(Amphithéâtre)
Ozyurek, Asli (coordinator)
(Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen)
What does the brain reveal about the relations
between speech and gesture ?
During fluent spontaneous speech, speakers’ hand gestures are temporally
and semantically coordinated with their verbal message.
Listeners/viewers also perceive information from both modalities
in a similar coordinated way. There have been opposing views in
the literature with regard to underlying cognitive processes of how
speakers and listeners/viewers produce and comprehend information
involving these two modalities during communication. While some
theories have suggested that speech and gestures are integrated and
coordinated at a conceptual level, some others have suggested that
the two are conceptually separate but parallel systems or one is an
artefact of the other.
In the recent years there have been some new studies that investigate
the neural underpinnings of cognitive processes that underlie
speech and gesture coordination both in production and comprehension
using ERP , fMRI techniques as well as using split-brain patients.
The four separate talks in the proposed symposium will present recent
fi ndings from all three types of neurocognitive investigations both in
speech-gesture production and comprehension. These studies reveal
information about the relative timing of processing, the brain areas
involved in production and comprehension of information from each
modality as well as the role of intentionality involved in processing
during communication. The symposium will also involve a discussion
talk about what neurocognitive fi ndings can tell us about the nature
of relations between speech and gesture, that is as integrated or
separate but parallel systems.
with
Feyereisen, Pierre (discussant)
Dept. of Psychology, University of Louvain
