Assistant Professor in Cognitive Science

tel: 216-368-0115

office: Crawford 617G

vera.tobin@case.edu

Research interests: Social cognition, viewpoint, joint attention, cognitive biases, cognitive approaches to language and literature

I study connections between cognition, language, and narrative, with a special interest in cognitive bias and how people think about other minds. My research blends cognitive, linguistic, and literary approaches to the study of narrative and related discourse phenomena across a variety of media.

Some current projects

Cognitive biases and narrative structure
Irony as a viewpoint phenomenon
Conceptual and linguistic compressions for identity and change

Selected publications

"Irony as a Viewpoint Phenomenon." (with Michael Israel). 2012. Viewpoint in Language: A Multimodal Perspective. Eds. Eve Sweetser and Barbara Dancygier. 25-46. Cambridge University Press.

"Attention, Blending, and Suspense in Classic and Experimental Film." (with Todd Oakley). 2012. Blending and the Study of Narrative. Eds. Ralf Schneider and Marcus Hartner. 57-83. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

"Joint Attention, To the Lighthouse, and Modernist Representations of Intersubjectivity." 2010. English Text Construction, vol. 3, no. 2

"Grammatical and Rhetorical Consequences of Entrenchment in Conceptual Blending." 2010. Meaning, Form, and Body. Eds. Fey Parrill, Vera Tobin, and Mark Turner. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.

"Cognitive Bias and the Poetics of Surprise." 2009. Language and Literature, vol. 18, no. 2

"Ways of Reading Sherlock Holmes." 2006. Language and Literature, vol. 15, no. 1

"On Simile." (with Michael Israel and Jennifer Riddle Harding). 2005. Language, Culture and Mind. Ed. Suzanne Kemmer and Michel Achard. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.