RTG 2906 Curiosity

Prajna Sinha

I obtained my Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Hyderabad. During this period, an internship at IIT Kanpur introduced me to eye-tracking and psycholinguistics, sparking a lasting interest in script processing and reading. Following this, I was awarded an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to pursue my Master's degree in Clinical Linguistics, jointly offered by the University of Groningen, Ghent University, and the University of Eastern Finland. For my master's thesis in the RIDDL Lab (Ghent University), I investigated the relationship between the behavioural measures of phonological processing and reading fluency and neural activation during task-based fMRI, when children performed arithmetic fact retrieval. Apart from this, I have also worked on intergenerational transfer of white matter integrity in arithmetic and reading between mothers and children during this period.


Curiosity-driven learning in children’s reading behaviour and knowledge acquisition

This project aims to examine curiosity-driven reading behaviour in children and adults using eye-tracking and neuroimaging methods. It investigates how curiosity shapes the choice of texts and information sought, and how curiosity-driven reading reshapes the semantic networks that support comprehension.


My curiosity about human language acquisition eventually grew into a broader interest in academic skills like reading and writing. How people read across different languages and scripts, and the neural mechanisms behind these processes became some of my interests. Currently, I am especially curious about how curiosity itself shapes reading: what draws people to choose certain texts over others across the lifespan, and how this intersects with reading difficulties.



  • Sinha, P., Shah, T. D., Yadav, P., Barman, S., Khare, A., & Verma, A. (2026). Optimal Viewing Position (OVP) Interacts with Both Aksharas and Maatras in Hindi: Evidence from Lexical Decision Task. AMLaP 2026, Saarbrücken. (Poster Presentation)
  • Sinha, P., Lefèvre, E., Vandermosten, M., Ansari, D. & Peters, L. (2026). Intergenerational Transfer of White Matter Integrity in Arithmetic and Reading Networks. EARLI SIG 22 (Neuroscience & Education) Conference 2026, Leiden, Netherlands. (Poster Presentation)
  • Sinha, P., Mirza, I. A. & Sekerina, I. (2026). Stroop Performance in Hindi-Urdu Biscriptal Biliterates: The Role of Script, Age of Learning, and Proficiency. Conference on Multilingualism 2026, Toulouse, France (Poster presentation)
  • Sinha, P., Mirza, I. A., Nikolaev, A., & Sekerina, I. (2025). Script matters: Stroop performance across Devanagari and Perso-Arabic in Hindi-Urdu biscriptal biliterates. South Asian Forum on the Acquisition and Processing of Language 2025. (Poster presentation)