Neil Cohn | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1980-01-11)January 11, 1980 (age 45) |
| Alma mater | Tufts University of Chicago UC Berkeley |
| Known for | Visual language theory Contributions tocomics theory andemoji theory |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Cognitive science,linguistics,comics studies |
| Institutions | Tilburg University |
| Doctoral advisor | Ray Jackendoff, Gina Kuperberg, Phillip Holcomb |
| Other academic advisors | Marta Kutas,Jeff Elman |
| Doctoral students | Bien Klomberg, Irmak Hacımusaoğlu |
Neil Cohn (/koʊn/; born 1980) is an American cognitive scientist andcomics theorist. His research focuses on thecognition of understandingcomics, and uses an interdisciplinary approach combining aspects of theoretical and corpus linguistics with cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.[1][2]
Cohn’s work argues that common cognitive capacities underlie the processing of various expressive domains, especially verbal and signed languages and what he calls “visual language”—the structure and cognition of drawings and visual narratives, particularly those found incomics. His 2020 book,Who Understands Comics?[3] explored the proficiency required to understand visual narratives, and was nominated for a 2021Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work. His theories on visual language provided the foundation for the creation of automatically generated news comics for theBBC.[4]
Cohn's research has also examined the comprehension and linguistic status ofemoji.[5][6][7] He has also helped propose and design severalemoji.[8]
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Cohn began developing his theories as an undergraduate atUC Berkeley where he graduated in 2002. He then spent several years as an independent scholar before studying under linguistRay Jackendoff and psychologists Gina Kuperberg and Phillip Holcomb atTufts University where he received his PhD in psychology in 2012. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship atUC San Diego working withMarta Kutas andJeff Elman. In 2016, he joined the faculty of the Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication atTilburg University. He is the son ofLeigh Cohn and Lindsey Hall.
Cohn’s work challenges many of the existing conceptions of bothlanguage anddrawing. He argues that language involves an interaction between an expressive modality, meaning, and a grammar. Just assign languages differ fromgestures in that they use a vocabulary and grammar, “visual languages” differ from individual drawings because they have a vocabulary of patterned graphic representations and a grammar constraining the coherence of sequential images. Full visual languages primarily appear alongside written languages in comics of the world, though they also appear outside of comics, such as in sand drawings used by Australian Aboriginals.[9] Just as spoken languages differ, so do visual languages: Japanese manga are written in “Japanese Visual Language” while American comics are written in “American Visual Language.” In addition, Cohn has argued that the development of visual languages may follow similar constraints as learning spoken and signed languages, and that most people do not learn how to draw proficiently because they do not acquire visual vocabularies within acritical period.[10]
Cohn's primary research program with visual language theory emphasizes that a narrative structure operates as a “grammar” to sequential images analogously tosyntactic structure in sentences. While narrative grammar uses a discourse level of information, its function and structure is similar to syntax in that it organizes categorical roles in hierarchic constituents in order to express meaning. Cohn’s work in cognitive neuroscience has suggested that manipulation of this narrative grammar elicits similar brain responses as manipulations of syntax in language (i.e.N400,P600, and Left Anterior Negativity effects).[11][12][13]
In 2020, Cohn was awarded a Starting Grant from theEuropean Research Council to study cross-cultural diversity in the structures of the visual languages used in comics around the world by building a multicultural corpus of annotated comics, and to examine the relationship of those structures to those in spoken languages.[14]
Cohn began working in the comic industry at age 14 by helping to run convention booths forImage Comics andTodd McFarlane Productions throughout his teenage years.[15] Beyond illustrating his academic books, Cohn’s creative work appears in several graphic novels, likeWe the People: A Call to Take Back America (2004) withThom Hartmann, and illustrations for academic works, includingRay Jackendoff’sA User’s Guide to Thought and Meaning (2012), and the comic strip “Chinese Room” with philosopherDaniel Dennett.
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