground sentence processing spoken language eye tracking

Latest papers

Sometimes you look more when you know less: Goal dependent eye movements during language processing.
Brain research · 2026 · senior author
Mental states are the essence of pragmatics: questions, answers and the Multiple Perspectives Theory of communication.
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025 · first author
Perspective-taking behavior as the probabilistic weighing of multiple domains.
Cognition · 2016 · first author

All 4 publications

Latest funding

Referential strategies in the absence of definite descriptions
SSHRC · 2025 · Principal investigator
$192,760
Finding common ground: how listeners and speakers integrate perspectives in language processing
SSHRC · 2016 · Principal investigator
$135,734
The use of information about common ground in real time processing
SSHRC · 2011 · Principal investigator
$31,285

All 3 grants and awards

4 publications.

01

Sometimes you look more when you know less: Goal dependent eye movements during language processing.

Yee E, Bray FA, Heller D

Brain research2026Senior author

DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2026.150527 PMID: 42702332

02

Mental states are the essence of pragmatics: questions, answers and the Multiple Perspectives Theory of communication.

Heller D, Brown-Schmidt S

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2025First author

DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0503 PMID: 40808462

03

Perspective-taking behavior as the probabilistic weighing of multiple domains.

Heller D, Parisien C, Stevenson S

Cognition2016First author

DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.12.008 PMID: 26836401

04

To name or to describe: shared knowledge affects referential form.

Heller D, Gorman KS, Tanenhaus MK

Topics in cognitive science2012First author

DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01182.x PMID: 22389094

Referential strategies in the absence of definite descriptions

Principal investigatorSSHRC2025Insight Grants

Principal investigators: Heller, Daphna

$192,760

Finding common ground: how listeners and speakers integrate perspectives in language processing

Principal investigatorSSHRC2016Insight Grants

Principal investigators: Heller, Daphna

Keywords: psycholinguistics; pragmatics; context; reference; common ground; sentence processing; spoken language; eye tracking

$135,734

The use of information about common ground in real time processing

Principal investigatorSSHRC2011Standard Research Grants

Principal investigators: Heller, Daphna

Keywords: psycholinguistics; sentence processing; reference resolution; context; common ground

$31,285

From CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC funding decisions: CIHR since 2008, NSERC since 1991 and SSHRC since 1998, including their latest published competition results.

Frequent collaborators

Suzanne Stevenson

Department of Computer Science

1 shared papers, latest 2016

Write to this professor

A short, specific email works best. This draft uses one of their recent papers; replace the parts in brackets with your own details before sending.

Applying for

Paper to mentionMention their SSHRC grant from 2025

Subject: Prospective PhD student: psycholinguistics Dear Professor Heller, My name is [your name], and I am a [your current degree or role] at [your institution]. I am applying for a PhD position starting in [term and year]. I read your paper "Sometimes you look more when you know less: Goal dependent eye movements during language processing." (2026), and it connects closely to my own work on [your research topic]. [One or two sentences on what you did and what you learned.] I also saw your SSHRC-funded project "Referential strategies in the absence of definite descriptions" (2025), and I would be glad to contribute to work in that direction. Are you accepting new PhD students for [term and year]? I have attached my CV and transcripts, and I would be glad to talk at a time that suits you. Thank you for your time. Kind regards, [your name]