[8] Emmorey worked with Ursula Belugi as a post doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies[9] from 1987 to 1988.
Emmorey remained at the Salk Institute conducting research and serving as the Associate Director of the Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience from 2002 to 2005.
[10][2] Her research during this time focused on the use of physical space in sign language, supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
[13] She has received grants from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)[14][15] and the NSF[16][17] to support work on sign language and bilingualism, including a NSF collaborative research grant to study the semantic organization of American Sign Language.
[23] In one of her notable studies, Emmorey and her colleagues documented advantages in visual imagery among sign language users (both hearing and deaf individuals) in the context of detecting mirror image reversals[24] when compared to non-signers.
In a study utilizing fMRI, Emmorey's team found similarities in how the brain processes symbolic gestures (pantomime and emblems) and spoken language, suggesting involvement of a left-lateralized cortical network in mapping symbolic gestures or spoken words onto conceptual representations.