Multimodal Language Processing – How gestures and other non-verbal cues facilitate comprehension - Xaver Funk | PGO 2021

Communication consists of much more than just auditory information. Rather, a complex array of different gestures, mouth movements and other non-verbal cues are present during natural conversations. This poses a difficult challenge for our brain that sits at the core of language comprehension: How do we deal with the intriguing computational problem of integrating all these different information streams into a coherent picture, while simultaneously preparing for our next turn in the conversation, all under tight time constraints? Surprisingly, research has shown that additional multimodal information does not seem to increase processing costs for our brain, but rather facilitates comprehension. In this talk, we will dive deeper into what the neuroscience of language has found out about this interesting phenomenon and what implications language learners can draw from it.

Xaver Funk is a prospective neuroscientist and passionate language learner, occasionally vagabond and hitchhiker. An awkward language barrier experienced at a picnic in 2014 and intercultural living conditions (he has lived with people from every continent) threw him into a probably lifelong language-learning journey. Since then, he has become proficient and has been living in several European languages. Currently, Xaver is learning Arabic and Mongolian.

This video was recorded at the Polyglot Gathering Online 2021 (https://www.polyglotgathering.com).