Profile
Frédéric Isel is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Paris Nanterre – Paris Lumières. He heads the CNRS research unit - Models, Dynamics, Corpora -, an interdisciplinary research group which combines data from linguistic corpora with behavioral and neuroimaging methods to model the linguistic functioning at different levels: phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. The studies on formalization in natural language processing are conducted in a sociolinguistic dynamics.
Neurocognition of language
Professor Isel gained his PhD in Psychology from the University of Paris Descartes in 1997. Originally trained as experimental psycholinguist on word recognition, his longstanding interest focused on the relation between language and brain, and in particular on the neurodynamics of spoken language processes studied from electroencephalographical data. He was a postdoctoral fellow and then research fellow for 8 years at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Neuropsychology Department, headed by Professor Angela D. Friederici. Then, he joined the research group of Professor Christian Büchel at the Institute of Systems Neuroscience in the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) of Hamburg. He also worked three years at the Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology (Professor Andreas Engel). He returned to Paris (France) in 2010 and he was Associate Professor in Cognitive Psychology at Sorbonne Paris Cité - Paris Descartes University until 2015. From 2015, Frédéric Isel is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Nanterre – Paris Lumières.
Description of Research Interests:
The functional architecture of language system and its neuroanatomical basis.
How our minds and brains process language, how language interacts with other aspects of mind, and how language diversity can be mastered by our minds?
Use of behavioral and neuroimaging methods with young adults as well as patients.
The neurodynamics of the processes of emotional perception, reactivity and regulation: A fundamental and a clinical approaches.
The relation between language and emotion is studied with emotional phonemes, words, sentences with different syntactic structures, and discourses. The goal of our investigations is to understand how language, below and beyond lexical information, conveys emotional information in reception, emission and intercommunication situations. In particular, we are interested to better understand how linguistic constructions can constrain specific emotional interpretations. Corpus of emotional linguistic materials are developed at the MoDyCo Lab and are then used in an experimental approach. We employ different experimental paradigms (oddball, induction, priming, violation) combined with different recording techniques - EEG (ERP/source localisation, time-frequency analyses, cluster analyses, coherence analyses, resting states) and fMRI - in healthy individuals as well as in patients with bipolar disorder.
These researches are conducted in collaboration with the following institutes:
- Hôpital Albert-Chenevier, Créteil, France (Prof. Chantal Henry, psychiatre)
- CEA, NEUROSPIN, Institut d'Imagerie Biomédicale (Dr Josselin Houenou, médecin psychiatre)
- University of Geneva, Neuroscience of Emotion and Affective Dynamics Lab, Suisse Grandjean (Prof. Didier Grandjean, PhD)
Education:
Paris Descartes University, M.A., Psychology, 1994
Paris Descartes University, Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, 1997
Paris Descartes University, Habilitation in Psychology, 2010
Career:
1994 – 1997 Research Assistant, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,
Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale, Paris Descartes University
1998 – 2001 Visiting Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive
and Brain Sciences Leipzig, Germany
2002 – 2005 Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive
and Brain Sciences Leipzig, Germany
2005 – 2008 Senior Research Fellow, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
& Research Centre on Multilingualism-SFB 538
2008 – 2009 Senior Research Fellow, Department of Neurophysiology
and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
2009 – 2015 Associate Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Psychology,
University Paris Descartes
2015 – Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience
Paris Nanterre - Paris Lumières University
Directeur du laboratoire MoDyCo
Articles dans une revue
- Daniel Grevisse, Marzena Watorek, Karin Heidlmayr, Frédéric Isel. Processing of complex morphosyntactic structures in French: ERP evidence from native speakers. Brain and Cognition, 2023, 171, pp.106062. ⟨10.1016/j.bandc.2023.106062⟩. ⟨hal-04170916⟩
- Daniel Grégoire Grevisse, Marzena Watorek, Frédéric Isel. The Subjunctive as a Model of Grammatical Complexity: An Integrative Review of Issues Based on Combined Evidence from Mental Chronometry and Neurosciences. Brain Sciences, 2023, 13 (6), pp.974. ⟨10.3390/brainsci13060974⟩. ⟨hal-04141483⟩
- Aikaterini Premeti, Maria Pia Bucci, Frédéric Isel. Evidence from ERP and Eye Movements as Markers of Language Dysfunction in Dyslexia. Brain Sciences, 2022, 12 (1), pp.73. ⟨10.3390/brainsci12010073⟩. ⟨hal-03641338⟩
- Jane Wottawa, Martine Adda-Decker, Frédéric Isel. Neurophysiology of non-native sound discrimination: Evidence from German vowels and consonants in successive French–German bilinguals using an MMN oddball paradigm. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2021, pp.1-11. ⟨10.1017/S1366728921000468⟩. ⟨hal-03321725⟩
- Frédéric Isel. Neuroplasticity of second language vocabulary acquisition: The role of linguistic experience in individual learning. Langage, Interaction et Acquisition / Language, Interaction and Acquisition , 2021, 12 (1), pp.54-81. ⟨10.1075/lia.20023.ise⟩. ⟨hal-04073245⟩
- Caroline Bogliotti, Frédéric Isel. Manual and Spoken Cues in French Sign Language’s Lexical Access: Evidence From Mouthing in a Sign-Picture Priming Paradigm. Frontiers in Psychology, 2021, 12, ⟨10.3389/fpsyg.2021.655168⟩. ⟨hal-03780881⟩
- Karin Heidlmayr, Emmanuel Ferragne, Frédéric Isel. Neuroplasticity in the phonological system: The PMN and the N400 as markers for the perception of non-native phonemic contrasts by late second language learners. Neuropsychologia, 2021, pp.107831. ⟨10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107831⟩. ⟨hal-03176369⟩
- Michèle Kail, Frédéric Isel. Language, plasticity, and learning: Challenges at the forefront of research. Langage, Interaction et Acquisition / Language, Interaction and Acquisition , 2021, 12 (1), pp.1-9. ⟨10.1075/lia.00012.int⟩. ⟨hal-04073273⟩
- Karin Heidlmayr, Maria Kihlstedt, Frédéric Isel. A review on the electroencephalography markers of Stroop executive control processes. Brain and Cognition, 2020, 146, pp.105637. ⟨10.1016/j.bandc.2020.105637⟩. ⟨hal-03176358⟩
- Frédéric Isel, Weilin Shen. Perception of lexical neutral tones in mandarin compounds: Electroencephalographic evidence from an oddball paradigm. Neuropsychologia, 2020, 147, pp.107557 -. ⟨10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107557⟩. ⟨hal-03491433⟩
- Caroline Bogliotti, Hatice Aksen, Frédéric Isel. Language experience in LSF development: Behavioral evidence from a sentence repetition task. PLoS ONE, 2020, 15 (11), pp.e0236729. ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0236729⟩. ⟨hal-03122589⟩
- Simona Caldani, Frederic Isel, Mathilde Septier, Eric Acquaviva, Richard Delorme, et al.. Impairment in Attention Focus During the Posner Cognitive Task in Children With ADHD: An Eye Tracker Study. Frontiers in Pediatrics, 2020, 8, pp.484. ⟨10.3389/fped.2020.00484⟩. ⟨hal-03148932⟩
- Frédéric Isel, Michèle Kail. Guest Editors . Special Issue : Neuroplasticity, network connectivity and language processing across the lifespan. Brain and Cognition, 2019, 134, pp.67-70. ⟨10.1016/j.bandc.2019.05.005⟩. ⟨hal-01675764⟩
- Frédéric Isel, Michèle Kail. From lesion studies to network connectivity in language across the lifespan. Brain and Cognition, 2019, Neuroplasticity, connectivity, and language processing across lifespan, 134, pp.67-70. ⟨10.1016/j.bandc.2019.05.005⟩. ⟨halshs-01742684⟩
- Frédéric Isel, Michèle Kail. Morphosyntactic integration in French sentence processing Event-related brain potentials evidence. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 2018, 46, pp.23-36. ⟨10.1016/j.jneuroling.2017.12.006⟩. ⟨hal-01689207⟩
- Mathilde Carminati, Nicole Fiori-Duharcourt, Frédéric Isel. Neurophysiological differentiation between preattentive and attentive processing of emotional expressions on French vowels. Biological Psychology, 2018, 132 (132), pp.55-63. ⟨10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.10.013⟩. ⟨halshs-01737837⟩
- Frédéric Isel, Michèle Kail. The cost of morphological cues across the course of sentence processing in French: Event-related brain potentials evidence. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 2018, 46, pp.23-36. ⟨halshs-01737835⟩
- Xavier Aparicio, Karin Heidlmayr, Frédéric Isel. Inhibition Efficiency in Highly Proficient Bilinguals and Simultaneous Interpreters: Evidence from Language Switching and Stroop Tasks. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2017, 46 (6), pp.1427 - 1451. ⟨10.1007/s10936-017-9501-3⟩. ⟨hal-01679657⟩
- Xavier Aparicio, Karin Heidlmayr, Frédéric Isel. Effect of inhibition efficiency on language switching and Stroop tasks: Evidence from late bilinguals and simultaneous interpreters. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 2017, 46 (6), pp.1427-1451. ⟨halshs-01737843⟩
- Karin Heidlmayr, Karine Doré-Mazars, Xavier Aparicio, Frédéric Isel. Multiple Language Use Influences Oculomotor Task Performance: Neurophysiological Evidence of a Shared Substrate between Language and Motor Control. PLoS ONE, 2016, 11, ⟨10.1371/journal.pone.0165029.t009⟩. ⟨hal-01399299⟩
- Weilin Shen, Nicole Fiori-Duharcourt, Frédéric Isel. Nature of the P600 in semantically anomalous sentences: Evidence from ERP source localisation. NeuroReport, 2016, 27 (7), pp.548-558. ⟨halshs-01737845⟩
- Karin Heidlmayr, Karine Doré-Mazars, Xavier Aparicio, Frédéric Isel. Multiple Language Use Influences Oculomotor Task Performance: Neurophysiological . Evidence of a Shared Substrate between Language and Motor Control. PLoS ONE, 2016, 11 (11). ⟨halshs-01737844⟩
- Karin Heidlmayr, Barbara Hemforth, Sylvain Moutier, Frédéric Isel. Neurodynamics of executive control processes in bilinguals: evidence from ERP and source reconstruction analyses. Frontiers in Psychology, 2015, 6, pp.821. ⟨10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00821⟩. ⟨hal-01164210⟩
- Karin Heidlmayr, Sylvain Moutier, Barbara Hemforth, Cyril Courtin, Robert Tanzmeister, et al.. Successive bilingualism and executive functions: The effect of second language use on inhibitory control in a behavioural Stroop Colour Word task. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 2014, 17 (03), pp.630-645. ⟨10.1017/S1366728913000539⟩. ⟨hal-01100697⟩
Communications dans un congrès
- Lei Xi, Rachid Ridouane, Frédéric Isel. Perception des frontières prosodiques intonatives du français par des natifs : Études comportementale et électroencéphalographique. 35èmes Journées d'Études sur la Parole (JEP 2024) 31ème Conférence sur le Traitement Automatique des Langues Naturelles (TALN 2024) 26ème Rencontre des Étudiants Chercheurs en Informatique pour le Traitement Automatique des Langues (RECITAL 2024), Jul 2024, Toulouse, France. pp.481-491. ⟨hal-04623098⟩
- Audrey Mazur, Matthieu Quignard, David Chesnet, Lionel Moiroud, Michaël Rouillard, et al.. Online processes and eye movements indicators during reading and writing: methodological considerations. Conference Sig Writing 2024, 2024, Paris, France. ⟨hal-04462656⟩
- Béatrice Godart-Wendling, Frédéric Isel, Maria Kihlstedt, Maria Pia Bucci. Difficulties understanding implicitness in French elementary priority education classes. Colloque PIAGET-RIPSYDEVE 2023, Psychologie du développement et de l’éducation : enjeux actuels et défis pour le XXIème siècle, Université de Genève, Jun 2023, Genève (CH), Switzerland. ⟨hal-04262692⟩
- Daniel Grégoire Grevisse, Marzena Watorek, Frédéric Isel. Processing morphosyntactic structures in French: ERP brain evidence for prescriptive subjunctive from French natives.. Workshop Experimental Approaches to Romance Morphology, Oct 2022, Vienne (Autriche), France. ⟨hal-04143668⟩
- Aikaterini Premeti, Maria Pia Bucci, Frédéric Isel. Event-related potentials and Eye movements’ recordings in French students with dyslexia during a phonological lexical decision task. The 22nd Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP), Aug 2022, Lille, France. ⟨hal-03847342⟩
- Aikaterini Premeti, Frédéric Isel, Maria Pia Bucci. Contribution of oculometry and EEG synchronization in the understanding of the origin of the dyslexia: Evidence from a phonological lexical decision task in French students. The 21st European Conference on Eye Movements (ECEM), Aug 2022, Leicester, United Kingdom. ⟨hal-03847283⟩
- Jane Wottawa, Martine Adda-Decker, Frédéric Isel. La perception de [h] et [ʔ] chez des bilingues français-allemand tardifs. Et si c’était juste du souffle ?. JEP 2022 - Journées d'Études sur la Parole, Jun 2022, Île de Noirmoutier, France. pp.395-404, ⟨10.21437/JEP.2022-42⟩. ⟨halshs-03667255⟩
- Jane Wottawa, Martine Adda-Decker, Frédéric Isel. What if it’s just breathing? – [h] and [ʔ] perception in late French-German bilinguals. AMLaP 2021, Sep 2021, Paris, France. ⟨halshs-03667226⟩
- Daniel Grégoire Grevisse, Marzena Watorek, Frederic Isel. Les sciences sœurs ou comment les techniques des neurosciences aident les sciences du langage. Exemples de cas d’étude.. Les sciences dans tous les sens : sœurs jumelles ou sœurs ennemies ?, Greta Komur-Thilloy; Laurent Angard; Maxime Leroy; Inkar Kuramayeva; Rudolph Sock; Fabrice Marsac, Mar 2021, Mulhouse (FR), France. ⟨hal-04143670⟩
- Frédéric Isel, Florence Villoing. Interaction entre recherches neurophysiologiques et linguistiques : le rôle des contraintes phonologiques de taille dans les composés Verbe-Nom du français. Séminaire doctoral de MoDyCo, MoDyCo, UMR7114 (Université Paris-Nanterre), Nov 2020, Nanterre, France. ⟨hal-04139504⟩
- Yaru Wu, Jeremy Yeaton, Frédéric Isel. Do Mandarin-French bilinguals hear Chinese when reading French? ERP evidence of proficiency level. Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2020, May 2020, Boston, United States. ⟨hal-03041016⟩
- Danilo Lombardo, Frédéric Isel. Impact de la complexité phonétique du /ʁ/ en français langue seconde sur la qualité de réalisation des occlusives sourdes chez des locuteurs natifs de l’anglais : Corrélations entre durée du Voice Onset Time, (1) marqueurs électroencéphalographiques (EEG) et (2) profil psychométrique du locuteur. Séminaire doctoral de MoDyCo, MoDyCo, UMR7114 (Université Paris-Nanterre), Dec 2018, Nanterre, France. ⟨hal-04139223⟩
- Caroline Bogliotti, Céline Fortuna, Frédéric Isel, Aliyah Morgenstern. Designing a Sentence Repetition Task in French Sign Language: a new approach to assess LSF abilities. SLAAC- Sign Language Acquisition and Assessment, Nov 2018, Haifa, Israel. ⟨hal-04080063⟩
- Caroline Bogliotti, Frédéric Isel. Does mouthing influence the comprehension of lexical signs in French Sign Language ? Evidence from a priming experiment. International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS 8), Jul 2018, Cape Town, South Africa. ⟨halshs-01741103⟩
- Frédéric Isel, Florence Villoing. Role of phonological size properties in French VN compounds: Combined evidence from corpus and neurophysiological data. 18th International Morphology Meeting, May 2018, Budapest, Hungary. ⟨halshs-01742686⟩
- Guillaume Desagulier, Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Frédéric Isel, Seongmin Simon Mun. Characterizing discourse genres with prosodic features in a reference treebank of spoken French. AFLiCo JET 2018 Corpora and Representativeness, May 2018, Nanterre, France. ⟨halshs-01787188⟩
- Karin Heidlmayr, Emmanuel Ferragne, Frédéric Isel. Perceptual adaptation to non-native sound contrasts: Electrophysiological evidence of neuroplasticity in the phonological system related to second language learning. Neuroscience 2017 – 47th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Nov 2017, Washington, DC, United States. ⟨hal-01675301⟩
- Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Frédéric Isel. Proximité référentielle et théorie de l’esprit dans le traitement des émotions : Dialogue entre sciences du langage et neurosciences cognitive. Journée d’Études Représentation des états internes : perceptions, affects, cognition et statut de l’expérient, Université Paris-Est Créteil (Lidil12, IMAGER) & Université Paris-Est Marne-La-Vallée (LISAA), Nov 2017, Créteil, France. ⟨halshs-01745730⟩
- Frédéric Isel, Anne Lacheret-Dujour. Neurophysiology of emotional reactivity from a corpus of affective speech: Theory of mind and referential proximity. Neuroscience 2017 – 47th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Nov 2017, Washington DC, United States. ⟨halshs-01737871⟩
- Karin Heidlmayr, Emmanuel Ferragne, Frédéric Isel. Perception of non-native sounds in a second language: Electrophysiological evidence of neuroplasticity in the phonological system. Neuroscience 2016, Nov 2016, San Diego, CA, United States. ⟨halshs-01824788v2⟩
- Jane Wottawa, Martine Adda-Decker, Frédéric Isel. Putting German [ʃ] and [c ̧] in two different boxes: native German vs L2 German of French learners. Interspeech 2016, Sep 2016, San Francisco, United States. ⟨10.21437/Interspeech.2016-457⟩. ⟨halshs-01398574⟩
- Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Mae Coradetti, Jean-Philippe Sanchez, Frédéric Isel. Electrophysiological reactivity to emotional sentences in French: The role of referential proximity.. 18th World Congress of Psychophysiology, Aug 2016, Havana, Cuba. pp.69-70. ⟨halshs-01737865⟩
- Frédéric Isel. Neuroplasticity and Second Language Acquisition : The critical role of targeted and individualized learning. ADYLOC – Language, Plasticity and Learning, Nov 2015, Paris, France. ⟨halshs-01737869⟩
- Jane Wottawa, Martine Adda-Decker, Frédéric Isel. Segmental difficulties in French learners of German. International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 2015, ELENA BABATSOULI; DAVID INGRAM, Sep 2015, Chania, Greece. ⟨halshs-01398545⟩
- Jane Wottawa, Martine Adda-Decker, Frédéric Isel. Segmental difficulties in French learners of German. International Symposium on Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 2015, 2015, Chania, Greece. pp.421--429. ⟨hal-01287857⟩
- Bernard Fradin, Frédéric Isel, L. Rosenfeld. Representation and processing of French verb-noun compounds. 9th International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, Sep 2014, Niagara-on-the-Lake, France. pp.21-22. ⟨hal-01137624⟩
Poster de conférence
- Philomène Perin, Caroline Bogliotti, Frédéric Isel. Role of Age of Acquisition of French Sign Language (LSF) on semantic processing: Event-related potentials evidence with deaf native and late adult signers. Sign Café 2 Conference, Oct 2022, Ragusa, Italy. ⟨hal-03865109⟩
- Karin Heidlmayr, Emmanuel Ferragne, Frédéric Isel. Perceptual sensitivity to non-native sounds: ERP evidence of neuroplasticity in the phonological system related to second language learning. Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL) 2017 Annual Meeting, Nov 2017, Baltimore, MD, United States. ⟨hal-01675308⟩
Ouvrages (y compris édition critique et traduction)
- Caroline Bogliotti, Frédéric Isel, Anne Lacheret-Dujour (Dir.). Atypies langagières de l’enfant à l’âge adulte, apports de la psycholinguistique et des neurosciences cognitives. De Boeck, 2017. ⟨halshs-01687867⟩
Chapitres d'ouvrage
- Frédéric Isel. Relation between production and processing of the French liaison during lexical access.. Langue Française, Armand Colin, In press. ⟨hal-04089166⟩
- Anne Lacheret-Dujour, Guillaume Desagulier, Serge Fleury, Frédéric Isel. The distribution of prosodic features in the Rhapsodie corpus: From general observations to discourse characterization. Anne Lacheret; Sylvain Kahane; Paola Pietrandrea. Rhapsodie. A Prosodic-Syntactic Treebank for Spoken French, 89, John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp.315-338, 2019, Studies in Corpus Linguistics, ⟨10.1075/scl.89.18lac⟩. ⟨halshs-01737850⟩
- Jane Wottawa, Martine Adda-Decker, Frédéric Isel. Impact of production complexity in German L2 by French native speakers: focus on /h/ and vowel duration contrast . Babatsouli E. & Ingram D. Phonology in Protolanguage and Interlanguage, Equinox, 2018. ⟨halshs-01507314⟩
- Jane Wottawa, Martine Adda-Decker, Frédéric Isel. The Impact of Production Complexity in German L2 by French Native Speakers: Focus on /h/ and Vowel Duration Contrast. Elena Babatsouli; David Ingram. Phonology in Protolanguage and Interlanguage, Equinox, pp.255-285, 2018, 9781781795644. ⟨halshs-01737853⟩
- Caroline Bogliotti, Frédéric Isel, Anne Lacheret-Dujour. Introduction générale. Caroline Bogliotti; Frédéric Isel; Anne Lacheret-Dujour. Les atypies langagières de l'enfance à l'âge adulte. Apport de la psycholinguistique et des neurosciences cognitives, De Boeck Université, 2017. ⟨halshs-01737855⟩
Pré-publications, Documents de travail
- Aikaterini Premeti, Frédéric Isel, Maria Pia Bucci. Visual-attentional and phonological deficits explored in French dyslexic students: eye movements recorded during a phonological lexical decision task. 2023. ⟨hal-04086823⟩