It’s that time of the year… We’re running experiments testing comprehension of elements that appear in comics. This one still needs participants, so if you’ve experience with reading comics and would like to help science (or lovely thesis students), here is the link: jatos.uvt.nl/publix/run?c...

So we’ve been cooking up some thoughts on Gen AI at @amnesty.org and I’m ecstatic to finally see it out in the world! Our 🗝️ conclusion: standalone gen AI systems, built on unlawful web scraping, constitute mass invasions of privacy by design & should be prohibited www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...

To what extent do pragmatic cues from disfluencies inform our predictions of spoken language during naturalistic language processing?. New paper by Eleanor Huizeling & al. with Peter Hagoort doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2026.04.018

Want to do an experimental PHD on the evolution of human language? Only one more week left to submit your application!

Nieuw artikel over Poëzie en kunstmatige intelligentie: www.aup-online.com/content/jour... (Open-access versie hier: research.tilburguniversity.edu/en/publicati...)

Proud supervisor moment 😊

Another reason to stop eating chickens

Wil je promoveren op jongeren die wél lezen in tijden van digitalisering en ontlezing? Ik zoek twee promovendi binnen mijn Vidi-project 'Anatomy of the #Bookish'! Solliciteren kan tot 1 maart. www.ru.nl/werken-bij/v...

"Ich askid ChatGPT." Well *Ich* askid the stones, and the forest, and the starres, and the mountaynes, and what thei seyde was learninge, and dreames, and growinge thinges, and makinge art, and a worlde wher we talke to each othir and care about each othir.

I take an abolitionist stance toward LLMs. And I do not use the word lightly. In academic circles, there is often an a priori rejection of "absolutist" arguments as illegitimate, "unscientific" or "counterproductive". Sometimes abolition *is* the correct stance. That shouldn't be controversial.

In our new paper Line Kruse shows that The Demonstrative Choice Task (DCT) can be used to predict depression across a number of languages. dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

I was mesmerized by the idea that something static can convey not only motion but also temporality, and I decided to test it empirically. It wasn’t an easy task, as the way our data was organized didn’t make it straightforward. But now, here is our paper! ♥️ www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

"Discourse genre predicts demonstrative use in text: Experimental evidence from Dutch and Mandarin" 📢New paper from: David Peeters, Suzanne Schuurman, Tianning Zhai, Emiel Krahmer, Yan Gu, & Alfons Maes www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A new study presents experimental evidence, from both Dutch and Mandarin, that discourse genre is the main predictor of writers’ demonstrative use in text.

In written language, demonstratives such as 'this' and 'that' allow writers to produce coherent texts and readers to build up a consistent mental model of the message that is conveyed. But what makes a writer decide to use one demonstrative (e.g., this) over another (e.g., that)?

Do traffic lights eat pizza?

Some new insights about demonstratives: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

If your university still exists and you are teaching from our book - please know we now have 140 multiple choice exam questions ready for use, to be found on the companion website for teachers (or drop me an email) 🤓

Beating stress: Evidence for recalibration of word stress perception. Final version by Ronny Bujok, @davidpeeters.bsky.social , Antje S. Meyer & Hans Rutger Bosker doi.org/10.3758/s13414-025-03088-5

Hello & HAPPY FRIDAY, as promised an open letter by my lovely colleagues and myself. Everybody, feel free to sign this even if you are not NL-based and ‼️ share ‼️ (anonymous signature is poss): Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia openletter.earth/open-letter-...

📣 "Universities are not spokespersons for the AI industry...we need to resist being coopted and corrupted...We need to increase Critical AI Literacy in students, in scientists & in other professionals. This is the role that universities are duty bound to play in times of planetary crises"📣

Delighted to announce the publication of a collaborative effort, co-led by @limorraviv.bsky.social @mpi-nl.bsky.social, showcasing the ways in which researchers have made language evolution an empirical issue: A handbook of experimental approaches to the fascinating problem of language evolution 🧪

Today we strike! My first day off since 2017 - Thanks @eppobruins.bsky.social

1.2 billion in cuts to higher ed & science in this year’s budget. Who knows what the next one brings? Plus: attacks on 🇳🇱 academia’s international character & suggestions that gov't should have more instruments to steer course offering in higher ed. 🟥 Protest! 10 April, 12.30, Willemsplein, Tilburg!

Very excited to announce that a collaborative art project aimed at "reclaiming the commons" is now open for contributions! These are not good times, and so I needed an outlet for creating, sharing, and fostering hope. This is my modest attempt at that. You're all invited🌻 outsidemywindow.org

Join us in London! The Language and Cognition Lab (with @fourtassi.bsky.social, Yan Gu) is looking for a Research Fellow for 4-years to work on how children and adults from different cultures learn in social interaction. Ad is here (www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMN891/r...). DM if you have any question!

If your university still exists and you are teaching from our book - please know we now have 140 multiple choice exam questions ready for use, to be found on the companion website for teachers (or drop me an email) 🤓

Let's talk about this Nature piece in more detail. I've rarely read something so anti-scientific anywhere short of the National Review. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🚨Demonstration alert - Tilburg Looking for something to do on Saturday? Why not join some loving folks to say NO to hate in our communities! When white supremacists show up to spread their fear, we show up stronger and louder. Feb 22, 13:00 @ Tilburg station DM for more details

Hey there! @kellysjones.bsky.social and I are doing a weekly newsletter on the power of metaphor. Metaphor is everywhere, doing all kinds of sneaky and not-so-sneaky things. So we think it's important (and fun!) to keep an eye on it. Here's the first post: open.substack.com/pub/metaphor...

We are offering two PhD Fellowships to promote collaborations between the MPI, Centre for Language Studies and Donders Institute. The hiring departments are Multimodal Language and Language & Genetics. The application deadline is 6 Jan 2025. More info: www.mpi.nl/imprs-phd-fe...

We're hiring an assistant professor at the intersection btw cognitive modeling of language / social interaction, computational ling / lang technologies. Exciting environment / great work-life balance / amazing students. international.au.dk/about/profil... Get in touch if interested!

Come join us as a post-doc on NWO project 'Multimodal Signalling in Face-to-Face Communication' 😃 at the Donders Centre for Cognition. Deadline 8th December! Dutch language proficiency required. ru.varbi.com/what:job/job...

📢 We are now accepting abstract submissions for #ISGS2025! 🗓️ Submission deadline: January 15, 2025 🌐Review the submission guidelines and other details from the website: www.isgs10.nl/abstract-sub...

Here is a start for our gesture researcher starter pack! Please let me know if you would like to be included :) #gesture go.bsky.app/B9S5W94

Blue skies over Denmark - travelling back to the Netherlands by train after the amazing PhD defense by Line Kruse on demonstratives, conceptual representation and depression: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Call for submissions open for 10th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies at Nijmegen, the Netherlands on July 9-11 2025 Submission guidelines and more info: www.isgs10.nl/abstract-sub... Deadline: January 15,2025

New preprint!! 📣📣 A review of gesture in New Guinea, covering: pointing, emblems, time gestures, body count systems, and facial expressions. The region remains woefully under-documented, but there are still plenty of intriguing observations. osf.io/preprints/ps...

Great piece by Willem Schinkel on the crack-down on protest at Dutch universities: "With an extreme right government in the making, this political servility bodes ill. What other demands by the state will cause universities to yield to political pressure?" www.erasmusmagazine.nl/en/2024/06/1...

Als aftrap van een grootschalig protest tegen de plannen van de aankomende regering roepen we iedereen op om op zaterdag 22 juni om 14 uur op het Jaarbeursplein te Utrecht samen met landelijke studentenvakbond (LSVb) te protesteren tegen de bezuinigingen op het hoger onderwijs.

This week, the board of Radboud University announced that the collective behind the Situating Palestine lecture series will henceforth be regarded as an 'external organisation.' This is a blatant violation of our academic freedom. Read our full statement here: situatingpalestine.nl/page/breach-...

New preprint!! 🎉🎉 I'm usually beating the "pointing is more diverse than you think" drum. Here I argue that, in all its diversity, pointing follows a universal design template that has gone largely unnoticed. 👉👉 osf.io/preprints/ps... (Comments welcome!)

New content: Titus, A., & Peeters, D. (2024). Multilingualism at the Market: A Pre-registered Immersive Virtual Reality Study of Bilingual Language Switching. Journal of Cognition, 7(1): 35, pp. 1–35. DOI: doi.org/10.5334/joc....

🚨Job alert (York, UK)! I’m recruiting a postdoc to join our ERC/UKRI funded project on bilingualism and ageing. Position is for three years + option to extend for another 21 months. Details here: jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/rese... Please share & feel free to get in touch with any questions!

Job alert! Two 2-year lecturer positions (with research time) @TilburgU (Co-)teaching courses in our Business Communication and Digital Media track, research skills-oriented courses, thesis supervision #communication #jobalert ➡ tiu.nu/22202  ➡ Deadline: 22 April

We are hiring! We have two vacancies for lecturer in Communication and Information Sciences @TilburgU Looking forward to welcoming you! #vacancies #communication #teaching #research #businesscommunication ➡️ tiu.nu/22202

Excited to (finally!) share the published version of my 15-part, amply illustrated, curio-packed essay on the human pointing gesture. In short: pointing contains multitudes. journals.lub.lu.se/pjos/article...

We are looking to recruit new General Editors for Language & Cognition @LangCognition and are open for self-nominations by March 1, including from people with no previous experience as editor: surveys.phil.hhu.de/umfrage/inde...