Welcome

I was a struggling mathematician, then a linguist and now a (cognitive) neuroscientist, but will probably always be a hacker. I also moonlight as an applied statistician. These are some of the things I’ve done along the way.

Code

Research odds and ends

See also links in the list of publications below.

Mixed-effects models

EEG

  • philistine, a collection of miscellaneous Python functions that I find useful, including an implementation of the Savitzky-Golay based method for IAF determination (Corcoran, Alday et al. Psychophysiology, 2018).
  • DDTBOX, an EEGLAB plugin for MVPA (contributor)
  • MNE Python, a Python package for analysing M/EEG data (contributor)
  • PyMNE.jl
  • PyFOOOF.jl
  • libeep, C library for the processing of Advanced Neuro Technology’s file format for EEG data (contributor)

Miscellaneous

Words

Futile attempts to program humans.

Presentations

(access to some of the repositories is restricted for copyright / license / data protection / other reasons)

Conferences

Forthcoming

Massive mixed models in Julia.
Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) 2025, Nashville.

2025

2024

BoxCox.jl – A lightweight package with nice extensions.
JuliaCon 2024, Eindhoven. https://github.com/palday/juliacon2024.

2023

Graphical Displays for Understanding Mixed Models.
Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) 2023, Toronto.

Graphical Displays for Understanding Mixed Models.
JuliaCon 2023, Boston.

2022

Effects.jl: Effectively Understand Effects in Regression Models.
JuliaCon 2021, The Internet. https://github.com/palday/juliacon2021.

Non-parametric Methods for Mixed-Effects Models of EEG Data.
JuliaCon 2021, The Internet. https://github.com/palday/juliacon2021.

Fast Simulation-Based Power Analyses for Mixed-Effects Models.
JuliaCon 2021, The Internet. https://github.com/palday/juliacon2021.

Putting the NO in ANOVA: the past, present and future (role) of statistics in linguistics and psychology.
Keynote. Fifth Summer School on Statistical Methods for Linguistics and Psychology (SMLP), University of Potsdam. https://github.com/palday/smlp2021-keynote.

Naturalistic Stimulation in M/EEG: Promises and Pitfalls.
Talk in the Symposium Naturalistic Stimuli in Cognitive Neuroscience. Tagung experimentell arbeitender Psychologen (TEAP) 2021, Ulm/The Internet.

2020

Parallelization, Random Numbers and Reproducibility.
JuliaCon 2020, The Internet. https://github.com/palday/juliacon2020

Away from arbitrary thresholds: using statistics to improve artifact rejection in ERP.
Poster. Neurobiology of Language 2020, The Internet.

2019

Conversation as a competitive sport
with Antje S. Meyer. Oral presentation. Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP) 2019, Moscow.

Beyond Phrase Structure: An Alternative Analysis of Brennan and Hale (2019) Using a Dependency Parser
with Ingmar Brilmayer. Poster. Neurobiology of Language 2019, Helsinki.

Is neural entrainment a basic mechanism for structure building?
with Markus Ostarek, Olivia Gawel1, Johannes Wolfgruber, Birgit Knudsen, Francesco Mantegna and Falk Huettig. Poster. Neurobiology of Language 2019, Helsinki.

2018

Worse than useless: traditional ERP baseline correction reduces power through self-contradiction.
Poster. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.6953135. Neurobiology of Language 2018, Quebec City.

2017

Stress-timing via Oscillatory Phase-locking in Naturalistic Language
with Andrea E. Martin. Poster. Neurobiology of Language 2017, Baltimore.

Combinging Eye-movements and EEG recorded from separate populations:

  • On the relationship between eye movements and the N400 in sentence processing: A unifying statistical approach.
    with Franziska Kretzschmar. Poster (pdf). DOI:10.6084/m9.figshare.5267566. International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON) XIII 2017, Amsterdam.
  • The two sides of prediction error in reading: On the relationship between eye movements and the N400 in sentence processing.
    [with Franziska Kretzschmar. European Conference on Eye Movements 2017, Wuppertal.
  • On the relationship between eye movements and the N400 in predictive actor processing: A unifying statistical approach.]{style=“font-size: 70%;”}
    with Franziska Kretzschmar. Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing (AMLaP) 2017, Lancaster.

Decoding Linguistic Structure Building in the Time-Frequency Domain.
with Andrea E. Martin. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.4757965 Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2017, San Fransisco, and CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing 2017, Boston.

Recalled visual events from a naturalistic TV-viewing paradigm are associated with higher inter-trial coherence in the alpha band of the EEG.
second author with Daniel Rogers, Phillip Alday, Andrew Corcoran, Jessica Gysin-Webster, Magdalena Nenycz-Thiel, Duane Varan, Matthias Schlesewsky and Ina-Bornkessel-Schlesewsky. Poster. Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2017, San Fransisco.

2016

The eyes have it: cross-method and cross-linguistic patterns.
with Franziska Kretzschmar, Svenja Lüll, Louise Kyriaki, Matthias Schlesewsky and Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3507347. Neurobiology of Language 2016, London.

Confound and control in language experiments.
with Jona Sassenhagen. Poster (pdf). Paper. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3528815. Neurobiology of Language 2016, London.

Individual differences in sentence processing based on handedness and family sinistrality in left- and right-handers.
with F. Kretzschmar, I. Brilmayer, I. Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, and M. Schlesewsky. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3793257. Neurobiology of Language 2016, London.

Biphasic ERP responses are not just filter artifacts.
with Sabine Frenzel, Matthias Schlesewsky and Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky. Poster (pdf). Repository. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3412237. Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2016, New York.

Towards a Rigorous Motivation for Zipf’s Law.
Poster (pdf). Paper. Repository. Poster DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3412300. Evolang XI, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

(Super small) Data or Super (Small Data)? Using (Inter)Individual Estimates to Get the Most from the Least
with Matthias Schlesewsky and Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky. Slides. Repository. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3471728 Experimental Approaches to Arabic and other understudied Languages 2016, Abu Dhabi.

2015

Microtypological Aspects of Frequency-driven Language Change.
with Oliver Schallert. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3412231. Australian Linguistics Society 2015, Sydney.

The dorsal and ventral streams differ in commutativity, not complexity.
with Sarah Tune, Steven L. Small, Matthias Schlesewsky and Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky. Slides (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3412228. Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2015, Auckland.

Predicting behavioral preferences in language use from electrophysiological activity.
with Matthias Schlesewsky and Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3471731. Society for Neuroscience 2015, Chicago.

Wait for it: Predicted Error vs. Prediction Error in Language Processing.
with Jona Sassenhagen, Scott Coussens and Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3471737. Society for the Neurobiology of Language 2015, Chicago.

2014

Neural signatures of incremental text processing correlate with word entropy in a natural story context.
with Jona Sassenhagen and Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3471740. Society for the Neurobiology of Language 2014, Amsterdam.

Tracking the emergence of meaning in the brain during natural story comprehension.
with Jona Sassenhagen and Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3471743. International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience 2014, Brisbane, Australia.

2013

Reliability of gamma activity during semantic integration.
with Jona Sassenhagen. Poster (pdf). DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3471746. Society for the Neurobiology of Language 2013, San Diego, California.

2012

Towards a Computational Model of Actor-Based Language Comprehension.
with Matthias Schlesewsky and Ina Bornkessel Schlesewsky. Poster (pdf). Repository. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3471749. Neurobiology of Language 2012, San Sebastian, Spain.

2011

Actor identification in natural stories: Qualitative distinctions in the neural bases of actor-related features.
with Arne Nagels, Matthias Schlesewsky and Ina Bornkessel Schlesewsky. Slides (pdf). Repository. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3471752. Neurobiology of Language 2011, Annapolis, Maryland, USA.

Publications

(access to some of the repositories is restricted for copyright / license / other reasons)

2023

Kretzschmar, F., & Alday, P. M. (2023). Principles of statistical analysis: Old and new tools. In M. Grimaldi, Y. Shtyrov, & E. Brattico (Eds.), Language electrified. Techniques, methods, applications, and future perspectives in the neurophysiological investigation of language. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/nyj3k OSF preprint.

Huizeling, E., Alday, P. M., Peeters, D., & Hagoort, P. (2023). Combining EEG and 3D-eye-tracking to study the prediction of upcoming speech in naturalistic virtual environments: A proof of principle. Neuropsychologia, 191, 108730. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108730

2022

Cao, Y., Oostenveld, R., Alday, P. M., & Piai, V. (2022). Are alpha and beta oscillations spatially dissociated over the cortex in context-driven spoken-word production? Psychophysiology, 59(6). https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13999

Brehm, L., & Alday, P. M. (2022). Contrast coding choices in a decade of mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language, 125, 104334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2022.104334

Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., Sharrad, I., Howlett, C. A., Alday, P. M., Corcoran, A. W., Bellan, V., Kliegl, R., Lewis, R. L., Small, S. L., & Schlesewsky, M. (2022). Rapid adaptation of predictive models during language comprehension: Aperiodic EEG slope, individual alpha frequency and idea density modulate individual differences in real-time model updating. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.817516

2021

Liebherr, M., Corcoran, A. W., Alday, P. M., Coussens, S., Bellan, V., Howlett, C. A., Immink, M. A., Kohler, M., Schlesewsky, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2021). EEG and behavioral correlates of attentional processing while walking and navigating naturalistic environments. Scientific Reports, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01772-8

Holler, J., Alday, P. M., Decuyper, C., Geiger, M., Kendrick, K. H., & Meyer, A. S. (2021). Competition reduces response times in multiparty conversation. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.693124

2020

Kaufeld, G., Bosker, H. R., Oever, S. ten, Alday, P. M., Meyer, A. S., & Martin, A. E. (2020). Linguistic structure and meaning organize neural oscillations into a content-specific hierarchy. Journal of Neuroscience, JN-RM-0302-20. https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0302-20.2020

Cross, Z. R., Santamaria, A., Corcoran, A. W., Chatburn, A., Alday, P. M., Coussens, S., & Kohler, M. J. (2020). Individual alpha frequency modulates sleep-related emotional memory consolidation. Neuropsychologia, 148, 107660. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107660

Chan, R. W., Alday, P. M., Zou-Williams, L., Lushington, K., Schlesewsky, M., Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., & Immink, M. A. (2020). Focused-attention meditation increases cognitive control during motor sequence performance: Evidence from the N2 cortical evoked potential. Behavioural Brain Research, 384, 112536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2020.112536

2019

Alday, P. M., & Kretzschmar, F. (2019). Speed-accuracy tradeoffs in brain and behavior: Testing the independence of P300 and N400 related processes in behavioral responses to sentence categorization. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00285 analysis code.

Alday, P. M. (2019). How much baseline correction do we need in ERP research? Extended GLM model can replace baseline correction while lifting its limits. Psychophysiology, 56(12). https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13451 arXiv preprint. example analysis code.

Rodd, J., Bosker, H. R., Ernestus, M., Alday, P. M., Meyer, A. S., & Bosch, L. ten (2019). Control of speaking rate is achieved by switching between qualitatively distinct cognitive “gaits”: Evidence from simulation. Psychological Review. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000172

Mantegna, F., Hintz, F., Ostarek, M., Alday, P. M., & Huettig, F. (2019). Distinguishing integration and prediction accounts of ERP N400 modulations in language processing through experimental design. Neuropsychologia, 134, 107199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.107199 analysis code and data. GitHub

Bode, S., Feuerriegel, D., Bennett, D., & Alday, P. M. (2019). The decision decoding ToolBOX (DDTBOX) – a multivariate pattern analysis toolbox for event-related potentials. Neuroinformatics, 17(1), 27–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12021-018-9375-z biorXiv preprint. Source code.

Alday, P. M. (2019). M/EEG analysis of naturalistic stories: A review from speech to language processing. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 34(4), 457–473. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2018.1546882

2018

Krebs, J., Wilbur, R. B., Alday, P. M., & Roehm, D. (2019). The impact of transitional movements and non-manual markings on the disambiguation of locally ambiguous argument structures in austrian sign language (ÖGS). Language and Speech, 62(4), 652–680. https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830918801399

Corcoran, A. W., Alday, P. M., Schlesewsky, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2018). Toward a reliable, automated method of individual alpha frequency (IAF) quantification. Psychophysiology, e13064. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13064 biorXiv preprint. MATLAB implementation. Python implementation.

Meyer, A. S., Alday, P. M., Decuyper, C., & Knudsen, B. (2018). Working together: Contributions of corpus analyses and experimental psycholinguistics to understanding conversation. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00525 Analysis code and data.

2017

Alday, P. M., Schlesewsky, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2017). Electrophysiology reveals the neural dynamics of naturalistic auditory language processing: Event-related potentials reflect continuous model updates. Eneuro, 4(6), ENEURO.0311–16.2017. https://doi.org/10.1523/eneuro.0311-16.2017 biorXiv preprint. Analysis and paper repository. Preprocessing repository. Data DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.3412312.v1.

Alday, P. M., Schlesewsky, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2017). Commentary on sanborn and chater: Posterior modes are attractor basins. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(7), 491–492. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2017.04.003 bioRXiv preprint.

Wiese, R., Orzechowska, P., Alday, P. M., & Ulbrich, C. (2017). Structural principles or frequency of use? An ERP experiment on the learnability of consonant clusters. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 2005. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.02005

Kretzschmar, F., & Alday, P. M. (2017). The two sides of prediction error in reading: On the relationship between eye movements and the N400 in sentence processing. In R. Radach, H. Deubel, C. Vorstius, & M. J. Hofmann (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th european conference on eye movements, wuppertal. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 10, 311. https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.10.6

2016

Sassenhagen, J., & Alday, P. M. (2016). A common misapplication of statistical inference: Nuisance control with null-hypothesis significance tests. Brain and Language, 162, 42–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2016.08.001 arXiv preprint. Repository. Online overview

Alday, P. M. (2016). Towards a rigorous motivation for zipf’s law. In S. G. Roberts, C. Cuskley, L. McCrohon, L. Barceló-Coblijn, O. Feher, & T. Verhoef (Eds.), The evolution of language: Proceedings of the 11th international conference (EVOLANG11). Online at http://evolang.org/neworleans/papers/178.html. http://evolang.org/neworleans/papers/178.html

Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., Alday, P. M., & Schlesewsky, M. (2016). A modality-independent, neurobiological grounding for the combinatory capacity of the language-ready brain: Comment on “towards a computational comparative neuroprimatology: Framing the language-ready brain”by michael a. arbib. Physics of Life Reviews, –. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2016.01.003

Ulbrich, C., Alday, P. M., Knaus, J., Orzechowskac, P., & Wiese, R. (2016). The role of phonotactic principles in language processing. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2015.1136427

2015

Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I., Philipp, M., Alday, P. M., Kretzschmar, F., Grewe, T., Gumpert, M., Schumacher, P. B., & Schlesewsky, M. (2015). Age-related changes in predictive capacity versus internal model adaptability: Electrophysiological evidence that individual differences outweigh effects of age. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 7(217). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2015.00217

Alday, P. M. (2015). Be careful when assuming the obvious: Commentary on “the placement of the head that minimizes online memory: A complex systems approach.” Language Dynamics and Change, 5(1), 138–146. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105832-00501008 https://hg.sr.ht/~palday/comment-on-ldc-1028

Alday, P. M., Schlesewsky, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2015). Discovering prominence and its role in language processing: An individual (differences) approach. Linguistic Vanguard, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2014-1013 Source Code.

2014

Alday, P. M., Schlesewsky, M., & Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, I. (2014). Towards a computational model of actor-based language comprehension. Neuroinformatics, 12(1), 143–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12021-013-9198-x Analysis Code.

2012

Alday, P. M. (2012). Province on a hill: South tyrol as a microcosm of european federalism. In Ideas of | for europe. An interdisciplinary approach to european identity (pp. 271–284).

Teaching

SMLP

For the past several years, I’ve had the pleasure of teaching (with Reinhold Kliegl and Douglas Bates) the Advanced Frequentist Track at the Summer School on Statistical Methods for Linguistics and Psychology at the University of Potsdam. This course has also served a testing ground for innovations both in MixedModels.jl and in the broader Julia package ecosystem. In other words: the older materials are most assuredly out of date, both in terms of practices and software capabilities and compatibility.

Online materials and one-offs

These were often written for an “informercial”, either as part of a regular meeting series or to explain something that I had received a lot of questions about. As a rule, they have not been updated – not for changes in the software landscape nor to fix mistakes of various sorts nor to indicate where my own thoughts on a topic have changed. The sorting into years thus serves as a bit of a warning about how stale the contents within may be.

2024

2022

2018

2017

2016

University Experience

International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) for Language Sciences

University of Salzburg

University of Marburg

University of Mainz

  • Advanced Statistical Methods. Fall 2014.
  • Forschungsseminar und Experimentalpraktikum I. Winter 2013–14.
  • BA Seminar. Winter 2012–13.
  • Einführung in die Morphologie und Syntax. Winter 2012–13.

Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts

  • Latin I (Summer School 2004–2008, Teaching Assistant for Dr. E. Hall)
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