Meaning, Language, and Cognition Lab

RIT's Meaning, Language, and Cognition (MLC) Lab investigates how people conceptualize the world, how we express our thoughts through language, and how the relationship between language and cognition may (or may not) vary depending on each person’s linguistic and cultural background.

For example, do people think that plants and animals can act intentionally in the same way that humans can, and do thoughts about intention differ depending on one’s language? The lab addresses these questions by conducting behavioral experiments with adults across a range of different languages and analyzing the language that people produce in everyday life.

The capacity to make meaning is fundamental to human life — in the MLC lab, we seek a deeper understanding of what meanings are shared across all people, and what are constructed based on a person’s individual traits and experiences.