Rosario Tomasello will give a scientific talk at TeaP Tübingen

Title: Neural Basis of Action Sequence Prediction in Communicative Function Understanding
Date: Wednesday, 18.03.2026
Time: 11:00-12:30

Brain Language Laboratory, Department of Philosophy and Humanities, WE4 Freie Universität Berlin, GermanyCluster of Excellence "Matters of Activity. Image Space Material", Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany

For decades, research in the neurobiology of language has focused primarily on how linguistic symbols are processed in the human brain, with a particular attention on the functional role of sensorimotor experiences in this cognitive process. In everyday social interactions, however, linguistic symbols (words and sentences) primarily serve as tools for communication, enabling us to convey our intentions to others. In linguistic-pragmatic theory, these intentions are referred to as speech acts or communicative functions, which are typically embedded in complex contextual settings and sequences of actions. Here, I will present studies examining the neural correlates underlying fine-grained distinctions between different types of communicative action (e.g. naming, requesting, questioning and stating) conveyed through identical linguistic utterances in written, prosodic and gestural modalities. I will show that communicative function understanding emerges very rapidly, around 150 ms after stimulus onset, in parallel with semantic processing, and is associated with distinct brain activation patterns that reflect specific pragmatic functions. In particular, communicative actions that typically elicit motor-related partner responses, such as handing over an object after a request or giving a verbal reply to a question, trigger somatotopic activation in the motor cortex (e.g., hand vs. face regions). I argue that the embedding of linguistic symbols into action-related schemas highlights the contribution of the motor cortex, whose rapid activation suggests a crucial role in the pragmatic understanding of communicative functions.