Neil Cohn
@neilcohn.bsky.social
Comics creating cognitive (neuro)scientist at Tilburg University studying language, brains, comics, emoji & multimodality (he/him). 😮💨🫠🫥🥹🫨
www.visuallanguagelab.com
www.visuallanguagelab.com
Pinned
Neil Cohn
@neilcohn.bsky.social
· Jul 8
My book has a cover and the final copyedited pages are submitted… my graphic novel "Speaking in Pictures: A Vision of Language” about language, cognition, and graphic communication will be out in February 2026! www.visuallanguagelab.com/sip
My publisher @bloomsburyling.bsky.social is having their winter sale with up to 30% off on all my titles, including 10% off preorders of...
my now-in-paperback Multimodal Language Faculty! www.bloomsbury.com/us/multimoda...
my graphic novel Speaking in Pictures! www.bloomsbury.com/us/speaking-...
my now-in-paperback Multimodal Language Faculty! www.bloomsbury.com/us/multimoda...
my graphic novel Speaking in Pictures! www.bloomsbury.com/us/speaking-...
November 17, 2025 at 9:14 PM
My publisher @bloomsburyling.bsky.social is having their winter sale with up to 30% off on all my titles, including 10% off preorders of...
my now-in-paperback Multimodal Language Faculty! www.bloomsbury.com/us/multimoda...
my graphic novel Speaking in Pictures! www.bloomsbury.com/us/speaking-...
my now-in-paperback Multimodal Language Faculty! www.bloomsbury.com/us/multimoda...
my graphic novel Speaking in Pictures! www.bloomsbury.com/us/speaking-...
My grandparents had this book on their coffee table and a Rockwell print in their living room, so his paintings were a fixture of my childhood, including his later work. The Rockwell museum is also highly recommended
I know it's odd, but Rockwell was an inspiration. I got this book on closeout at the mall when I was in junior high and studied it until it fell apart. He wasn't an influence of course, but I admired his skill & and his political awakening. Sure, he'd already made his legend, but it was a risk.
November 15, 2025 at 7:36 PM
My grandparents had this book on their coffee table and a Rockwell print in their living room, so his paintings were a fixture of my childhood, including his later work. The Rockwell museum is also highly recommended
Reposted by Neil Cohn
Oooh! Had no idea there were bits on sign language and deaf language acquisition in the book—now I'm doubly excited. ❤️
Hey @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social - you should fly me to Tilburg University so I can interview Neil.
Hey @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social - you should fly me to Tilburg University so I can interview Neil.
November 12, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Oooh! Had no idea there were bits on sign language and deaf language acquisition in the book—now I'm doubly excited. ❤️
Hey @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social - you should fly me to Tilburg University so I can interview Neil.
Hey @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social - you should fly me to Tilburg University so I can interview Neil.
Reposted by Neil Cohn
Congrats, Neil! Looks incredible.
November 11, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Congrats, Neil! Looks incredible.
Reposted by Neil Cohn
I'm starting a comics club at my son's school, so I'm excited to learn more about comics' formal visual language and to see how #deafkids in particular engage with it.
November 11, 2025 at 9:27 PM
I'm starting a comics club at my son's school, so I'm excited to learn more about comics' formal visual language and to see how #deafkids in particular engage with it.
Reposted by Neil Cohn
OK, I need to get my hands on this. <3
November 11, 2025 at 3:29 AM
OK, I need to get my hands on this. <3
Reposted by Neil Cohn
1/2 An activity you can try! I do a brief discussion of unclear compositions: sharing these from Jungle Comics, a bit from @neilcohn.bsky.social's studies on layout readability, then students draw intentionally "Bad" layouts - where reading order isn't clear from design & 2nd student tries to solve!
November 10, 2025 at 11:41 PM
1/2 An activity you can try! I do a brief discussion of unclear compositions: sharing these from Jungle Comics, a bit from @neilcohn.bsky.social's studies on layout readability, then students draw intentionally "Bad" layouts - where reading order isn't clear from design & 2nd student tries to solve!
One of our local shopping centers is a converted textile factory, so they made a comic to describe the history of the building and its conversion!
November 9, 2025 at 3:18 PM
One of our local shopping centers is a converted textile factory, so they made a comic to describe the history of the building and its conversion!
More praise for Speaking with Pictures, my upcoming graphic novel on language, cognition, and visual communication. I'm counting down the days until this finally gets out and I can't wait...👀 visuallanguagelab.com/sip
November 7, 2025 at 2:08 PM
More praise for Speaking with Pictures, my upcoming graphic novel on language, cognition, and visual communication. I'm counting down the days until this finally gets out and I can't wait...👀 visuallanguagelab.com/sip
Reposted by Neil Cohn
And yet LLMs have been let loose in government and education.
Here's an interesting new study exploring whether LLMs are able to understand the narrative sequencing of comics and... even the best AI models are *terrible* at it for pretty much all tasks that were analyzed aclanthology.org/2025.finding...
Beyond Single Frames: Can LMMs Comprehend Implicit Narratives in Comic Strip?
Xiaochen Wang, Heming Xia, Jialin Song, Longyu Guan, Qingxiu Dong, Rui Li, Yixin Yang, Yifan Pu, Weiyao Luo, Yiru Wang, Xiangdi Meng, Wenjie Li, Zhifang Sui. Findings of the Association for Computatio...
aclanthology.org
November 5, 2025 at 6:37 PM
And yet LLMs have been let loose in government and education.
Reposted by Neil Cohn
Today in AI sucks, stop using it
Here's an interesting new study exploring whether LLMs are able to understand the narrative sequencing of comics and... even the best AI models are *terrible* at it for pretty much all tasks that were analyzed aclanthology.org/2025.finding...
Beyond Single Frames: Can LMMs Comprehend Implicit Narratives in Comic Strip?
Xiaochen Wang, Heming Xia, Jialin Song, Longyu Guan, Qingxiu Dong, Rui Li, Yixin Yang, Yifan Pu, Weiyao Luo, Yiru Wang, Xiangdi Meng, Wenjie Li, Zhifang Sui. Findings of the Association for Computatio...
aclanthology.org
November 5, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Today in AI sucks, stop using it
Reposted by Neil Cohn
Our university is in the process of allowing AI use in assessment, a supposedly pragmatic response to its ubiquity. This means I can't ban it on my comics course. This might bolster students' desire to avoid it.
November 5, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Our university is in the process of allowing AI use in assessment, a supposedly pragmatic response to its ubiquity. This means I can't ban it on my comics course. This might bolster students' desire to avoid it.
Reposted by Neil Cohn
I kind of want to go back and edit all of my master's essays to add that comics are not only a legitimate form of literature but that we now have evidence proving they are an innately human one.
November 5, 2025 at 4:32 PM
I kind of want to go back and edit all of my master's essays to add that comics are not only a legitimate form of literature but that we now have evidence proving they are an innately human one.
Reposted by Neil Cohn
The least shocking thing. But don't worry, linear story telling is only a feature of comics!! /s
Here's an interesting new study exploring whether LLMs are able to understand the narrative sequencing of comics and... even the best AI models are *terrible* at it for pretty much all tasks that were analyzed aclanthology.org/2025.finding...
Beyond Single Frames: Can LMMs Comprehend Implicit Narratives in Comic Strip?
Xiaochen Wang, Heming Xia, Jialin Song, Longyu Guan, Qingxiu Dong, Rui Li, Yixin Yang, Yifan Pu, Weiyao Luo, Yiru Wang, Xiangdi Meng, Wenjie Li, Zhifang Sui. Findings of the Association for Computatio...
aclanthology.org
November 5, 2025 at 2:07 PM
The least shocking thing. But don't worry, linear story telling is only a feature of comics!! /s
Reposted by Neil Cohn
Considering that I’ve demonstrated LLMs can’t handle any of the subtextual engines in prose, this isn’t surprising, but it remains shocking how not good at it the technology is. The Future!
Here's an interesting new study exploring whether LLMs are able to understand the narrative sequencing of comics and... even the best AI models are *terrible* at it for pretty much all tasks that were analyzed aclanthology.org/2025.finding...
Beyond Single Frames: Can LMMs Comprehend Implicit Narratives in Comic Strip?
Xiaochen Wang, Heming Xia, Jialin Song, Longyu Guan, Qingxiu Dong, Rui Li, Yixin Yang, Yifan Pu, Weiyao Luo, Yiru Wang, Xiangdi Meng, Wenjie Li, Zhifang Sui. Findings of the Association for Computatio...
aclanthology.org
November 5, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Considering that I’ve demonstrated LLMs can’t handle any of the subtextual engines in prose, this isn’t surprising, but it remains shocking how not good at it the technology is. The Future!
Reposted by Neil Cohn
Narrative and spatial relationships are two fundamental aspects of human cognition. LLMs are consistently terrible at both and have no obvious path to improving.
Here's an interesting new study exploring whether LLMs are able to understand the narrative sequencing of comics and... even the best AI models are *terrible* at it for pretty much all tasks that were analyzed aclanthology.org/2025.finding...
Beyond Single Frames: Can LMMs Comprehend Implicit Narratives in Comic Strip?
Xiaochen Wang, Heming Xia, Jialin Song, Longyu Guan, Qingxiu Dong, Rui Li, Yixin Yang, Yifan Pu, Weiyao Luo, Yiru Wang, Xiangdi Meng, Wenjie Li, Zhifang Sui. Findings of the Association for Computatio...
aclanthology.org
November 5, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Narrative and spatial relationships are two fundamental aspects of human cognition. LLMs are consistently terrible at both and have no obvious path to improving.
Reposted by Neil Cohn
Not shocking, to be honest.
Here's an interesting new study exploring whether LLMs are able to understand the narrative sequencing of comics and... even the best AI models are *terrible* at it for pretty much all tasks that were analyzed aclanthology.org/2025.finding...
Beyond Single Frames: Can LMMs Comprehend Implicit Narratives in Comic Strip?
Xiaochen Wang, Heming Xia, Jialin Song, Longyu Guan, Qingxiu Dong, Rui Li, Yixin Yang, Yifan Pu, Weiyao Luo, Yiru Wang, Xiangdi Meng, Wenjie Li, Zhifang Sui. Findings of the Association for Computatio...
aclanthology.org
November 5, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Not shocking, to be honest.
Reposted by Neil Cohn
I messed around with this in a far less scientific fashion and: yeah.
November 4, 2025 at 9:36 PM
I messed around with this in a far less scientific fashion and: yeah.
Here's an interesting new study exploring whether LLMs are able to understand the narrative sequencing of comics and... even the best AI models are *terrible* at it for pretty much all tasks that were analyzed aclanthology.org/2025.finding...
Beyond Single Frames: Can LMMs Comprehend Implicit Narratives in Comic Strip?
Xiaochen Wang, Heming Xia, Jialin Song, Longyu Guan, Qingxiu Dong, Rui Li, Yixin Yang, Yifan Pu, Weiyao Luo, Yiru Wang, Xiangdi Meng, Wenjie Li, Zhifang Sui. Findings of the Association for Computatio...
aclanthology.org
November 4, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Here's an interesting new study exploring whether LLMs are able to understand the narrative sequencing of comics and... even the best AI models are *terrible* at it for pretty much all tasks that were analyzed aclanthology.org/2025.finding...
Reposted by Neil Cohn
Reposted by Neil Cohn
I forgot the most important: good luck to @cogirmak.bsky.social !
November 3, 2025 at 12:11 PM
I forgot the most important: good luck to @cogirmak.bsky.social !
Reposted by Neil Cohn
This is really interesting and I will definitively have a look! A long time ago, when I was a student, I did my project on this topic for a Semiotics module, at a much smaller scale. Funnily enough, it was about compiling and writing about all the different types of movements in the Tintin books.
November 3, 2025 at 12:10 PM
This is really interesting and I will definitively have a look! A long time ago, when I was a student, I did my project on this topic for a Semiotics module, at a much smaller scale. Funnily enough, it was about compiling and writing about all the different types of movements in the Tintin books.
Reposted by Neil Cohn
♥️
Congrats to @cogirmak.bsky.social whose dissertation is now printed and ready to be defended in a few weeks! She researched the visual depiction of motion events as part of our broader TINTIN Project, so here’s a little thread of her work… www.visuallanguagelab.com/tintin
November 3, 2025 at 10:59 AM
♥️
Congrats to @cogirmak.bsky.social whose dissertation is now printed and ready to be defended in a few weeks! She researched the visual depiction of motion events as part of our broader TINTIN Project, so here’s a little thread of her work… www.visuallanguagelab.com/tintin
November 3, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Congrats to @cogirmak.bsky.social whose dissertation is now printed and ready to be defended in a few weeks! She researched the visual depiction of motion events as part of our broader TINTIN Project, so here’s a little thread of her work… www.visuallanguagelab.com/tintin
Reposted by Neil Cohn
Our special issue on ‘Parallelism in the Architecture of Language’ is now published! Huge thanks to all contributing authors, reviewers, Eva, Neil, and the topiCS journal team for their excellent work 📚🗣️🧠🤖🙏🏻
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17568765...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17568765...
October 30, 2025 at 7:17 AM
Our special issue on ‘Parallelism in the Architecture of Language’ is now published! Huge thanks to all contributing authors, reviewers, Eva, Neil, and the topiCS journal team for their excellent work 📚🗣️🧠🤖🙏🏻
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17568765...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17568765...