Dr Bo Yao

Senior Lecturer

Research Overview

Research Interests

My research investigates how the brain speaks to itself through inner speech, and how language, embodied experience, and environment jointly shape human cognition. Combining behavioural experiments, eye-tracking, neuroimaging, corpus linguistics, computational modelling, and machine learning, I develop mechanistic accounts of human intelligence, one shaped not only by neural architecture, but by bodily, social, cultural, and material context.

I have developed a theoretical framework positioning inner speech as the brain's computational tool for managing uncertainty, shaping perception and action, exerting cognitive control, and sustaining self-coherence, and conduct experiments to map these functions onto their phenomenological forms and underlying neural mechanisms. Alongside this, I direct research programmes on how abstract meaning emerges from embodied interaction with the world, and on the cognitive science of reading that informs the design of human-centred technologies for literacy and accessibility. This work has been published in high-impact journals including Psychological Review, Cognition, NeuroImage, and Journal of Memory and Language, and supported by competitive awards such as the ESRC Future Research Leaders Award and the Royal Society APEX Award.

My research speaks to some of the most pressing questions raised by AI, i.e. what makes human thought distinctively biological, embodied, and situated, and how this understanding can inform mental health science, education, and technology design that empowers rather than displaces human agency.

Please visit the Language, Inner Speech, and Neuroscience (LISN) Lab for more details.

Auditory and articulatory perturbations reveal distinct predictive adaptations across hallucination proneness
Oral presentation

Autobiographical memory recall alternates between discrete verbal and imagery states
Oral presentation

Embodied and Situated Language Processing (ESLP) Conference 2026
Participation in conference - Academic

Rethinking inner speech through linguistic active inference
Invited talk

Rethinking inner speech through linguistic active inference
Invited talk

Rethinking inner speech through linguistic active inference
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

External PhD examination
Examination

Rethinking inner speech through linguistic active inference
Invited talk

Rethinking inner speech through linguistic active inference
Invited talk

Abstract concepts are more represented in episodic contexts via attention and memory binding
Oral presentation

Rethinking inner speech through linguistic active inference
Invited talk

Semantic versus episodic memory systems in concrete and abstract conceptual processing
Oral presentation

Linguistic and cognitive dimensions of topic- and subject-prominence in Chinese and English
Oral presentation

Rethinking inner speech through linguistic active inference
Invited talk

Internal PhD Examination
Examination

The role of episodic and visual-semantic memory systems in abstract and concrete conceptual processing
Oral presentation

Does Inner Speech in Silent Reading Facilitate Emotional Processing
Oral presentation

Bridging phenomenology and neural mechanisms of inner speech
Invited talk

Parafoveal preview benefit magnified
Invited talk

Exploring the role of contextual features in abstract concept representation
Oral presentation

The role of episodic and visual-semantic memory systems in abstract and concrete conceptual processing
Oral presentation

How 'Auditory' is Inner Speech: Why Do We Care?
Invited talk

External PhD examination
Examination

Eleanor Little

Eleanor Little

PhD student

Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience and Neurocognition

Yanxi Lu

Yanxi Lu

PhD student

Cognitive Psychology

El Smith

El Smith

PhD student

Neuroscience and Neurocognition

Jiaqi Wang

Jiaqi Wang

PhD student

Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience and Neurocognition

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience and Neurocognition