Episode 130 On comics and understanding visual narratives, with Neil Cohn

In this episode Lars is speaking with Neil Cohn, whose research focuses on how we understand comics and other visual narratives. We discuss how researching our understanding of visual narratives can show us more about how we process information, update our situation models (explained in the episode), and what neuroscience can learn from the study of comics. Are comics from different cultures written in different visual languages, and what does that mean? Neil also discusses what he calls the Sequential Image Transparency Assumption, the common assumption that we all naturally understand and can interpret sequences of images. As it turns out, it’s not that simple… Neil’s three comic recommendations: Bill Watterson’s Calvin & Hobbes Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo Larry Marder’s Beanworld Neil Cohn is an associate professor at the Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication at Tilburg University, in the Netherlands https://www.visuallanguagelab.com/neilcohn Books mentioned:  Neil Cohn. (2020). Who Understands Comics? Questioning the Universality of Visual Language Comprehension. Bloomsbury Academic.  — (2013). The Visual Language of Comics: Introduction to the Structure and Cognition of Sequential Images. Bloomsbury.   ---------------------------- Our logo is by Sveinung Sudbø, see his works on originalkopi.com The music is by Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen, see the facebook page Nygrenda Vev og Dur for more info.  Photo of Neil Cohn by Dan Christensen ----------------------------  Thank you for listening. You can contact us on our facebook page or by email: [email protected] There is no better way for the podcast to gain new interested listener than by you sharing it with friends, so if you find what we do interesting and useful, please consider doing just that. The podcast is still most in Norwegian, but we have a lot of episodes coming out in English.  Our blogs: https://paljabekk.com/ https://larssandaker.blogspot.com/ Alt godt, hilsen Lars og Pål