Neil Cohn

Key takeaways

Neil Cohn belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Neil Cohn to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Neil Cohn from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Neil Cohn (; born 1980) is an American cognitive scientist and comics theorist. His research focuses on the cognition of understanding comics, and uses an interdisciplinary approach combining aspects of theoretical and corpus linguistics with cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. 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 in comics. His 2020 book, Who Understands Comics? explored the proficiency required to understand visual narratives, and was nominated for a 2021 Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work. His theories on visual language provided the foundation for the creation of automatically generated news comics for the BBC. Cohn's research has also examined the comprehension and linguistic status of emoji. He has also helped propose and design several emoji.

Biography

Cohn began developing his theories as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley where he graduated in 2002. He then spent several years as an independent scholar before studying under linguist Ray Jackendoff and psychologists Gina Kuperberg and Phillip Holcomb at Tufts University where he received his PhD in psychology in 2012. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship at UC San Diego working with Marta Kutas and Jeff Elman. In 2016, he joined the faculty of the Tilburg center for Cognition and Communication at Tilburg University. He is the son of Leigh Cohn and Lindsey Hall.

Visual language theory Cohn’s work challenges many of the existing conceptions of both language and drawing. He argues that language involves an interaction between an expressive modality, meaning, and a grammar. Just as sign languages differ from gestures 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. 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 a critical period. Cohn's primary research program with visual language theory emphasizes that a narrative structure operates as a “grammar” to sequential images analogously to syntactic 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). In 2020, Cohn was awarded a Starting Grant from the European 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.

Comic authorship Cohn began working in the comic industry at age 14 by helping to run convention booths for Image Comics and Todd McFarlane Productions throughout his teenage years. Beyond illustrating his academic books, Cohn’s creative work appears in several graphic novels, like We the People: A Call to Take Back America (2004) with Thom Hartmann, and illustrations for academic works, including Ray Jackendoff’s A User’s Guide to Thought and Meaning (2012), and the comic strip “Chinese Room” with philosopher Daniel Dennett.

Selected works Cohn, Neil (2003). Early Writings on Visual Language. Carlsbad, CA: Emaki Productions. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-615-19346-5. Hartmann, Thom & Cohn, Neil (2004). We the People: A Call to Take Back America. Portland, OR: CoreWay Media. pp. 220. ISBN 978-1882109388. Cohn, Neil (2013). The Visual Language of Comics: Introduction to the Structure and Cognition of Sequential Images. London, UK: Bloomsbury. p. 240. ISBN 9781441181459. Cohn, Neil, ed. (2016). The Visual Narrative Reader. London, UK: Bloomsbury. p. 320. ISBN 9781472585592. Cohn, Neil (2020). Who Understands Comics?: Questioning the Universality of Visual Language Comprehension. London, UK: Bloomsbury. p. 256. ISBN 978-1350156043.

References

External links Visual Language Lab website Visual Linguist Blog Neil Cohn on X Tilburg University faculty profile The Guardian profile: How the visual language of comics could have its roots in the ice age The Language of Comics BBC Radio 4 interview with Michael Rosen

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Neil Cohn

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Neil Cohn claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Neil Cohn before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Neil Cohn ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Neil Cohn

In research: Neil Cohn appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Neil Cohn in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Neil Cohn is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1980 births, American cognitive scientists, Comics scholars, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Neil Cohn outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Neil Cohn in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Neil Cohn means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Neil Cohn out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Neil Cohn in simple terms?

Neil Cohn (; born 1980) is an American cognitive scientist and comics theorist. His research focuses on the cognition of understanding comics, and uses an interdisciplinary approach combining aspects of theoretical and corpus linguistics with cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

Why does Neil Cohn matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Neil Cohn?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Neil Cohn.