Ana Rita Sá Leite   logo logo logo logo

  PhD in Psychology - area of Psycholinguistics
       Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

If you are here, you are probably wondering who I am. You may call me Ana Rita (Ana according to my mom; Rita according to my dad)! I am a researcher devoted to understanding the encoding of syntax during language production and comprehension. My focus is on exploring the potential interplay between the various levels of lexical access to compute each syntactic feature.


Keywords: grammatical gender, gender transparency, bilingualism, lexical access, electroencephalographical measures, eye-tracking.

Recent News

A paper has been published in Acta Psychologica presenting a mathematical method to measure the gender transparency of languages! Check it out! | April 2024

A paper has been published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review presenting an adaptation of a cognitive model of language processing (AUSTRAL model) to gender retrieval! Check it out! | February 2024

I have just presented a summary of my work on the interplay between languages during language production when it comes to gender encoding at the 23rd ESCOP conference! Check the slides on my ResearchGate! | September 2023

I have just presented our work on gender processing with German and Portuguese bilinguals at the 14th Heritage Language Research Institute! Check the slides on my ResearchGate! | June 2023

A paper has been published in Bilingualism Language and Cognition! Check it out! | May 2023

A paper has been published in the special issue "Spanish Psycholinguistics" of Frontiers in Psychology! Check it out! | May 2023

A paper has been published in the special issue "Animacy in Cognition: Effects, Mechanisms, and Theories" of Frontiers in Psychology! Check it out! | May 2023

My current goals

  • Gender processing

    Modelling gender processing during language comprehension by adapting the AUSTRAL model (Taft, 2023).

  • Gender transparency

    Understanding the link between word form and gender values across different languages considering the dual-route mechanism of Gollan and Frost (2001).

  • Social bias

    Exploring in a controlled and reliable way whether the abstract masculine and feminine gender values are processed differently by our brain.

List of publications


Sá-Leite, A. R., Simpson, I., Fraga, I., & Comesaña, M. (2024). A standardized approach to measuring gender transparency in languages. Acta Psychologica. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104236

Sá-Leite, A. R., & Lago, S. (2024). The role of word form in gender processing during lexical access: A theoretical review and novel proposal in language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. doi:10.3758/s13423-023-02426-8

Sá-Leite, A. R., Flores, C., Eira, C., Haro, J. & Comesaña, M. (2023). The balance between languages rather than the age of acquisition: A study on the cross-linguistic gender congruency effect. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. doi:10.1017/S1366728923000378

Casado, A., Sá-Leite, A. R., Pesciarelli, F. & Paolieri, D. (2023). Exploring the nature of the gender-congruency effect: implicit gender activation and social bias [Spanish Psycholinguistics]. Frontiers in Psychology. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1160836

Sá-Leite, A. R., Comesaña, M., Acuña-Fariña, C., & Fraga, I. (2023). A cautionary note on the studies using the picture-word interference paradigm: The unwelcome consequences of the random use of “in/animates” [Animacy in Cognition: Effects, Mechanisms, and Theories]. Frontiers in Psychology. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1145884

Sá-Leite, A. R., Tomaz, Â., Hernández-Cabrera, J., Fraga, I., & Comesaña, M. (2022). What a transparent Romance language with a Germanic gender-determiner mapping tells us about gender retrieval: Insights from European Portuguese. Psicológica, 43(2): e14777. doi:10.20350/digitalCSIC/14777

Sá-Leite, A. R., Haro, J., Comesaña, M., & Fraga, I. (2022). Of bats and tables: How animacy impacts the brain in a variety of tasks. Ciencia Cognitiva. Published online. (science outreach)

Sá-Leite, A. R., Luna, K., Tomaz, Â., Fraga, I., & Comesaña, M. (2022). The mechanisms underlying grammatical gender selection in language production: A meta-analysis of the gender congruency effect. Cognition, 224. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105060

Sá-Leite, A. R., Haro, J., Comesaña, M., & Fraga, I. (2021). Of beavers and tables: The role of animacy in the processing of grammatical gender within a picture-word interference task. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.661175

Sá-Leite, A. R., Luna, K., Fraga, I., & Comesaña, M. (2020). The gender congruency effect across languages in bilinguals: A meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27, 677-693. doi: 10.3758/s13423-019-01702-w

Sá-Leite, A. R., Fraga, I., & Comesaña, M. (2019). Grammatical gender processing in bilinguals: An analytic review. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26, 1148-1173. doi: 10.3758/s13423-019-01596-8

Sá-Leite, A. R., & Fraga, I. (2017). Aprendizaje, representación y procesamiento de palabras ambiguas en bilingües. Escritos de Psicología, 10, 69-87. doi:10.5231/psy.writ.2017.13112

My CV


Click here to download a PDF version of my CV.