C03

Project Overview

This project investigates negation as a multimodal phenomenon. While all human languages express negation through specific lexical items (e.g., not), it can also be conveyed nonverbally, for example through manual gestures, head shaking, or facial expressions. The project aims at a comprehensive and systematic experimental investigation of negation in speech and gesture and on the coordination of this information.

Research Questions & Theoretical Framework

By investigating whether properties of negation processing and acquisition in speech generalize to other modalities, the project aims to figure out whether there are universal cognitive processes in negation processing (QC.1). Adopting an experimental psycholinguistic perspective, the findings can shed light on the question of whether negation should be viewed as a multimodal phenomenon with both categorical (speech) and imagistic (gesture) components.

Methodologies & Data

The project investigates nonverbal negation and its relation to verbal negation in German. Our experiments include monolingual adult participants and are complemented by experiments with children. By conducting behavioral and online (EEG) experiments, we examine how the comprehension of different nonverbal negation expressions compares to and affects verbal negation comprehension. These data on the acquisition order, on processing speed and accuracy, and on online integration can shed light on the association of negation to nonverbal domains. In addition, production experiments investigate how and in which contexts adult speakers use verbal and nonverbal negation.