Dr W.T.J.L. Pouw (Wim)

I am a cognitive scientist studying spoken language and its coordination between manual- and other bodily gestures and movements (e.g., respiration, head movements). My overall research program is about understanding how these multiple bodily systems can come to coordinate (e.g., synchronize) in a way that allows for novel or more stable communicative behavior to emerge. I believe that the study of spoken language and its coordination with the body is crucial for understanding how language might have evolved.

Specifically, my expertise lies in quantitative approaches of body movement analysis (e.g., motion tracking methodology, time series analysis) which I often combine with tracking of acoustic markers of prosody in speech. I combine a wide range of theoretical (embodied cognitive science, dynamical systems, human movement science, phonetics, psychology) and methodological tools (e.g., network analysis, experimental psychology, data science).