Focus marking has been studied extensively, both in theoretical linguistics and in psychology and psycholinguistics, but these two lines of research have so far remained largely separate. The goal of this course is to provide a framework for studying the interpretation of focus that bridges these two literatures. As such, this course will include a basic introduction to the semantics of focus, while simultaneously discussing ways in which these theories can be tested and expanded upon using behavioral evidence from incremental measures. On the theoretical side, topics will include the prosodic ramifications of focus marking, contextual requirements on its placement, the interpretation of focus-sensitive particles, and restrictions on the alternative set to a focus, as well as the relationship between focus and contrastive topic, and their treatment in Question-under-Discussion frameworks. On the psycholinguistics side, we will discuss existing data from listening, reading, visual world and priming tasks which shows how the mental representations involved in its interpretation are constructed in real time, based on a combination of comprehenders’ domain-general, conventional and grammatical knowledge. Along the way, we will also touch on the foundations of experimental design and develop a basic understanding of ways to construct linking hypotheses that connect theoretical constructs with behavioral evidence. This course is meant for anyone with a basic background in semantics and who is curious about the interface between linguistic theory and psycholinguistics.