Eve Higby, Ph.D. Faculty Profile

Photo of Eve Higby

Eve  Higby, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences

My research focuses on understanding the dynamic nature of language processing for multilinguals, including cross-linguistic interactions in the mind, effects on brain structure and function, and consequences for cognition. I am also interested in brain and cognitive changes in aging and in neurocognitive disorders and their impact on language.

  • Ph.D., Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences with Cognitive Science concentration, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
  • B.A., Spanish with Certificates in Linguistics and Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Florida International University

Not teaching this semester.

2019 - Present

*Student/trainee

Bailey, L., *Lockary, K., & Higby, E. (in press). Cross-linguistic influence in the bilingual lexicon: Evidence for ubiquitous facilitation and context-dependent interference effects on lexical processing. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728923000597.

Higby, E., *Gámez, E., & Holguín Mendoza, C. (2023). Challenging deficit frameworks in research on heritage language bilingualism. Applied Psycholinguistics, 44(S4), 417-430. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716423000048.

Wagner, M., Rusiniak, M., Higby, E., & Nourski, K. V. (2023). Sensory processing of native and non-native phonotactic patterns in the alpha and beta frequency bands. Neuropsychologia, 189(10), 108659. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108659.

*Lopez, K., Gravier, M., *Vasquez, A., *Soto, J., *Tollast, A., & Higby, E. (2023). Cross-language generalization in bilingual aphasia: Influence of manner of second language acquisition. Aphasiology, 37(10), 1594-1622. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2022.2114289.

Reyes, G. T., Lee, M. D., Haft, N., Halim, M., Almeida, A., Higby, E., & Guiton, P. (2023). The Anti-Racist Liberatory Pedagogy Academy: Critical race faculty development. Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education, 5(1), 187-207. https://doi.org/10.3726/PTIHE.012023.0010.

Antolovic, K., Higby, E., & Obler, L. K. (2023). Mechanisms of cognitive aging in multilingualism. In J. Cabrelli, A. Chaouch-Orozco, J. González Alonso, S. M. Pereira Soares, E. Puig-Mayenco, & J. Rothman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of third language acquisition (pp. 606-632). Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-third-language-acquisition/A2BF0CBFE9C5AD7D98C56FA183E80EE9.

Centeno, J. G., & Higby, E. (2023). Toward an intersectional neurocognitive approach to management of post-stroke aphasia in multilingual ethnoracially diverse geriatric populations. In M. Goral & A. Lerman (Eds.), Advances in the neurolinguistic study of multilingual and monolingual adults: In honor of Professor Loraine K. Obler (pp. 140-155). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003330318-14.

Hisagi, M., *Zandona, M., *Kent, J., & Higby, E. (2022). Perception of temporally-contrasted Japanese words by Spanish-English bilinguals and American English monolinguals. JASA Express Letters, 2(1), 015201. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0009338.

Macbeth, A., Higby, E., Atagi, N., & Chiarello, C. (2021). Evidence for cognitive and brain reserve supporting executive control of memory in lifelong bilinguals. Neuropsychologia, 160, 107958. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107958.

Shafer, V. L., Kresh, S., Ito, K., Hisagi, M., Vidal-Finnerty, N., Higby, E., *Castillo, D., & Strange, W. (2021). The neural time-course of American English vowel discrimination by Japanese, Russian, and Spanish second-language learners of English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 24(4), 642-655. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728921000201.

Hisagi, M., Higby, E., *Zandona, M., *Kent, J., *Castillo, D., Davidovich, I., & Shafer, V. (2021). Perceptual discrimination measure of non-native phoneme perception in early and late Spanish-English and Japanese-English bilinguals. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 42, 060013. https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0001424.

Bernstein-Ellis, E., Higby, E., & Gravier, M. (2021, May). Responding to culturally insensitive test items. The ASHA Leader. https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/leader.AE.26052021.26/full/Winner of the Association Media & Publishing Excel Award.

Higby, E., Donnelly, S., Yoon, J., & Obler, L. K. (2020). The effect of second-language vocabulary on word retrieval in the native language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 23, 812-824. https://doi.org/10.1017/S136672891900049X.

Vonk, J. M. J., Higby, E., Nikolaev, A., Cahana-Amitay, D., Spiro, A., Albert, M. L., & Obler, L. K. (2020). Demographic effects on longitudinal semantic processing, working memory, and cognitive speed.  Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Science, 75(9), 1850-1862. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbaa080.

Nikolaev, A., Higby, E., Hyun, J., Lehtonen, M., Ashaie, S., Hallikainen, M., Hänninen, T., & Soininen, H. (2020). Production of inflected novel words in older adults with and without dementia. Cognitive Science, 44(8), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12879.

Higby, E., Cahana-Amitay, D., Vogel-Eyny, A., Spiro, A., Albert, M., & Obler, L. K. (2019). The role of executive functions in naming among older adults. Experimental Aging Research, 45(4), 306-330. https://doi.org/10.1080/0361073X.2019.1627492.

Nikolaev, A., Higby, E., Hyun, J., & Ashaie, S. (2019). Lexical decision task for studying written word recognition in adults with and without dementia or mild cognitive impairment. Journal of Visualized Experiments, 148, e59753, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.3791/59753. Accompanying video: https://www.jove.com/video/59753.

Nikolaev, A., Ashaie, S., Hallikainen, M., Hänninen, T., Higby, E., Hyun, J. M., Lehtonen, M., & Soininen, H. (2019). Effects of morphological family size on word recognition in aging, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Alzheimer’s Disease. Cortex, 116, 91-103. https://doi.org/10.1016/cortex.2018.10.028.

Higby, E., Lerman, A., Korytkowska, M., Malcolm, T., & Obler, L. K. (2019). Aging as a confound in language attrition research. In B. Köpke & M. S. Schmid (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of language attrition (pp. 121-135). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/34745.

2019 - Present

*Student/trainee

*Evans, H., *Padilla, M., *Montes, A., *Tinajero Gomez, A., & Higby, E. (2024, Jan). Bilingual language production: Investigating the independent components of cross-language facilitation and interference control. California Meeting on Psycholinguistics.

Holguín Mendoza, C., Higby, E., & *Venegas, M. (2023, Nov). California Spanish as “non-existent”: Spanish language ideologies within the Latinx community. California Spanish Conference. 

Wagner, M., Rusiniak, M., Higby, E., & Nourski, K. V. (2023, Nov). Sensory processing of native and non-native phonotactic patterns in the alpha and beta frequency bands. Annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

*Mendoza, G., Higby, E., *Ramos Gomez, S., Guo, T., Kroll, J. F., & Rosenbaum, D. A. (2023, Nov). Sustainability: A dynamic metalinguistic judgment. Annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society.

Higby, E., *Miller, C., & Holguín Mendoza, C. (2023, Oct). Becoming culturally responsive: The development of a curriculum for teaching about cultural and linguistic diversity in communication sciences and disorders. Cultural Humility Virtual Conference of NBASLH (The National Black Association for Speech, Language, and Hearing).

*Mendoza, G. A., Kroll, J. F., Higby, E., *Ramos Gomez, S., Guo, T., & Rosenbaum, D. A. (2023, May). Sustainability: A new approach to understanding bilingual speech planning. Psycholinguistics in Flanders.

*Lopez, K., *Vasquez, A., Gravier, M., *Tollast, A., & Higby, E. (2023, Apr). Cross-language generalization in bilingual aphasia: Influence of manner of language acquisition. Annual meeting of the California Speech Language Hearing Association.

Hisagi, M., *Acosta, A. P., *Zandona, M., *Kent, J., Higby, E., & Tajima, K. (2023, Apr). Effect of temporal acuity by speaking rate among younger and older adults. Annual meeting of the American Academy of Audiology.

Nicholas, K., Higby, E., *Okeke, O., *Do, J., Bunce, J., *Angstadt-Leto, E., *Helen, P., & Jasso, J. (2022, Nov). The development of plural and verbal morphology in Mandarin-English bilingual two-and-a-half-year-olds. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association annual convention.

Hisagi, M., *Acosta, A. P., *Zandona, M., *Kent, J., Higby, E., & Tajima, K. (2022, Nov). Sensitivity of temporal perceptual boundary through speaking rate by English speakers and Spanish-English bilinguals. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association annual convention.

Nicholas, K., Higby, E., *Okeke, O., *Do, J., Bunce, J., *Angstadt-Leto, E., *Helen, P., & Jasso, J. (2022, Jun). The development of plural and verbal morphology in Mandarin-English bilingual two-and-a-half-year-olds. Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders.

Holguín Mendoza, C., Higby, E., *Mallon, M., *Boyero Agudo, L., & *Vidal Cortés, Z. (2022, April). California Spanish as “non-existent”: Verbal hygiene and erasure ideologies within the Latinx community. Third International Symposium on Language Attitudes toward Portuguese, Spanish and Related Languages.

Hisagi, M., *Acosta, A., *Zandona, M., *Kent, J., Higby, E., & Tajima, K. (2022, Mar). Effect of temporal acuity through speaking rate by English speakers and Spanish-English bilinguals. Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Audiology.

Higby, E., *Maria Castillo, M., *Aranda, A., Nicholas, K., & Datta, H. (2021, Nov). Pedagogical approaches to cultural and linguistic diversity in communication sciences and disorders. Annual meeting of the American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association.

*Wong, J., & Higby, E. (2021, Nov). Combined lexical frequency, but not name agreement, better predicts word retrieval speed in bilinguals than language-specific frequency. Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting.

*Lopez, K., *Vasquez, A., *Soto, J., *Tollast, A., Gray, T., Gravier, M., & Higby, E. (2021, Oct). Cross-linguistic treatment effects in bilingual individuals with aphasia. Academy of Aphasia.

Higby, E., *Tian, N., Shafer, V., & Fernández, E. (2021, Jul). Factors affecting acceptability judgments in the native language: Proficiency, language exposure, lexical frequency, and grammaticality in the second language. International Symposium on Bilingualism 13.

*Mendoza, G. A., Higby, E., *Ramos Gomez, S., Guo, T., & Rosenbaum, D. A. (2021, Jul). Measuring language dominance in bilinguals based on task sustainability. International Symposium on Bilingualism 13.

Higby, E., Holguín Mendoza, C., *Mallon, M., *Boyero, L., & *Vidal, Z. (2021, Jun). Perceptions of English borrowings and stigmatized phrases among heritage speakers of Spanish. Thirteenth Heritage Language Research Institute.

*Mendoza, G. A., Higby, E., *Ramos Gomez, S., Guo, T., & Rosenbaum, D. A. (2021, May). Task sustainability as a measure of bilingual language dominance. California Meeting on Psycholinguistics.

Holguín Mendoza, C., Higby, E., *Boyero, L., *Mallon, M., & *Vidal, Z. (2021, May). Categories of stigmatization: Style, awareness, and agency among speakers of Spanish as a heritage language. 8th Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language.

Hisagi, M., Higby, E., *Zandona, M., *Kent, J., *Castillo, D., Davidovich, I., & Shafer, V. L. (2020, Dec). Perceptual discrimination measure of non-native phoneme perception in early and late Spanish-English and Japanese-English bilinguals. Acoustical Society of America annual meeting.

Higby, E., & Kroll, J. F. (2020, Sep). Cognate interference effects during bilingual word retrieval. Bilingualism Matters Research Symposium.

Shafer, V. L., Rinker, T., Kresh, S., Hisagi, M., & Higby, E. (2020, Jun). Neural measures of encoding and discrimination of American English vowels by Japanese, Russian, and Spanish second language learners of English. Conference on Multilingualism, Reading, UK.

Macbeth, A., Higby, E., Atagi, N., & Chiarello, C. (2020, May). The effects of bilingualism on resistance to proactive interference and brain integrity across the adult lifespan. Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting.

Higby, E. & Kroll, J. F. (2019, Nov). Cognates produce both facilitation and interference. Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Rosenbaum, D. A., Higby, E., Feghhi, I., Guo, T., *Mendoza, G., & *Ramos, S. (2019, Nov). A method for relating the subjective difficulties of different kinds of tasks to task-order preferences: Speaking one language or another and adding numbers or lifting objects. Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Nikolaev, A., Higby, E., Ashaie, S., Hallikainen, M., Hänninen, T., Hyun, J., Lehtonen, M., & Soininen, H. (2019, Nov). Novel word production in a complex inflectional language: Older adults with or without dementia. International Morphological Processing Conference, Tübingen, Germany.

Higby, E., *Vasquez-Rocha, P., & Kroll, J. F. (2019, Jun). The scope of inhibitory control in bilingualism. International Symposium on Bilingualism 12, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Nikolaev, A., Ashaie, S., Hallikainen, M., Hänninen, T., Higby, E., Hyun, J. M., Lehtonen, M., & Soininen, H. (2019, Apr). Effect of complexity of inflectional paradigm on word production. Learning and Plasticity conference, Ylläs, Finland.

2016 - Present

2023 – 2024          Research, Scholarship, & Creative Activity (RSCA) Grant, California State University, East Bay

Pronominal development and cross-linguistic influence in bilingual children

2022 – 2023          Research, Scholarship, & Creative Activity (RSCA) Grant, California State University, East Bay

Cross-language interference in bilinguals with aphasia

2022                     Center for Student Research Summer Student Development Experience (CSR-SSDE), California State University, East Bay            

Bilingual word retrieval

2022                     Open Educational Research Funding, California State University, East Bay Library  

Open-access curricular materials for multicultural training in communication sciences and disorders

2021 – 2024          National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Grant (BCS 2117078)        

Acquisition of Electroencephalography Equipment for the Study of the Neuroplasticity of Language and Cognitive Processes in Bilingualism and Multilingualism

2021 – 2022          Faculty Support Grant, California State University, East Bay         

Bilingual language production: Investigating the independent components of cross-language facilitation and interference control

2020 – 2021          Faculty Support Grant, California State University, East Bay         

Neural and cognitive changes in aging and bilingualism: Implications for language production and executive function

2020                     Student-Researcher Training Program, Center for Student Research, California State University, East Bay             

Code-switching Variability in Northern and Southern California

2019 – 2020          Faculty Support Grant, California State University, East Bay         

Bilingual language production: Investigating the independent components of cross-language facilitation and interference control

2017 – 2020          National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (SBE 1715073)                 

Neural and cognitive changes in aging and bilingualism: Implications for language production and executive function

2016 – 2018          University of California Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship

Does bilingualism protect older adults against age-related language decline?

 

Current (2023-2024)

Member, Faculty Diversity and Equity (FDEC) Committee

Member, SLHS Faculty Search Committee

Member, SLHS IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) Committee

Member, SLHS Curriculum Committee

SLHS Undergraduate Faculty Advisor

SLHS Faculty Advisor, NSSLHA chapter

2023                     Outstanding Scholar on Issues of Diversity, Social Justice & Multiculturalism, California State University, East Bay

2022                     Research Mentoring-Pair Travel Award (2x), American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

2021                     Exceptional Service to Students Award, California State University, East Bay