Yan Cong
- Assistant Professor, School of Languages and Cultures
Office and Contact
Room: SC 107
Email: cong4@purdue.edu
Pillars of Interdisciplinary Research Excellence
Engineering over the Life Course; Preserving Cognitive Function
Engineering over the Life Course; Preserving Cognitive Function
Education
PhD Michigan State University Linguistics 2021
PhD Michigan State University Linguistics 2021
Research Interests
Natural language understanding, Computational approach to language function and disfunction, Description and experiments in linguistic meaning
Natural language understanding, Computational approach to language function and disfunction, Description and experiments in linguistic meaning
Teaching Interests
Computational linguistics, Statistical modeling in linguistics, Language learning and AI
Computational linguistics, Statistical modeling in linguistics, Language learning and AI
Selected Grants
2024 - Purdue University Center on Aging and the Life Course
2024 - Purdue University Center on Aging and the Life Course
Selected Publications
Cong, Yan; Hu, Jingying; Reese, Timothy; Liu, Hui (2026). How robust are linguistic markers of aging? The case of aging-related social media text. Natural Language Processing Journal, 100203.
Cho, Sunghye; Cong, Yan; Mehta, Aarush; Nikzad, Amir H.; Berretta, Sarah A.; Behbehani, Leily M.; Liberman, Mark; Tang, Sunny X.. (2026). Unique signatures in verbal fluency task performance in schizophrenia and depression. Schizophrenia Research: Cognition, 43, 100407.
Cong, Yan and Lee, Jiyeon. (2025). Tracking priming-induced language recovery in aphasia with pre-trained language models. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 8, 1668399.
Mehta, Aarush; Nikzad, Amir; Cong, Yan; Cho, Sunghye; Pradhan, Sameer; Tang, Sunny. X. (2025). Sentiment in speech is associated with symptom severity in psychosis. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry. 1–12.
Cong, Yan. (2025). Second language learning of degree expressions: A computational approach. Cambridge Natural Language Processing. 31(5), 1187–1209.
Cong, Yan; Lee, Jiyeon; LaCroix, Arianna N (2024). Leveraging pre-trained large language models for aphasia detection in English and Chinese speakers. In Proceedings of the 6th Clinical Natural Language Processing Workshop (Clinical NLP). 238-245. Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL).
Cong, Yan; LaCroix, Arianna N.; Lee, Jiyeon (2024). Clinical efficacy of pre-trained large language models through the lens of aphasia. Nature Scientific Reports. 14, 15573.
Cong, Yan (2024). Manner implicatures in large language models. Nature Scientific Reports. 14, 29113.
Britton, James; Cong, Yan; Hsu, Yu-Yin; Chersoni, Emmanuele; and Blache, Philippe (2024). On the Influence of Discourse Connectives on the Predictions of Humans and Language Models. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 18, 1363120.
Tang, Sunny X.; Cong, Yan; Mercep, Gwenyth; Bhatti, Mutahira; Serpe, Grace; Gromova, Valeria; Berretta, Sarah; John, Majnu; Liberman, Mark; Sinvani, Liron (2023). Characterizing and Detecting Delirium with Clinical and Computational measures of Speech and Language Disturbance. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. 48(4), E255-E264.
Britton, James; Cong, Yan; Hsu, Yu-Yin; Chersoni, Emmanuele; and Blache, Philippe (2024). On the Influence of Discourse Connectives on the Predictions of Humans and Language Models. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 18, 1363120.
Tang, Sunny X.; Cong, Yan; Mercep, Gwenyth; Bhatti, Mutahira; Serpe, Grace; Gromova, Valeria; Berretta, Sarah; John, Majnu; Liberman, Mark; Sinvani, Liron (2023). Characterizing and Detecting Delirium with Clinical and Computational measures of Speech and Language Disturbance. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. 48(4), E255-E264.