Communication Through Action and Gesture

Actions are performed on the world around us in order to reach a direct goal, but we also gesture, or simulate actions in order to reach an indirect goal, such as to communicate a message. But how similar are real actions to their simulated counterparts? And how are they influenced by a communicative context?

We know in everyday life that both real and simulated actions can be recognized as being communicative; the specific features that make them communicative, however, are not well understood. My research aims to elucidate the relationship between real actions and simulated actions and how they are produced and recognized in a communicative context.

This project uses behavioural methods to understand the production and recognition of communicative actions, as well as brain-imaging techniques to probe the underlying circuitry of communicative recognition. This will lead to a deeper understanding of human communication at a more fundamental level.