Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics Lab

The Laboratory of Neurolinguistics and Experimental Pragmatics (NEPLab) of the University School for Advanced Studies (IUSS), founded in March 2023, addresses the study of human language and its neurocognitive correlates, with a special focus on pragmatic processes. We investigate the brain signatures of language, as well as its development in children and decay in the lifespan and clinical groups, mainly  combining neurolinguistics and experimental pragmatics methods.

Metaphor is the queen of the Lab: we see metaphor as the pinnacle of human interpretative capacity, and we are strongly committed to  investigating how it is learned, how it is lost, and how the brain derives its meaning. We also look at metaphors in the world, for instance how they can be used to communicate climate change or to describe the most personal nuances of human experiences. We are devoting great attention to language impairment, assessing pragmatic profiles across a range of conditions, from schizophrenia to neurological diseases. In addition to developing novel assessment tools (APACS is the main one), we have also designed tools to improve pragmatic skills, to encourage the clinical translation of our findings.

The NEPLab crew is also interested in other phenomena, such as humor and the interface between language and syntax, and how to incorporate computational tools into clinical and neurophysiological investigations. Theoretically, we are (post)Gricean and Chomskyan at the same time, and we strive to advance theoretical accounts with experimental findings.