Imagine that you step outside your door and you find an alien in underpants. Sure, it is unlikely. Still, just few words can get you to imagine an alien in underpants outside your front door! How can words do that?
Our research focuses on the cognitive and neurobiological basis of human communication and how through communication humans can learn about new objects and ideas – including imaginary worlds. More specifically we are interested in how we learn and process language in real-word settings, how our semantic knowledge interfaces with perception, action and emotion and how these systems are recruited during language learning.
We use tools from psychology, cognitive neuroscience and computational modelling. We seek converging evidence from different languages and different populations: adults, children, deaf individuals using British Sign Language, as well as individuals who have developed aphasia or apraxia after brain damage.
Principal investigator
New paper led by @Sara_De_Felice and with the amazing @antoniahamilton. Online learning is better in interaction with teacher than when the (same) material is recorded. Seeing the face vs hands better in interaction but slides better in recorded. https://t.co/kPHoN61MuM
— Language&Cognition (@UCLanguageLab) September 14, 2021
Gabriella elected Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society
New theoretical paper (and commentaries) out: Murgiano, Motamedi & Vigliocco (2021). Situating language in the real-world. Journal of Cognition
EEG reveals that the brain uses all multimodal cues in comprehension: Zhang et al (2021). More than words. Proceedings of the Royal Soc B