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EBONY PEARSON EBONY PEARSON EBONY PEARSON
Ebony Pearson, Ph.D.
About Ebony

I study how people process language, and I use that expertise to design better language data, evaluation frameworks, and human-centered language technologies.

PhD in Cognitive Psychology, 2026 Vanderbilt University
MS in Cognitive Psychology, 2023 Vanderbilt University
BA in Linguistics, 2019 The University of Tennessee

I bring together psycholinguistics, behavioral research, and language analysis to understand how people interpret and respond to language in real-world contexts. My work connects experimental research with applied questions in speech, language, and human-centered technology.

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Research Areas

01

How people understand language in real time

I study how people interpret language as it unfolds, from initial perception to comprehension. Using psycholinguistic and behavioral methods, I examine how variation, ambiguity, and cognitive constraints shape understanding and how those linguistic patterns can inform language evaluation, error analysis, and human-centered research.

Psycholinguistics Behavioral Research Language Evaluation Ambiguity Resolution

Reveals how people make sense of variable language input and where communication or language systems may fail.

02

Designing language technology around how people actually communicate

I explore how speech and language technologies can better reflect the realities of human communication. My work connects language processing research with applied questions in speech, evaluation, and technology design, with a focus on making systems more interpretable, effective, and responsive to real-world users.

Speech Technology Human-Centered Design System Evaluation User Experience

Helps evaluate whether language technologies work in ways that match human expectations and communicative needs.

03

How language experience shapes understanding and performance

I investigate how exposure to different kinds of language influences comprehension and processing. This work examines how register, linguistic complexity, and digital reading habits shape understanding, using computational tools and behavioral data to connect language patterns with measurable human outcomes.

Digital Text Register Variation Natural Language Processing Computational Linguistics

Supports work in language quality evaluation, readability analysis, and understanding how text variation affects user interpretation.

04

The cognitive systems behind language and information use

My work draws on cognitive psychology to understand the mental systems that support language comprehension, attention, and decision-making. This foundation shapes how I design studies, interpret behavioral data, and analyze how people acquire, store, and use information in both research and applied settings.

Cognitive Psychology Attention Memory Decision-Making

Strengthens my ability to design rigorous evaluations and interpret language behavior through a human-centered lens.

Projects

01

How does digital text exposure shape comprehension outcomes?

This project examined how register, linguistic complexity, and reading habits shaped comprehension across different text conditions. We analyzed how variation in linguistic features across digital texts influenced processing outcomes.

NLP Web Scraping Text Analysis
02

How can language data and evaluation methods improve AI systems?

This project focused on how speech data quality, labeling decisions, and evaluation methods shape AI system performance. At SRI’s Speech Technology and Research Lab, I worked on speech data curation, labeling design, and error analysis to help identify where system issues were driven by data, annotation, or signal-processing differences and to support more reliable evaluation workflows.

Speech Corpora Annotation Design Evaluation Workflows
03

How can experimental data reveal how people interpret language in real time?

This project used eye tracking, survey data, and large-scale behavioral experiments to examine how people process and interpret language in real time. I designed study protocols, managed participant-based data collection, and analyzed large behavioral datasets to identify patterns in human responses through quantitative modeling.

Eye Tracking Quantitative Analysis Experimental Design
🧠 Cognitive Psychology ● 💬 NLP ● 🎤 Speech Technology ● 🔬 Applied Research ● 📊 Data Visualization ● 🔄 Mixed Methods ● 🏥 Clinical Research ● 💭 Human Language Technology ● 🧠 Cognitive Psychology ● 💬 NLP ● 🎤 Speech Technology ● 🔬 Applied Research ● 📊 Data Visualization ● 🔄 Mixed Methods ● 🏥 Clinical Research ● 💭 Human Language Technology ●

Presentations & Publications

2026

Socially indexed phonological variation and lexical competition in speech perception. Pearson, E. [Doctoral dissertation]. Vanderbilt University

2026

Eye-tracking evidence for dialectal co-activation and graded lexical competition. Pearson, E., Liceralde, V.R.T., & Watson, D. Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing, Boston, MA, United States.

2025

Experience-driven lexical activation across dialect boundaries. Pearson, E., Liceralde, V.R.T., & Watson, D. Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Denver, CO, United States.

2025

Blunted reward prediction error encoding drives diminished motivation to explore in apathy associated with traumatic brain injury. Hogeveen, J., Campbell, E. M., Aragon, D. F., Pearson, E., Enders, C., Romero, J. D., Brown, L., Campbell, R. A., Gill, D., Quinn, D. K., Husain, M., Mayer, A. R., & Costa, V. D.

2024

A phonetic basis of accent bias in speaker identification technology. Bakst, S., Pearson, E., Ferrer, L., McLaren, M., & Lawson, A. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 156(4 Suppl.), A103. Annual Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

2023

Evidence for a parallel activation account of dialect processing. Pearson, E., Liceralde, V.R.T., & Watson, D. Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, Prague, Czechia.

2023

Word perception across regional dialects. Pearson, E., Liceralde, V.R.T., Lai, W. & Watson, D. Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, San Francisco, CA, United States.

2023

Exploring the dynamic interplay of text registers and linguistic complexity. Pearson, E., Perdomo, M., Warren, T., Phillips Galloway, E., James, A., & Watson, D. Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, San Francisco, CA, United States.

2023

Stick a pen in it: Greater phonological competition in speakers with the pin-pen merger during eye-tracking. Pearson, E., Liceralde, V.R.T., Lai, W. G., & Watson, D. Annual Conference on Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing, San Sebastian, Spain.

2023

Black Girls Becoming: A consequential space for interrogating truth about Black girlhood. Joseph, N., Roby, R., Fears, L., Lane-Bonds, & Pearson, E. Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL, United States.

Find Ebony.

Connect with Ebony for research roles, applied strategy, product-facing work, speaking invitations, or collaboration.

ebonydpearson [at] gmail [dot] com

FAQ

Applied and industry-facing research roles — NLP/speech research, UX research, cognitive science applications, or strategy and policy roles where rigorous human-centered thinking is valued. She's particularly drawn to environments where research and product intersect.

Yes — this is a living portfolio evolving alongside an active research career. Publications, conference presentations, and a full CV are being added. Connect on LinkedIn for the most current work.