Martina Mellana
@martinamellana.bsky.social
PhD Student in the Multimodal Language Department at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience at Milan University. SLP.
Glad to share that my article for the MPI TalkLing Blog is finally out!
Give it a read if you'd like to learn more about how people with aphasia use hand gestures, and to get a small glimpse into some of the questions I'm exploring in my PhD research.
Link to the blog: www.mpi.nl/blog/when-wo...
Give it a read if you'd like to learn more about how people with aphasia use hand gestures, and to get a small glimpse into some of the questions I'm exploring in my PhD research.
Link to the blog: www.mpi.nl/blog/when-wo...
July 22, 2026 at 11:24 AM
Glad to share that my article for the MPI TalkLing Blog is finally out!
Give it a read if you'd like to learn more about how people with aphasia use hand gestures, and to get a small glimpse into some of the questions I'm exploring in my PhD research.
Link to the blog: www.mpi.nl/blog/when-wo...
Give it a read if you'd like to learn more about how people with aphasia use hand gestures, and to get a small glimpse into some of the questions I'm exploring in my PhD research.
Link to the blog: www.mpi.nl/blog/when-wo...
I’m happy to share that our new paper has been published in Logopedia e Comunicazione! 📢🗣️💯
Randone, F., Mellana, M., Toscano, S., & Muò, R. (2026). Risorse per supportare la conversazione delle persone con afasia: Indagine sull’applicabilità nella pratica clinica. lnkd.in/egG2gm3R
Randone, F., Mellana, M., Toscano, S., & Muò, R. (2026). Risorse per supportare la conversazione delle persone con afasia: Indagine sull’applicabilità nella pratica clinica. lnkd.in/egG2gm3R
March 6, 2026 at 4:23 AM
I’m happy to share that our new paper has been published in Logopedia e Comunicazione! 📢🗣️💯
Randone, F., Mellana, M., Toscano, S., & Muò, R. (2026). Risorse per supportare la conversazione delle persone con afasia: Indagine sull’applicabilità nella pratica clinica. lnkd.in/egG2gm3R
Randone, F., Mellana, M., Toscano, S., & Muò, R. (2026). Risorse per supportare la conversazione delle persone con afasia: Indagine sull’applicabilità nella pratica clinica. lnkd.in/egG2gm3R
Reposted by Martina Mellana
You can read the full chapter here: Iconicity in simultaneous constructions in sign languages | Max Planck Institute share.google/rzwFU9EpdXJb...
February 4, 2026 at 10:26 AM
You can read the full chapter here: Iconicity in simultaneous constructions in sign languages | Max Planck Institute share.google/rzwFU9EpdXJb...
Reposted by Martina Mellana
Excited to co-teach Multimodal Minds this June with @anitaslonimska.bsky.social! See below for more information.
www.ru.nl/en/education...
www.ru.nl/en/education...
Multimodal Minds: Language, Gesture & Sign for Human and Non-Human Interaction | Radboud University
In this summer course, you'll explore how speech, gesture, and sign languages shape meaning and cognition in interaction.
www.ru.nl
March 2, 2026 at 3:37 PM
Excited to co-teach Multimodal Minds this June with @anitaslonimska.bsky.social! See below for more information.
www.ru.nl/en/education...
www.ru.nl/en/education...
Reposted by Martina Mellana
New open-access paper with @asliozyurek.bsky.social & Emanuela Campisi
We extend relevance theory to a multimodal view of language, demonstrating that speakers explicitly highlight iconic gestures as communicatively relevant in knowledge transmission context
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
We extend relevance theory to a multimodal view of language, demonstrating that speakers explicitly highlight iconic gestures as communicatively relevant in knowledge transmission context
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Adults mark the communicative relevance of their gestures more for children than for other adults
According to relevance theory, communication relies on speakers’ ability to signal relevant information, which addressees use to infer meaning efficiently. Most research within the relevance theore...
www.tandfonline.com
February 25, 2026 at 10:51 AM
New open-access paper with @asliozyurek.bsky.social & Emanuela Campisi
We extend relevance theory to a multimodal view of language, demonstrating that speakers explicitly highlight iconic gestures as communicatively relevant in knowledge transmission context
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
We extend relevance theory to a multimodal view of language, demonstrating that speakers explicitly highlight iconic gestures as communicatively relevant in knowledge transmission context
🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Martina Mellana
It was such a pleasure to help organize #ISGS10 in Nijmegen! Some photo highlights from talks on tools & educational resources for kinematic analysis of gesture, the role of gesture in narrative recall in typical & ayptical aging w/ @martinamellana.bsky.social, & multiparty audience design in TBI.
July 14, 2025 at 11:29 AM
It was such a pleasure to help organize #ISGS10 in Nijmegen! Some photo highlights from talks on tools & educational resources for kinematic analysis of gesture, the role of gesture in narrative recall in typical & ayptical aging w/ @martinamellana.bsky.social, & multiparty audience design in TBI.
Excited to present at ISGS25 this Thursday morning in Nijmegen!
Together with @shariceclough.bsky.social , we’ll be sharing our work on the role of gesture in narrative recall across Alzheimer’s, MCI, and healthy aging.
Looking forward to great discussions! 💪🏻🧠🗣️
#ISGS25
Together with @shariceclough.bsky.social , we’ll be sharing our work on the role of gesture in narrative recall across Alzheimer’s, MCI, and healthy aging.
Looking forward to great discussions! 💪🏻🧠🗣️
#ISGS25
July 9, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Excited to present at ISGS25 this Thursday morning in Nijmegen!
Together with @shariceclough.bsky.social , we’ll be sharing our work on the role of gesture in narrative recall across Alzheimer’s, MCI, and healthy aging.
Looking forward to great discussions! 💪🏻🧠🗣️
#ISGS25
Together with @shariceclough.bsky.social , we’ll be sharing our work on the role of gesture in narrative recall across Alzheimer’s, MCI, and healthy aging.
Looking forward to great discussions! 💪🏻🧠🗣️
#ISGS25
Sharing a fun science outreach experience! At OFF TOPIC pub in Turin, in collaboration with CentroScienza, I served up some science bites about multimodal communication to diners who ordered from my special menu! 🗯️🍻
June 29, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Sharing a fun science outreach experience! At OFF TOPIC pub in Turin, in collaboration with CentroScienza, I served up some science bites about multimodal communication to diners who ordered from my special menu! 🗯️🍻
Reposted by Martina Mellana
Excited to share this viewpoint on why studying group audience design processes in TBI can lead to new clinical and scientific insights about communication difficulties after brain injury. Will be followed up soon w/ empirical papers examining adaptation across speech, gesture, and gaze modalities!
Multiparty Communication: A New Direction in Characterizing the Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury on Social Communication. New publication by Kekes-Szabo, @shariceclough.bsky.social, Brown-Schmidt & Duff. doi.org/10.1044/2025....
Multiparty Communication: A New Direction in Characterizing the Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury on Social Communication
Purpose: The purpose of this viewpoint is to advocate for increased study of common
ground and audience design processes in multiparty communicat...
doi.org
June 17, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Excited to share this viewpoint on why studying group audience design processes in TBI can lead to new clinical and scientific insights about communication difficulties after brain injury. Will be followed up soon w/ empirical papers examining adaptation across speech, gesture, and gaze modalities!
Reposted by Martina Mellana
Our recent paper led by Demet Özer with Aslı Özyürek! @asliozyurek.bsky.social @kudilvebilis.bsky.social
Spatial working memory is critical for gesture processing: Evidence from gestures with varying semantic links to speech
link.springer.com/article/10.3...
Spatial working memory is critical for gesture processing: Evidence from gestures with varying semantic links to speech
link.springer.com/article/10.3...
Spatial working memory is critical for gesture processing: Evidence from gestures with varying semantic links to speech - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Gestures express redundant or complementary information to speech they accompany by depicting visual and spatial features of referents. In doing so, they recruit both spatial and verbal cognitive reso...
link.springer.com
February 10, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Our recent paper led by Demet Özer with Aslı Özyürek! @asliozyurek.bsky.social @kudilvebilis.bsky.social
Spatial working memory is critical for gesture processing: Evidence from gestures with varying semantic links to speech
link.springer.com/article/10.3...
Spatial working memory is critical for gesture processing: Evidence from gestures with varying semantic links to speech
link.springer.com/article/10.3...
Finally submitted my Master’s thesis carried out at @mpi-nl.bsky.social with @shariceclough.bsky.social ! 🎉🥳
We found that individuals with MCI rely on the gesture modality as a meaningful communicative resource and that information conveyed through gesture remained stable over time.
We found that individuals with MCI rely on the gesture modality as a meaningful communicative resource and that information conveyed through gesture remained stable over time.
February 18, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Finally submitted my Master’s thesis carried out at @mpi-nl.bsky.social with @shariceclough.bsky.social ! 🎉🥳
We found that individuals with MCI rely on the gesture modality as a meaningful communicative resource and that information conveyed through gesture remained stable over time.
We found that individuals with MCI rely on the gesture modality as a meaningful communicative resource and that information conveyed through gesture remained stable over time.
A recent scoping review by Rossella Muò et al. highlights the importance of training healthcare students to be competent communication partners as a crucial component of the rehabilitation process for people with communication disorders.
doi.org/10.1080/0963...
doi.org/10.1080/0963...
Training healthcare students to be competent communication partners: a scoping review
People with acquired neurogenic Communication Disorders (PwCD) experience reduced satisfaction in healthcare environments, possibly relating to communication difficulties. Communication Partner Tra...
doi.org
February 14, 2025 at 2:15 PM
A recent scoping review by Rossella Muò et al. highlights the importance of training healthcare students to be competent communication partners as a crucial component of the rehabilitation process for people with communication disorders.
doi.org/10.1080/0963...
doi.org/10.1080/0963...
Preliminary results show nonlinguistic strategies, including gestures, can be leveraged in rehabilitation to improve functional communication in global aphasia.
doi.org/10.1111/1460...
doi.org/10.1111/1460...
Evaluating the effect of a non‐linguistic cognitive intervention on functional communication in global aphasia: A case series study
Background Global aphasia is a severe communication disorder affecting all language modalities, commonly caused by stroke. Evidence as to whether the functional communication of people with global a...
doi.org
January 16, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Preliminary results show nonlinguistic strategies, including gestures, can be leveraged in rehabilitation to improve functional communication in global aphasia.
doi.org/10.1111/1460...
doi.org/10.1111/1460...
Reposted by Martina Mellana
How do we understand each other in conversation? A thread based on my recent IACS4 plenary, covering a critical perspective on interactive linguistic alignment - the tendency to re-use each other's linguistic forms. 1/
November 13, 2024 at 9:29 PM
How do we understand each other in conversation? A thread based on my recent IACS4 plenary, covering a critical perspective on interactive linguistic alignment - the tendency to re-use each other's linguistic forms. 1/
Reposted by Martina Mellana
The Nijmegen Lectures 2025 have started with the first talk by Victor S. Ferreira: 'Toward a Mechanistic Understanding of Audience Design'. You can watch it via this live stream: weblectures.ru.nl/permalink/l1... @fernandaedi.bsky.social #NijmegenLectures
January 7, 2025 at 9:30 AM
The Nijmegen Lectures 2025 have started with the first talk by Victor S. Ferreira: 'Toward a Mechanistic Understanding of Audience Design'. You can watch it via this live stream: weblectures.ru.nl/permalink/l1... @fernandaedi.bsky.social #NijmegenLectures
Reposted by Martina Mellana
A little sneak peak of results that are forthcoming in a preprint soon: the mechanism by which semantic feature analysis appeared to improve correct naming on 30 treated nouns for n=19 participants w aphasia appeared to be by improving inner speech for those items. Thanks to NIDILRR for funding.
November 20, 2024 at 8:51 PM
A little sneak peak of results that are forthcoming in a preprint soon: the mechanism by which semantic feature analysis appeared to improve correct naming on 30 treated nouns for n=19 participants w aphasia appeared to be by improving inner speech for those items. Thanks to NIDILRR for funding.