I studied Geology (Bachelor degree) and Psychology at Leiden University and obtained my degree in Cognitive Psychology in 1982. I was employed for one year at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen before returning to Leiden as a PhD candidate. In 1988 I obtained my PhD degree on the thesis Lexical context effects in reading and naming (supervisor: Prof. G. B. Flores d’Arcais). In 1985 I was appointed Assistant Professor and in 2005 Associate Professor in the Unit of Cognitive Psychology. I was secretary of the Dutch Psychonomic Society (1995-2000) and was a member of the Executive Committee of the unit of Cognitive Psychology and of the Board of Examiners of the Institute of Psychology.

More information about Wido la Heij

Research

My main interest is language production, with an emphasis on models of single-word production. My thesis examined the semantic relatedness paradox: the observation that a semantic relation between a to-be-named object or word and its context facilitates performance in priming paradigms, but hampers performance in Stroop-like paradigms. Later research focused on semantic and phonological context effects in language production tasks like picture naming, definition naming and word translation (e.g. La Heij, Starreveld & Steehouwer, 1993; Starreveld & La Heij, 1996) and examined three related issues: (1) nonverbal context effects in word production (resulting in the “Conceptual Selection Model”; Bloem & La Heij, 2003), (2) the modelling of different levels of categorization in object naming: basic level naming, category naming and function naming (Kuipers & La Heij, 2008) and (3) lexical selection processes in bilinguals (e.g., La Heij et al. 1996; La Heij, 2005; Costa, La Heij & Navarrete, 2006). In addition, I am interested in the development of executive functions involved in word production in children (e.g., La Heij & Boelens, 2010) and in word production in non-alphabetic languages (e.g., Verdonschot, La Heij & Schiller, 2010).

Teaching (coordinator)

Introduction to Psychology (2003-2015)
Tutorial Academic Skills (2003-2015)
Cognitive Psychology (1991-2016)
Bachelor Project (Thesis; 2004-2016)
Cognitive Neuroscience of Language (2008-2013)
 

PhD candidates (co -supervisor)

Peter A. Starreveld (1997) - The Time it Takes to Name a Cat.
Ineke Jonkersz (2004) - Semantic Interference and Facilitation in Word Production.
Jan-Rouke Kuipers (2008) - Semantic Context Effects in Word Production.
Rinus G. Verdonschot (2011) - Word Processing in Languages using Non-alphabetic Scripts.
 

Publications