Education

Publications

Zhao, X., Li, Y., & Yang, X. (2024). Aging affects Mandarin speakers’ understanding of focus sentences in quiet and noisy environments. Journal of Communication Disorders, 111, 106451. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2024.106451
Zhao, X., & Yang, X. (2024). Aging affects auditory contributions to focus perception in Jianghuai Mandarin. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 155(4), 2990–3004. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0025928
Zhao, X., & Yang, X. (2022). Prosody perception in older adults (in Chinese). Advances in Psychological Science, 30(3), 613–621. https://doi.org/10.3724/sp.j.1042.2022.00613
Zhao, X., & Yang, X. (2022). Aging effect on semantic focus processing: A preliminary study (in Chinese). In L. Huang (Ed.), New development of Gerontolinguistics in China (pp. 225–233). Tongji University Press. https://ageing.tongji.edu.cn/info/1016/1871.htm

Zhao, X., & Yang, X. (2023, November 3–5). Aging effect on the perceptual cues of focus prosody in Jianghuai Mandarin. Presented at the 1st Annual Conference on Language Cognition and Development, Beijing.
Zhao, X., & Yang, X. (2023, October 26–27). Aging effect on the perception of Mandarin focus prosody in noise. Presented at the Tongji-UM Symposium on Frontiers in Applied Linguistics, Kuala Lumpur.
Zhao, X., & Yang, X. (2022, November 5–6). Mandarin focus perception and its relations with auditory sensation among aging adults. Presented at the 6th National Conference on Second Language Processing Contemporary Foreign Language Studies, Suzhou.
Zhao, X., & Yang, X. (2022, June 10–12). Aging effects on Mandarin focus perception in noise. Presented at the 6th International Conference on Psycholinguistics of China, Hangzhou.
Zhao, X., & Yang, X. (2021, July 18–21). The effect of aging on processing contrastive focus prosody in Mandarin Chinese. Presented at the 14th Phonetic Conference of China, Lanzhou.

The International Exchange Program for Graduate Students, Tongji University (2023020025), 2024 (6 months)
- Conducted eye-tracking experiments on prediction in language comprehension at the National University of Singapore.
- Supervisor: Prof. Aine Ito
National Social Science Foundation of China (17BYY165), 2021-2022
- Designed and conducted behavioral experiments on prosody production and perception among over 200 participants.
- Supervisor: Prof. Xiaohu Yang
Ministry of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences Fund (15YJA740034), 2019-2020
- Collected and coded 150 academic papers written by EFLs, performed statistical analysis, and made figures and tables.
- Supervisor: Prof. Yang Qian
College Fund for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (XSJCX7112), 2016-2018
- Led a group of 5 members to develop a corpus study of EFLs’ adjective use in speech and completed 2 written reports.
- Supervisor: Prof. Ran Bi

Peer reviewer
- Advances in Psychological Science
Organizing committee member
- The 9th National Conference on Cognitive Neurolinguistics of China
Panel moderator
- The 6th International Conference on Psycholinguistics of China