Language and Communication in Virtual Reality

David Peeters and Eleanor Huizeling

In the Neurobiology of Language Department, we use immersive virtual reality (VR) technologies to study human linguistic and communicative capacities in rich audiovisual contexts. A major advantage of VR as a scientific method is that it allows us to study language and communication in ecologically valid settings while maintaining experimental control. Specifically, we apply VR in combination with motion tracking, eye tracking, and electroencephalography (EEG) to learn more about the neurobiological underpinnings of language and communication in domains such as prediction, pragmatics, multimodal and non-verbal communication, and multilingualism.