The following is adapted from nomination letter submitted by D. Titone:

Dr. Pexman is a world leader in psycholinguistics whose scholarship has advanced our fundamental understanding of the human capacity for language. She has made substantial contributions to advancing our understanding of the processes by which we derive meaning from language and how those processes develop and are shaped by experience. Her work has been instrumental in building theory and methodology and in engaging children, their caregivers, and the public in the cognitive science of human language. Her discoveries about cognitive processes enabling human language have shifted understanding of how humans experience the world and relate to each other.

By applying methods of experimental psychology, Dr. Pexman carried out the first studies investigating figurative language development and thus published some of the earliest work in the field that is now known as experimental pragmatics. Since then, using novel eye-tracking and action-tracking methodologies, she has shown how children use their emerging cognitive skills to solve the interpretive problem of ironic language. Dr. Pexman also proposed the only theory that accounts for children’s acquisition of verbal irony understanding, and for the social-cognitive skills that are related to irony processing and understanding. This theoretical framework fundamentally shifted attention in the field to developmental questions and interventions for those who struggle with irony comprehension.

Sydney Gets Sarcastic, her research-informed storybook for children, is used by teachers and speech-language pathologists as a tool in their work with children and is now available in 15 languages with worldwide downloads exceeding 30,000 copies. Her research has been featured in media and podcast interviews, with outlets including NPR, BBC, and CNN, and the magazines Discover, Popular Mechanics, and Scientific American. The ten pieces she has written for The Conversation Canada, on topics ranging from children’s literacy to the psychology of word games, have together garnered over 500,000 reads, far exceeding expectations for such contributions.

For more than two decades Dr. Pexman’s research has been continually and simultaneously funded by both NSERC and SSHRC, including in 2008 a prestigious NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement. Dr. Pexman’s theoretically and methodologically sophisticated contributions to psychology have been lauded by Canadian and international associations dedicated to advancement of psychological science. These accolades include Fellow status in the Canadian Psychological Association, in the Association for Psychological Science, and in CSBBCS. She received the Richard C. Tees Distinguished Leadership Award from the CSBBCS in 2016 and the inaugural Mid-career award from CSBBCS in 2020.

Dr. Pexman is the recipient of nine awards for mentorship and teaching and is a role model for the next generation of Canadian psychological scientists. She has served as President of CSBBCS, as the Governing Board Chair of the Psychonomic Society, and as a Governing Board member of the Cognitive Science Society. Long an advocate of equity, diversity and inclusion in her discipline, Dr. Pexman received the NSF-Sponsored Women in Cognitive Science Mentorship Award (2005). As the first woman editor-in-chief of the CPA’s Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology in its 65-year history she brought new open science practices to the journal. In 2016, she co-founded Women in Cognitive Science – Canada, a national organization dedicated to building a more inclusive discipline and secured initial funding from NSERC to support its development.

In sum, Dr. Pexman’s innovative and influential research contributions, her deep commitment to the field of psychological science, its knowledge mobilization, and its early career scholars, and her inspiring record of research leadership make her most deserving of the CSBBCS Donald O. Hebb Award.