Theme 1: Language and Communication
Research in this theme aims to understand the complexity of human language faculty and its development at the behavioural, cognitive, and neural levels in healthy individuals as well as in populations with dysfunction in linguistic and communication skills.
To do so it adopts a multilevel approach that is from genes to neurons, brain, cognition, interaction, and society. This broad approach to language also forms the basis in understanding language breakdowns as in acquired or developmental language disorders and to devise clinical applications and solutions to enhance language and communication skills in society for minority groups such as immigrants, hard of hearing etc as well as for communication in crisis times (i.e, COVID19 era).
See our list of lead scientists for researchers and research groups linked to this theme.
Contact
Stephanie Forkel, Theme leader
E: stephanie.forkel@donders.ru.nl
Secretary
Nicola Rijzewijk
E: Nicola.Rijzewijk@donders.ru.nl
Researchers and research groups
Hans Rutger Bosker
Principal Investigator
Speech Perception in Audiovisual Communication (SPEAC)
Ton Dijkstra
Principal Investigator
Cognitive Aspects of Multilingualism
Linda Drijvers 
Principal Investigator
The Communicative Brain
Simon Fisher
Principal Investigator
Neurogenetics of Speech and Language
Stephanie Forkel
Principal Investigator
Peter Hagoort
Principal Investigator
Neurobiology of Language
Judith Holler
Principal Investigator
Communication in Social Interaction (CoSI)
Kristin Lemhöfer 
Principal Investigator
Neurocognition of bilingualism
Andrea Martin
Principal Investigator
Language and Computation in Neural Systems
James McQueen
Principal Investigator
Sound Learning
Antje Meyer
Principal Investigator (Affiliated)
Psychology of Language
Asli Özyürek 
Principal Investigator
Multimodal Language and Cognition
Vitória Piai
Principal Investigator
Language Function and Dysfunction
Wim Pouw
Research Fellow
Dynamic Signs and Signals (Dynamos)
Ardi Roelofs
Principal Investigator
Attention and Language Performance
Caroline Rowland
Principal Investigator (Affiliated)
Language Development
Herbert Schriefers
Principal Investigator
Contextual Flexibility in Language Processing
Ivan Toni
Principal Investigator
Intention & Action
Affiliated institutes & researchers (MPI/CLS)
