We have an exciting new project starting, funded by the Dutch Science Foundation, NWO)! The project investigates the interplay of visual bodily signals, linguistic and prosodic structures in face-to-face conversation, using both corpus analyses and experimental methods. As the post-doc, you'd be joining a fantastic team of senior researchers (Dr Judith Holler [PI]; Dr Kobin Kendrick, York University; Prof Martine Grice, Cologne University; Prof Marc Swerts, Tilburg University; Dr David Peeters, Tilburg University, Dr. Linda Drijvers, Radboud University), as well as research and student assistants, and a PhD student (positions which we will also soon advertise - watch this space!). Application deadline 8th December! 

To apply, follow this link: postdoc-position-multimodal-signalling-in-face-to-face-communication-at-the-donders-centre-for-cognition

Marlijn's PhD thesis has been submitted and approved by the reading committee! Congratulations!! 

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The PhD defines will take place on Friday, March 21st 2025, 12.30-14.00 at the Aula at Radboud University. We hope to see you there to celebrate this special day with Marlijn! Joining it by live stream is also possible. https://www.ru.nl/over-ons/de-campus/gebouwen-en-ruimtes/aula 

We have made it into the magazine from
National Geographic (NL and Germany versions)! 

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The feature shows our research and makes

the point that underlying our unique

language ability lies a foundation of

visual bodily communication, fulfilling core functions such as adding information not contained in speech, signalling understanding and non-understanding. Plus, it includes this really cool picture of Alex' EEG study (with Lina as acting participant).

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Make sure to check out the printed
magazines!

Marlijn made her radio debut this week! In her 
interview she talked all about her research 
on hand gestures and prediction.

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Listen and learn here: https://www.bnr.nl/
podcast/wetenschap-vandaag/10540686/
hoe-onze-handgebaren-voorspellen-wat-we-
gaan-zeggen!

Congratulations to Naomi for

successfully defending her PhD thesis 

"Talking faces: The contribution of

conversational facial signals in

language use and processing".

She immediately got everyone's

attention by putting a mask on,

making it abundantly clear just how

important facial signals are.

Well done! 🙂

Turn that frown upside down, because

Naomi's PhD work got some well-

deserved attention! 

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Listen to her interviews with BNR:

https://www.bnr.nl/podcast/wetenschap

-vandaag/10533095/zo-belangrijk-zijn-

fronsende-wenkbrauwen-als-we-met-

elkaar-communiceren

​

With Omroep Gelderland [from 10:04]: 
https://www.gld.nl/tv/aflevering/gld-nieuws/242836

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Or read all about it here: https://www.ru.nl/en/research/research-news/the-power-of-the-frown-how-eyebrows-can-help-us-understand-each-other

And on Scientias: https://scientias.nl/die-harige-bogen-boven-je-ogen-zijn-belangrijker-dan-je-denkt-met-wenkbrauwen-communiceer-je-beter/ 

​

Marlijn's got a great new blog out:

"The future is in your hands: Can we

predict what someone will say next

based on their hand gestures?"

​

Read more here!: https://www.mpi-

talkling.mpi.nl/?p=2145&lang=en

Thanks to Naomi, Alina and Elena for

featuring some of the CoSI - VR work

at the InScience Festival in Nijmegen,

making people tinder with avatars! 😉

Two of the CoSI members have landed

fantastic new jobs to follow on from

their contracts in the lab:

Congratulations to Naomi to getting

a post-doc position at Edinburgh

University, and congrats to James on

landing a job as Assistant Professor at

the University of Amsterdam! We're so

happy for you (but you'll be very much

missed!).

James’ new study came out in Royal

Society Open today and got lots of

attention from the press including

The Guardian, Okdiario, La Dépêche

du Midi, RTL news, and more. Check it

out to see what the media (and us too

of course ;)) got so excited about: 

Trujillo, J. P., Levinson, S. C., & Holler, J.

(2022). A multi-scale investigation of

the human communication system’s

response to visual disruption. Royal

Society Open Science, 9(4): 211489. doi:10.1098/rsos.211489.

Naomi has won the Poster prize for the

Language & Communication theme at

the Donders Poster Session! The poster

presents the second study of her thesis,

a supercool, big corpus study on the

association between social actions

and visual bodily signals. Congrats, well

done!!

Alex has successfully defended her PhD

thesis, which she completed with the

BAND lab and the MBIC Brain and

Language group in Maastricht (under

the supervision of S. Kotz, B. Jansma, M.

Bonte): “Electrophysiological correlates

of phonological and temporal

regularities in speech processing.”

Great performance, congratulations! The CoSI lab is very proud of you 🙂

Michelle Kühn and Alexandra

Emmendorfer have joined our ERC

project team as research assistant

and post-doc – welcome to both of

you, we’re every happy to have you

on board! 🙂

“Effects of aging and cognitive abilities

on multimodal language production

and comprehension in context” On May

17th, Louise travelled back to Nijmegen

all the way from Berlin and wowed us

with a wonderful defense performance

– Congratulations, Dr. Schubotz!! So

happy that at least a small number of

us were allowed to be there in person during these pandemic times.

                                                                                       _

Working from home, trying to advance

with coding video remotely and

continuing to write. Well done everyone

for adjusting so well and hanging in

there! Hopefully we’ll be able to see

each other face-to-face in the not too

distant future. Special respect to all the

student interns joining the group afresh

since the lockdown even: A very warm

welcome to Guido, Pim and Austin!

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At the same time, we have to say goodbye to Mojenn who had to go back to Germany due to the pandemic and thus terminate her internship with us early. Thank you for all the hard (and precise!) work, Mojenn!

We’re very happy to have a new

member to the team: Tiziana Vercillo

has joined us from the well-known

Cognitive Neurophysiology Lab at URMC

on a prestigious Radboud Excellence

Initiative Fellowship. We’re looking

forward to working with you for the

next two years!

The CoAct team just got bigger: a

warm welcome to Marlijn ter Bekke

and Naomi Nota, who will be studying

for their PhDs with us over the next four

years, as well as to James Trujillo, who

just started as post-doc the project.

We’re very happy for you to all be on

board! The CoSI lab has also grown due

to many new interns who’ve joined us

over recent weeks (see ‘people’

section). Welcome to you all!! We’re

very happy to have you!

We're thrilled that Linda Drijvers has

joined the CoAct team as post-doc -

welcome, Linda!

In this project, funded by the European

Research Council, we investigate how

bodily signals are used in conversation

and how they influence language

understanding. The research group

currently includes Marlijn ter Bekke

(Research Assistant), Josje de Valk (RA),

Mareike Geiger (Student Assistant),

Wieke Harmsen (SA) and Katharina Menn (SA).

Looking forward to starting on this exciting journey together!

The grant will fund the “CoAct –

Communication in Action: Towards a

contextualised model of language and

action processing“ project. This exciting

new project will allow us to investigate

the role of visual communicative

signals in situated, face-to-face

language processing, using a

combination of conversational corpus data, kinect, data, experimental data and Virtual Reality. The new project will start on September 1st. Keep an eye out for the job ads!