unconventional communication

making meaning across modalities

a workshop at cogsci 2026

overview

How do people make use of any modality to communicate what they think, want, and feel?

Unconventional communication is a workshop on how humans convey meaning.

Most research on human communication focuses on well established patterns of usage in natural language. Our workshop will instead explore the most innovative features of human communication, and across a wide range of modalities: not only in speech, but also in song, gestures, drawings, and even crafting the physical environment itself.