We're seeking the next Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics! Lead cutting-edge research in language & cognition. Nominations (incl. self) due 19 Dec 2025. mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/nominations-and-self-nominations-sought-position-director-max

PhD Position: Accented Speech Processing - Apply now! Come work with Mirjam Broersma, @davidpeeters.bsky.social, and me at the Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University in the Netherlands. Application deadline: 19 October 2025 For more information, see www.ru.nl/en/working-a...

www.envisionbox.org has been shortlisted for the Leo Waaijers Open Science price: ukb.nl/en/news/shor... @babajideowoyele.bsky.social @jamestrujillo.bsky.social @sarkadava.bsky.social @DavideAhmar @acwiek.bsky.social Amazing Markus Küpper made an animated video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HduI...

👀 👂 How does the brain merge what we hear & see? @lindadrijvers.bsky.social got an ERC Starting Grant (≈ €1.5M) for HANDWAVE, studying how we integrate audiovisual signals. Vital for understanding language disorders & improving diagnostics.👇 www.ru.nl/en/research/...

We are seeking a #Postdoctoral #Researcher to join our Multimodal Language Department for the NWO funded project: 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭: 𝐎𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭- 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧-𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐈 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐔𝐬𝐞 Start: ideally February 1, 2026 but negotiable. www.mpi.nl/career-educa...

🚨 New preprint: Invisible neural frequency tagging (RIFT) for the underfunded researcher: 👉 www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... RIFT uses high-frequency flicker to probe attention in M/EEG with minimal stimulus visibility and little distraction. Until now, it required a costly high-speed projector.

Using Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (RIFT) to probe the neural interaction between representations of speech planning and comprehension. New paper by Cecília Hustá, Antje Meyer & @lindadrijvers.bsky.social doi.org/10.1162/nol_a_00171

Call for papers @jneurolang.bsky.social: Towards a Deeper Understanding of the Relationship Between the Neurobiology of Language and Consciousness. 🧠🗨️ direct.mit.edu/DocumentLibr... ☎️ DM me for more details.

Neural tracking: evoked or oscillatory? 🎧🧠 The #TrackingUmbrella paper argues it’s not either/or — both perspectives reveal how our brains align with speech, music, and more. Method matters. Let’s rethink how we measure and interpret tracking! tinyurl.com/ywbe7rrz

deadline 23 June!! Please re-bleat(??) widely!

📢 We are thrilled to announce that the full program for #ISGS2025 is now available on our website: isgs10.nl ✨Explore the detailed schedule featuring latest advancements in multimodal language research ✨

Don't forget to submit your symposia and panels for the Dutch brain and cognition conference happening in December! www.societyforbrainandcognition.nl/calls/

Finally out in @commsbio.nature.com ! Using MEG and Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging (RIFT) in a classic visual search paradigm we show that neuronal excitability in V1 is modulated in line with a priority-map-based mechanism to boost targets and suppress distractors!

Our latest study on reading using MEG, eyetracking and Rapid Invisible Frequency Tagging headed by Yali Pan from @thechbh.bsky.social : Parallel and dynamic attention allocation during natural reading www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

📉 Key findings: Mothers suffer penalties of 25 percentage points on their annual output of scientific publications compared to fathers in the first seven years after childbirth, and participation in research publishing is 16% lower among mothers relative to fathers.

*scream laughs in toddler mom*

Great opportunity on a very exciting project!

𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗹 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸? Don't expect simple mappings between mind and brain. Check out this piece I wrote for Aeon. aeon.co/essays/how-t...

New review out on facial signalling in conversation, making the argument that the notion of ‘speech acts’ is outdated due to its unimodal focus, especially in the light of the fundamental contributions of the face towards social action communication www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Interested in the evolution of human language and in understanding the pressures that shape languages today? Come do a PhD with me! Fully funded PhD position available in my group @mpi-nl.bsky.social, application deadline June 2nd: www.mpi.nl/career-educa...

You do not need to be Dutch to sign. If you simply care to preserve programs that have been leaders in rigor and reform in psychology, then signal your support for them to continue to thrive.

If anyone is interested in using WhisperX to transcribe speech, this tutorial is for you!! In this tutorial, I provide an easy-to-use pipeline where you will get a time-aligned transcript as a Praat TextGrid file, a TSV file, and a subtitle file🙌 github.com/ShoAkamine/w...

Very much looking forward to this!

In face-to-face conversations, speakers use hand movements to signal meaning. But do listeners actually use these gestures to predict what someone might say next? A study using virtual avatars showed that listeners used the avatar’s gestures to predict upcoming speech. www.mpi.nl/news/listene...

🧠 In an EEG experiment, we recorded brain activity while participants listened to the questions. Gestures led to signals of 𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙥𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 before the upcoming target word (i.e., alpha and beta power decreases), and 𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙚𝙧 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜 of the target word once it was heard (i.e., less negative N400) ✔️

Happy to see this finally out! Another paper led by @marlijnterbekke.bsky.social - gestures are used to predict what someone might say next

Hora est! 🎓 On Friday I successfully defended my PhD thesis "On how gestures facilitate prediction and fast responding during conversation", which can be found here (lnkd.in/eewcJYyt). It was an absolutely fantastic day! 😍

Autistic individuals benefit from gestures during degraded speech comprehension. Final version by Sara Mazzini, Noor Seijdel & @lindadrijvers.bsky.social doi.org/10.1177/13623613241286570

I think this is a very powerful example of how 'the language network' comes about (or doesn't). See our paper on why we think 'the language network' is widely distributed in the brain: pure.mpg.de/rest/items/i... (same pic of simulation posted below w/ white background for those who use dark mode)

This is is a concern not just for language, but for much of cognitive neuroscience. And this is not the only issue that @lindadrijvers.bsky.social, @slsmall.bsky.social, and I have with claiming that 'the language network' is a 'natural kind'. 🖱️ to find more qualms: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An example is depicted in the simulation below. 👇 It shows dynamic 'language region' activity (brains 🔴) and connectivity (circle graphs 🔴) between regions and with 'peripheral' brain regions (🔵, 🟢), at different times. These are averaged and thresholded. Behold, 'the language network'. 🪄🎩

🗣️ Language is widely distributed throughout the brain 🧠 In a recent correspondence in @natrevneurosci.bsky.social, we suggest that there is no 'language network' in the brain. What appears as such is an inevitable illusion created in part by the methods we use. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The neurobiology of language does not operate in a vat. An important perspective from the @thelablab.bsky.social and colleagues: "Language is widely distributed throughout the brain" www.nature.com/articles/s41...