| Psychology Department | |
| Washington University in St. Louis. | |
| Campus Box 1125 | |
| One Brookings Drive | |
| St. Louis MO 63130-4899 USA | |
| Email: | |
| Phone: | 1-314-935-9450 |
| Fax: | 1-314-935-7588 |
| WWW: | http://BrettKessler.com |
| Citizenship: | USA |
PhD,
Stanford University,
Department of Linguistics.
Dissertation title: Estimating the Probability of Historical
Connections Between Languages.
Committee:
Paul Kiparsky (chair),
Edward Flemming,
Jarrett Rosenberg,
Thomas Wasow.
AM,
Stanford University,
Dept. of Linguistics.
Thesis title:
Sandhi in Classical Sanskrit.
Committee:
William Poser (chair),
Andrew Garrett,
Paul Kiparsky.
MLS, Indiana University School of Library and Information Science.
BA,
Indiana University,
Bloomington.
Double major:
Linguistics
and German.
Kessler, B., & Leben, W. R. (in prep.). English vocabulary elements. (2nd ed.) New York: Oxford University Press.
Kessler, B. (2001). The Significance of Word Lists: Statistical Tests for Investigating Historical Connections Between Languages. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications. Distributed by The University of Chicago Press.
Ashby, J., Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Rayner, K. (submitted). Vowel processing during silent reading: Evidence from eye movements.
Caravolas, M., Kessler, B., Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. (submitted). Effects of orthographic consistency, frequency, and phonological factors in English children's vowel spelling development.
Kessler, B., Treiman, R., & Mullennix, J. (under revision). Feedback consistency effects in single-word reading.
Pollo, T. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (submitted). Three perspectives on spelling development.
Bourassa, D., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (in press). Use of morphology in spelling by children with dyslexia and typically developing children. Memory & Cognition.
Hayes, H., Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (in press). English spelling: Making sense of a seemingly chaotic writing system. Perspectives on Dyslexia.
Kessler, B. (2005, in press). Phonetic comparison algorithms. Transactions of the Philological Society, 103, 243-260.
Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Pollo, T. C. (in press). Learning about the letter name subset of the vocabulary: Evidence from U.S. and Brazilian preschoolers. Applied Psycholinguistics.
Treiman, R.,, Kessler, B., Zevin, J., Bick, S., & Davis, M. (in press). Influence of consonantal context on the reading of vowels: Evidence from children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
Kessler, B., & Lehtonen, A. (in press). Multilateral comparison and significance testing of the Indo-Uralic question. In J. Clackson, P. Forster, & C. Renfrew (Eds.), Phylogenetic methods and the prehistory of languages. Cambridge, England: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Pollo, T. C., Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (in press). Vowels, syllables, and letter names: Differences between young children’s spelling in English and Portuguese. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
Cassar, M., Treiman, R., Moats, L., Pollo, T. C., & Kessler, B. (2005). How do the spellings of children with dyslexia compare with those of nondyslexic children? Reading and Writing, 18, 27–49.
Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005). Writing systems and spelling development. In M. Snowling & C. Hulme (Eds.). Science of reading: A handbook. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2004). The case of case: Children's knowledge and use of upper- and lowercase letters. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 413-428.
Kessler, B. (2003). [Review of the book Time Depth in Historical Linguistics]. Diachronica, 20, 373-377.
Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Bick, S. (2003). Influence of consonantal context on the pronunciation of vowels: A comparison of human readers and computational models. Cognition, 88, 49-78.
Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2003). The role of letter names in the acquisition of literacy. In R. Kail (Ed.), Advances in Child Development and Behavior, (vol. 31, 105-135). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2003). Is English spelling chaotic? Misconceptions concerning its irregularity. Reading Psychology, 24, 267-289.
Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Bick, S. (2002). Context sensitivity in the spelling of English vowels. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 448-468.
Kessler, B., Treiman, R., and Mullennix, J. (2002). Phonetic biases in voice key response time measurements. Journal of Memory and Language, 47, 145-171.
Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Bourassa, D. (2001). Children's own names influence their spelling. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22, 555-570.
Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2001). Relationships between sounds and letters in English monosyllables. Journal of Memory and Language, 44, 592-617.
Treiman, R., Kessler, B., Knewasser, S., Tincoff, R., & Bowman, M. 2000. English speakers' sensitivity to phonotactic patterns. In M. B. Broe and J. Pierrehumbert (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology V: Acquisition and the Lexicon (pp. 269-282). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Kessler, B. & Treiman, R. 1997. Syllable structure and the distribution of phonemes in English syllables. Journal of Memory and Language, 37, p. 295-311.
Kessler, B., Nunberg, G., & Schütze, H. 1997. Automatic detection of text genre. In 35th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and 8th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Proceedings of the conference, 7-12 July, Madrid, p. 32-38.
Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. 1995. In defense of an onset-rhyme syllable structure for English. Language and Speech, 38, 127-142.
Kessler, B. 1995. Computational dialectology in Irish Gaelic. In Seventh Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, p. 60-66.
Kessler, B. 1994. Sandhi and syllables in Classical Sanskrit. In The proceedings of the Twelfth West Coast Conference on FormalLinguistics, E. Duncan, D. Farkas, and P. Spaelti, (eds.), p. 35-50. Stanford, Calif.: CSLI.
Kessler, B, & Shaw, D. 1983. SOLOS: A student-oriented information retrieval system using MARC records. Information Technology and Libraries, 2, 272-279.
Bourassa, D., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005, July). Use of morphology in spelling by children with dyslexia and typically developing children. Poster presented at the meeting of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science, Montréal, July, 2005.
Hayes, H., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005, June). Children use vowels to help them spell consonants. Summary of poster to be presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Toronto, Canada.
Pollo, T. C., Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2005, June). Beginning spellers exploit inexact letter-name matches. Summary of poster to be presented at the meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Toronto, Canada.
Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Pollo, T. C. (2005, April). U.S. and Brazilian preschoolers' knowledge of letter names: Variability across letters, languages, and children. Paper to be presented at Cross-cultural Approaches to Language and Literacy Development, SRCD (Society for Research in Child Development) Biennial Meeting, Atlanta, GA.
Kessler, B. (2005, March). Verifying historical relationships between groups of languages. Paper presented at Mathematical Modelling and Analysis of Language Diversification, Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Kessler, B. (2005, January). Is English really related to Finnish? Adapting psychological research methods to solve linguistic puzzles. Paper presented at a colloquium of the Washington University Department of Psychology.
Ashby, J., Treiman, R., Kessler, B., Martin, A., & Rayner, K. (2004, November). The minimality principle reconsidered: Evidence for the early use of elaborated phonological representations during silent reading. Poster presented at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Minneapolis, MN.
Kessler, B., & Lehtonen, A. (2004, July.) Multilateral comparison and significance testing of the Indo-Uralic question. Paper presented at Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, England.
Caravolas, M., Snowling, M., Hulme, C., & Kessler, B. (2004, June). How orthographic consistency affects the development of spelling skills in English: Implications for theories of orthographic learning. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Amsterdam.
Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2004, June). Sensitivity to statistical contextual patterns when spelling consonants in English. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Amsterdam.
Pollo, T. C., Kessler, B., & Treiman, R.. (2004, June). Influence of writing systems on young children's spelling in English and Portuguese. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Amsterdam.
Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2004, June). The case of case: Children's knowledge and use of upper- and lower-case letters. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Amsterdam.
Treiman, R., Kessler, B., Bick, S., & Davis, M. (2003, November). Influence of consonantal context on the pronunciation of vowels: Evidence from children. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Ashby, J., Treiman, R., Kessler, B., & Rayner, K. (2003, November). Parafoveal processing of vowel contexts: Evidence from eye movements. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Kessler, B. (2003, February). Multilateral comparison and the problem of chance resemblances. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Denver, CO.
Kessler, B., Treiman, R., & Bick, S. (2002, June). Use by skilled spellers of context-sensitive patterns: Onsets and codas constrain the spelling of English vowels. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Chicago, IL.
Kessler, B. (2002, March). Sensitivity to intrasyllabic context in human and computer processing of letter-phoneme correspondences. Paper presented at California State University, Fresno, and at the Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
Kessler, B. (2001, November). Factors that affect oral word reading. Paper presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute. Literacy Acquisition, Assessment, and Intervention: The Role of Phonology, Orthography, and Morphology. Barga, Italy.
Kessler, B. (2001, November). Determining the statistical significance of sound correspondences. Paper presented at the Tenth Annual Workshop on Comparative Linguistics Reconstruction Fundamentals, Detroit, MI.
Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2000, November). Relationships between sounds and letters in English monosyllables. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New Orleans, LA.
Kessler, B. (1999, November). When do lexical resemblances mean that languages are historically connected? Linguistics Colloquium, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI.
Kessler, B. (1998, May). Estimating the probability of historical connections between languages using recurrent sound correspondences. Phonology Workshop, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
Kessler, B. (1995, March). Computational dialectology in Irish Gaelic. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Dublin, Ireland.
Kessler, B. (1995, January). The phonotactics of English CVC monosyllables. Phonology Workshop, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
Treiman, R. & Kessler, B. (1994, November). Distributions of phonemes in English CVC words and implications for language processing. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, St. Louis, MO.
Kessler, B. (1993, April). Sandhi and syllables in Classical Sanskrit. Paper presented at the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, Santa Cruz, CA.
Kessler, B. (1993, January). Sandhi in Sanskrit. Phonology Workshop, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
Kessler, B. (1992). A spelling corrector for English based on knowledge of sound-spelling correspondence. Paper presented at SRI International, Menlo Park, CA.
2002- Research Scientist. Psychology Department, Washington University in St. Louis. Researching the statistical and psycholinguistic bases of reading and spelling.
1999-2002. Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
Cognitive Area of
the Psychology Department
at Wayne State University.
Rebecca Treiman,
PI.
Studying the relationship between pronunciation and spelling
in English, from statistical and psycholinguistic
standpoints.
1996-1998. Consultant.
Palo Alto Research Center.
Automatic Genre Recognition project. Project managers:
Geoffrey Nunberg,
Hinrich Schütze.
1996. Sanskrit Consultant. Lexicon Branding, Sausalito, CA.
1986-1993. Software Engineer.
Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA.
Worked in the Natural Language Project, which developed an
engine for using Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar to
transduce typewritten English sentences into scripts for
accessing applications. Also worked on lexical and
morphological resources to support cursive handwriting
recognition (filtering of neural net output) and document
retrieval. Project managers: Dan Flickinger, Derek Proudian.
1984-1986. Programmer.
Development Operations and Artificial Intelligence,
Xerox.
Projects included exploration of voice annotation, text and image
scanning, lexical analysis. Defined Xerox character set for the
International Phonetic Alphabet.
1981-1984. Programmer.
Psychology Department,
Indiana University.
Part time.
Implemented a specialized system for the retrieval
and statistical analysis of data on children's spellings, to
support faculty research in psycholinguistics
(Rebecca Treiman).
1979-1981.
Programmer/Analyst and Cataloging Librarian.
Kinsey Institute for
Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.
Trained and supervised cataloguers of rare books. Designed and
implemented an automated storage and retrieval system for
bibliographic records.
1974-1979.
Junior Cataloger for Jewish and South Asian Languages.
Indiana University Libraries.
Part time.
Responsible for the cataloguing of books written in Yiddish,
Hebrew, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and related languages.
1997-. Refereed for the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Applied Psycholinguistics, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology , Diachronica , Computational Linguistics, Journal of Memory and Language, Psychological Review , Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, and Psychological Reports.
1995. Editor of The little red book for Stanford linguists, 3rd ed.
1995-1996. Linguistics Department graduate student representative, Stanford University.
1994-1995. Member, Linguistics Colloquium Committee, Stanford University.
1993-1997. Member, Committee on Graduate Studies, Dept. of Linguistics, Stanford University.
Good reading knowledge of English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Yiddish, Esperanto, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian.
Have also studied Latin, Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese, Irish, Old Irish, Hawaiian, Russian, Hebrew, Classical Tibetan, Old Saxon, Old English.