The visual iconicity challenge: Evaluating vision-language models on sign language form-meaning mapping. New conference paper by Onur Keleş & al. with @asliozyurek.bsky.social , Esam Ghaleb doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.1907

The Visual Iconicity Challenge: Evaluating Vision-Language Models on Sign Language Form–Meaning Mapping

Onur Keleş, Asli Ozyurek, Gerardo Ortega, Kadir Gökgöz, Esam Ghaleb. Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers). 2026.

doi.org

This work was co-led by @yifanluo.bsky.social , our former master's intern and now a stellar PhD student at KU Leuven 💫, together with our amazing team: Po-Ya Angela Wang, @asliozyurek.bsky.social , and Paula Rubio-Fernández 🥳

Using perspectival words is harder than vocabulary words for humans —and even more so for multimodal language models. New paper by @dotadotadota.bsky.social , Yifan Luo, Po-Ya Angela Wang, @asliozyurek.bsky.social & Paula Rubio-Fernández doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.84

Using Perspectival Words Is Harder Than Vocabulary Words for Humans —and Even More So for Multimodal Language Models

Dota Tianai Dong, Yifan Luo, Po-Ya Angela Wang, Asli Ozyurek, Paula Rubio-Fernandez. Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers). 2026.

doi.org

New publication alert 📣our hands know how to pass information to learners in similar ways across cultures (Italian and Dutch) www.mpi.nl/news/italian...

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics@mpi-nl.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Showing how: Adults across cultures use similar representational gestural strategies in demonstrations for children. New paper by Emanuela Campisi, @anitaslonimska.bsky.social & @asliozyurek.bsky.social doi.org/10.1098/rsos.251813

Adults mark the communicative relevance of their gestures more for children than for other adult. Final version by @anitaslonimska.bsky.social , @asliozyurek.bsky.social & Emanuela Campisi doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2026.2618464

Adults mark the communicative relevance of their gestures more for children than for other adults

According to relevance theory, communication relies on speakers’ ability to signal relevant information, which addressees use to infer meaning efficiently. Most research within the relevance theore...

doi.org

New paper out !! Full article: Adults mark the communicative relevance of their gestures more for children than for other adults

Very happy to see this publication out by our great student @shoakamine.bsky.social . This will advance the way we measure whether two mimicing behavior is same or not applied Kinematic measures applied to gesture and validated by hand coding and big data 👏👏👏

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics@mpi-nl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Validating dynamic time warping as a measure of gesture form similarity. New paper by @shoakamine.bsky.social , @dingemansemark.bsky.social & @asliozyurek.bsky.social doi.org/10.3758/s13428-026-02975-5

Yes!!!! We are hosting #Evolang17!!! Nijmegen ın 2028!!

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 4mo ago

And that was #EvolangXVI! Thanks to all the organisers and helpers, it was an amazing experience as always! See you all in 2028 in Nijmegen, NL for #EvolangXVII, organised by @limorraviv.bsky.social @asliozyurek.bsky.social and @profsimonfisher.bsky.social!

Link to the paper how one can quantify if two communicative movements are similar or not 👐👐🙌🙌

Prof. Dr. Asli Ozyurek@asliozyurek.bsky.social · 4mo ago

link.springer.com/article/10.3...

📣📣Another great paper from our Department !! We report gestures and how they relate to speech change into adulthood when expressing space- these give insights about development of relations between spatial cognition and language and how they align over time 👇🏼👇🏼

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics@mpi-nl.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Gesture as a mechanism of change in the interface between spatial language and cognitive development. New paper by @dilaykaradoller.bsky.social , @ercenurunal.bsky.social , @beyzasumer.bsky.social , Demet Özer & @asliozyurek.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101694

📣Congratulations @shoakamine.bsky.social for the great work #BBM!! Quantifying&coming up with objective measures (grounded with human coding) on how we repeat each others communicative movements (visual alignment) is very difficult !! Sho used DTW to do this AND validated with human coding 👇🏼👇🏼

We are announcing a very new workshop! 🌿 MINT @ EMNLP 2026, 1st Workshop on Multimodal Interaction in Face-to-Face Dialogue! ✨ mintworkshop.github.io Raquel Fernández, Diego Frassinelli, @esamghaleb.bsky.social, Bulat Khaertdinov, @asliozyurek.bsky.social Zerrin Yumak @emnlpmeeting.bsky.social

Congrats to our PhD student @dotatong for organizing such a great conference !!

Badr AlKhamissi@bkhmsi.bsky.social · 7mo ago

🎉 Re-Align is back for its 4th edition at ICLR 2026! 📣 We invite submissions on representational alignment, spanning ML, Neuroscience, CogSci, and related fields. 📝 Tracks: Short (≤5p), Long (≤10p), Challenge (blog) ⏰ Deadline: Feb 5, 2026 for papers 🔗 representational-alignment.github.io/2026/

A Systematic Review and Multilevel Meta-Analysis of the McGurk Effect in Older and Younger Adult pubs.asha.org/doi/abs/10.1... "However, given the limited number of studies included in this meta-analysis, the conclusion remains preliminary and should be interpreted with caution"

A Systematic Review and Multilevel Meta-Analysis of the McGurk Effect in Older and Younger Adults

Purpose: The McGurk effect is a well-established phenomenon to evaluate audiovisual integration. However, research on susceptibility to the McGur...

pubs.asha.org

Very excited to have received a Vici grant for the project "Doing Science Differently? A Philosophy of Transgressive Science". The project will address methodological & institutional challenges of transgressing "business as usual" in academia. www.wur.nl/en/news/davi...

David Ludwig awarded NWO Vici Grant on doing science differently

Science philosopher David Ludwig has been awarded a prestigious NWO Vici grant for his project Doing Science Differently? A Philosophy of Transgressive Science.

wur.nl

📣📣📣Job alert Multimodal Language Department Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics MAX PLANCK RESEARCH GROUP LEADER POSITION (W2 BBESG) lnkd.in/eaq5MW9a

📣📣📣Multimodal Relevance : Adults mark the communicative relevance of their gestures more for children than for other adults by gazing at their gestures . New paper by @anitaslonimska.bsky.social @asliozyurek.bsky.social and Emanuela Campisi. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.....

We are thrilled to have you join @MLD @mpi-nl.bsky.social supporting / enhancing our research . Good luck with the move !!

Reyhan Furman, PhD@reyhanfurman.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Some news: After 10 years as a Senior Lecturer, this is my last day of work in UK academia. I will start a new position as Lab Manager in the Multimodal Language Dept at @mpi-nl.bsky.social in February. I am delighted to be back at the MPI and to work with @asliozyurek.bsky.social again! 😊 1/

Posting on behalf of Tamar Gollan, who is not on Bluesky: A postdoc position is open and available immediately in Dr. Tamar Gollan’s Laboratory of Aging Bilingualism at the University of California, San Diego, funded by NIH & NSF. See link for details! psychiatry.ucsd.edu/about/LAB_Go...

Very proud of this paper

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics@mpi-nl.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Spatial and social cognition jointly determine multimodal demonstrative reference: Experimental evidence from Turkish and Spanish. New paper by Paula Rubio-Fernandez, @madeleinelong.bsky.social & @asliozyurek.bsky.social. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti....

Haha yes multimodality feeds:)

Martina Mellana@martinamellana.bsky.social · last yr.

Sharing a fun science outreach experience! At OFF TOPIC pub in Turin, in collaboration with CentroScienza, I served up some science bites about multimodal communication to diners who ordered from my special menu! 🗯️🍻

Wonderful research with many implications

Auditory-Visual Speech Association (AVISA)@avsp.bsky.social · last yr.

The Power of Vision on Speech Recognition Among Older People pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/... "Older adults with reversible vision loss and mild-to-severe age-related hearing loss can improve their speech perception through vision recovery treatment"

Happy to see our new paper published signing children have an action bias even when expressing where an object is located 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics@mpi-nl.bsky.social · last yr.

Action bias in describing object locations by signing children. New paper by @beyzasumer.bsky.social & @asliozyurek.bsky.social doi.org/10.1075/sll.24008.sum

There is still chance to get the best rate and attend our cutting edge conference on recent advances on multimodal language and gesture studies👍👍👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼@isgs2025

ISGS2025@isgs2025.bsky.social · last yr.

⏰ The deadline for EARLY BIRD registration for #ISGS2025 is approaching! 🗓️Register by May 31st to get the best rate for registration. For more information & to register: isgs10.nl/registration

📣1st time accepted to #ACL2025!! with great collabs, contributing to our Multimodal Language Dept’s research&innovation track on Computational Multimodal Lang. I see what you mean: Co-Speech Gestures for Reference Resolution in Multimodal Dialogue.E Ghaleb, B Khaertdinov, A Ozyurek, R Fernández

Fantastic !! Want to be bring your excellent research to Europe?

European Research Council (ERC)@erc.europa.eu · last yr.

Today, the ERC formally adopted a decision to increase its support for researchers moving to Europe. On top of its normal grants, the ERC offers 'start-up' funding to help PIs establish laboratories / research teams in Europe. This extra funding is now x2 (up to €2 million!) europa.eu/!6Vdgmp

Please join us discussing current and future education of CogSci !! On May 7 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

Matt Goldrick@mattgoldrick.bsky.social · last yr.

Please join @asliozyurek.bsky.social, @tanialombrozo.bsky.social, Hannah Rohde and me **this Wednesday 12pm eastern**. What does the future of cogsci in higher ed look like? I promise it's not all bad news!! Register below!

📢Two #ISGS2025 pre-conference workshops at @mpi-nl.bsky.social on July 8 1️⃣ Multimodal Negation: Foundations and Dynamics 2️⃣ Multimodal Processing Pipeline 🔎Registration is handled separately and on a first-come-first-served basis. For more info: www.isgs10.nl/workshops

ISGS10 - Workshops

Pre-conference Workshops

isgs10.nl

🎉We’re thrilled to announce our #ISGS2025 keynote speaker: Tilbe Göksun @tilbegoksun.bsky.social Join us for her talk, “Multifunctionality of gesture use and processing across the lifespan: An individual differences approach”✨ 🔎Learn more about her and her talk www.isgs10.nl/keynotes#h.4...

🎉 We’re thrilled to announce our #ISGS2025 keynote speaker: Johanna Mesch! Join us for her talk, “Tactile adaptations of gestures and emotions in deafblind communication” ✨ 🔎 Learn more about her and her talk www.isgs10.nl/keynotes#h.9...