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Neil Cohn

@neilcohn.bsky.social

6.5K followers 2.6K following 3.5K posts

Comics creating cognitive (neuro)scientist at Tilburg University studying language, brains, comics, emoji & multimodality (he/him). 😮‍💨🫠🫥🥹🫨 www.visuallanguagelab.com

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · Jul 8

My book has a cover and the final copyedited pages are submitted… my graphic novel "Speaking in Pictures: A Vision of Language” about language, cognition, and graphic communication will be out in February 2026! www.visuallanguagelab.com/sip

Book cover for Speaking with Pictures by Neil Cohn

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tym godek @tymgodek.bsky.social · 4d

Yeah! Promotion!

ghost ship gore @britneyspheres.bsky.social · 4d

since it's the 2023 collection of @tymgodek.bsky.social's annually published 30 days diary comic, here come my 30 cents from that year's tcj best of

As every other year, Tym Godek did a gorgeously haunting 30 days of comics on his Tumblr, which might sing to some.

Cover to Today is never Right Now by Tymothi Godek, depicted is the abstraction of blue hair on a yellow head

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Mark Bradley @markbradley.bsky.social · 8d

Arts than we do. I also think that the relatively recent research that @neilcohn.bsky.social & alike have been doing has meant that we need to broaden our understanding (& be much more ambitious) in what we can achieve as a medium, both for creators & the readers who love it. So I think here that

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Bodo Winter @bodowinter.bsky.social · 8d

And I truly meant what I said!! It was a blast reading this again!

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 10d

Thanks to @bodowinter.bsky.social for the wonderful endorsement of my upcoming graphic novel about language, cognition, and visual communication! visuallanguagelab.com/sip

Endorsement of the book Speaking in Pictures: “A visually stunning tour de force that redefines what we mean by language itself — essential reading for linguists, cognitive scientists, and anyone fascinated by language and comics.” – Bodo Winter, University of Birmingham, UK, author of Sensory Linguistics

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 10d

Thank you! That’s quite the enorsement quote as well!

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Mark Bradley @markbradley.bsky.social · 10d

I cannot emphasise enough how much anyone with even a passive interest in comics needs this graphic novel on their radar.

Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 10d

Thanks to @bodowinter.bsky.social for the wonderful endorsement of my upcoming graphic novel about language, cognition, and visual communication! visuallanguagelab.com/sip

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 10d

Thanks to @bodowinter.bsky.social for the wonderful endorsement of my upcoming graphic novel about language, cognition, and visual communication! visuallanguagelab.com/sip

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Michael Pleyer @symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 14d

But the combo is unique. Nikki makes an important point that language has become its own evolutionary system adapting to human minds/brains that evolves culturally and generates structure which seems to make it unique

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Caroline Rowland @carorowland.bsky.social · 14d

Let us know the answer!!

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Michael Pleyer @symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 14d

I think one thing people agree on is that we need to know more about the ingredients and building blocks of language and then compare it to other human behaviours and animal behaviours. Theresa&Nikki stress that many(maybe all)building blocks are shared at least to some degree with different animals

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Michael Pleyer @symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 14d

The Poznań #Linguistics Meeting 2025 Grand Debate: "Human #Language: is it unique?" feat. Wolfgang Dressler, Magdalena Wrembel, Raymond Hickey, Nikki Ritt, @thematzing.bsky.social and @neilcohn.bsky.social

The panel sitting together, Nikki online

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tym godek @tymgodek.bsky.social · 14d

That is, while I do not think it was made the way it is (prompted?) with intent, I see a usefulness to its “wrongness”

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tym godek @tymgodek.bsky.social · 14d

This image confuses in a way so pleasantly (to me) that I wish it was not accidental slop.

Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 15d

Another reminder that graphics are decomposible… I assume this was created by AI because the top implies the girl walks forward but the legs and feet suggest waking away. Each part is well-formed but the whole is odd

Graphic of a girl walking where the top half implies she moves forward but the bottom half implies she moves away

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Streusel – comics and art @streuselart.bsky.social · 14d

If you look at the thumb of the hand holding the duck and compare the length of the girl's arms, it gets even weirder. 🤯

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 15d

Note that this works the same as the impossible trident "illusion"—each half is formed just fine, but when put together they make a discontinuous object. In both cases you can cover up one part and the other is fine, but altogether its discontinuous

Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 15d

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Douglas @dmgregory.ca · 15d

I've found the work and posts of @neilcohn.bsky.social super interesting to follow on this front: researching how comics encode and how readers construct meaning.

Johanna Taylor 👻 Lightbox Expo 630 @johannamation.bsky.social · 15d

Comics are actually very difficult to write if you’re coming from a prose-writing background.

It’s a VERY different skillset from prose—in fact, it’s closer to writing a screenplay than a novel. You gotta know enough about film language and camera to make the comic panels & art *mean* something.

theo stultz @theoplum.bsky.social · 16d

you cannot be telling bad prose authors that they should pivot to writing graphic novels instead bc of their bad prose. Hello

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Michael Pleyer @symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 15d

Great plenary by @neilcohn.bsky.social at the 2025 Poznań #Linguistics Meeting: "Reimagining linguistic uniqueness in a multimodal paradigm"

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 18d

That’s Bodhidharma, the pilgrim credited with bringing Buddhism to China 😂

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 18d

I’ve heard people doubt that graphics can be broken down into “minimal units” but here’s Hokusai clearly showing how to build pictures out of basic parts from over 200 years ago (from the Hokusai Manga exhibit at the Creative Museum in Tokyo)

Images from Hokusai Manga showing how to build images out of component parts

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Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.bsky.social · 20d

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose???

This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

By creating an Account with Academia.edu, you grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent for Academia.edu to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness, city, institutional affiliations, citations, mentions, publications, and areas of interest) in any manner, including for the purpose of advertising, selling, or soliciting the use or purchase of Academia.edu's Services.

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AKA NickleDave @nicholdav.bsky.social · 18d

cool study, visual depiction of motion in 300 comics across the world by @cogirmak.bsky.social @neilcohn.bsky.social

Might be of interest to @dialhforhagai.bsky.social @soengery.bsky.social
@hannahtempler.com @kochalka.bsky.social @tomtomorrow.bsky.social etc (or not 😬, if not sry)

Irmak Hacımusaoğlu @cogirmak.bsky.social · 18d

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...

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu @cogirmak.bsky.social · 18d

Thanks a lot! 😊

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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 18d

Fascinating stuff!!

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu @cogirmak.bsky.social · 18d

With different cues, it’s possible to explicitly indicate direction, convey varying levels of speed (especially with more lines) and even depict multiple moments. I love this work, even though it pushed back my defense time. Curiosity matters more to me 🥹

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