It was our pleasure to host you at the Conference of Multimodality in Early Interactions or "CoMEIn" for ECRs, that was held on April 18^th 2024 at the University of Warwick.

Please scroll down to the section "Conference Programme" to access the slides/ posters that have been shared by our presenters. You will need to enter the password provided.

“CoMEIn” for ECRs is a one-day interdisciplinary conference that aims to provide a platform for PhD students and Post-doctoral researchers to share their findings, insights and unique perspectives on the role of multimodality (i.e., various modes of communication such as gesture, prosody, speech etc...) in early caregiver-child interactions, and how this may shape communicative development in the early years. There will be keynote talks from established scholars on cross-disciplinary topics related to the overarching theme of multimodality in early interactions, as well as a careers talk and Q&A session from a panel of academics in the field, for ECRs to gain insight into securing a job in academia.

As such, we encourage early career researchers working on the topic of multimodality in early interactions, to be a part of this wonderful event and secure the opportunity to: present their findings, network with fellow exciting minds in the field, gain insight into academic professional development, and foster the potential for future collaborations.

Registration

Registration opens: Monday, 22nd January 2024

To register your attendance, go to: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/conference-on-multimodality-in-early-interactions-comein-for-ecrs-tickets-726231486927 

Registration fee: This is a free event funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the Warwick Institute of Advanced Study (IAS)

Deadline: Sunday, 31st March 2024

Presentation Guidelines

Preliminary guidelines for oral presentations

Individual talks will be given 10 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes for discussion. Please use either PowerPoint or PDF format for the presentations.

Preliminary presentation guidelines for posters

Poster boards allow for A0 paper size, which is 841 x 1189 mm (33.1 x 46.8 inches). The poster boards can be set up in either landscape or portrait orientation.

Important Dates

• Abstract submission opens: October 12th 2023
• Abstract submission closing deadline: December 22nd 2023 5th January 2024
• Notification of acceptance: January 19th 2024
• Registration opens: January 22nd 2024
• Registration closes: March 31st 2024
• CoMEIn 2024 at the University of Warwick: April 18th 2024

Organisers

Kirsty Green (research interests: iconicity, language development, infant-directed speech, engagement, gesture)

Mingtong Li (research interests: multimodal communication, iconicity, language development, symbol grounding)

Teruni Ahamat (research interests: gesture, infants, shared book-reading, language development)

Conference Programme

CoMEIn 2024 Programme Booklet Link opens in a new window

CoMEIn 2024 AbstractsLink opens in a new window

CoMEIn 2024 Uploaded Oral and Poster presentations (password protected)Link opens in a new window

Keynote Speeches

As part of the programme, we will have keynote speeches from three established researchers in the field. See below for their biographies:

Professor Gabriella Vigliocco:

Gabriella is a professor of the Psychology of Language in the Department of Experimental Psychology at University College London. She received her PhD from the University of Trieste in 1995, was a post-doc at the University of Arizona, and after being at the University of Wisconsin as Assistant Professor and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics as a visiting scientist (1999-2000), she moved to UCL.

Gabriella’s work is testament to the multimodality of language in both adults’ and children’s speech and she has a number of projects that investigate multimodality in early interactions. For example, her lab has developed the ECOLANG corpus which includes video-recorded interactions between adults and other adults and adults and children, concerning known and unknown objects that are either present or absent during the conversations. They show that iconic gestures are much more frequent in adult-directed speech and child-directed speech both when objects are unknown and when they are absent.

Dr Elizabeth Kirk:

Elizabeth’s research interests include gesture in parent-infant interactions, specifically how encouraging infants to gesture (Baby Sign) affects language development and parental-infant interaction, how exposure to more than one language impacts upon infant’s gesture production, and what bilingual infant’s gestures reveal about their language development. She is also interested in the role of gesture in thought such as how encouraging children to gesture while they solve a creative thinking task can make them more creative, how gesture can also mislead children during eyewitness interviews and how it can create false memories.

Prof. Dr. Pamela Perniss:

Pamela is a professor in the faculty of Human Sciences at the University of Cologne and is also Chair of Sign Language Interpreting. Prior to this, she has worked as a senior lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Brighton and a Research Associate in Deafness, Cognition and Language at University College London. She received her PhD from the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen in 2007.

Pamela's research interests include sign language linguistics and psycholinguistics, multimodality of language, iconicity of language, and sign language interpreting (especially interpreting between DGS (German Sign Language) and German) and sign language acquisition (especially DGS acquisition as a foreign language).

Venue

"CoMEIn" for ECRs will take place in the Zeeman Building at the University of Warwick. We will meet in the Zeeman building at the start of the day. The oral presentations will take place in MS.04 and the poster session will take place in the Street on the ground floor

You can use this map to find the Zeeman building:

Interactive Campus Map (warwick.ac.uk)

Travel

How to get to the university by public transport

The University of Warwick is located in the centre of England and is highly accessible by public transport.

(1) By rail. There are various rail stations that are easily accessed from the campus and they offer excellent links to Birmingham, London and many other major UK cities.

(2) By bus. Local buses offer a frequent and convenient way of travelling to and from campus. There are regular bus services to the University campus from Coventry City Centre and Coventry Rail Station (12X, U12, 11).

(3) By plane. The closest Airport is the Birmingham International Airport (BHX). There are also a number of Airports in London which are approximately 1 hour 30 minutes from Coventry by train.

Visit our Travel Centre for directions and more information about getting to the University of Warwick.

How to get to the University by car

Pay and Display parking is available on our campus. The closest car parks to the conference venue are Car Park 15 or Car Park 8.

Directions for getting to the University by Car, information about parking on campus and the latest traffic updates for the area local to the University can be found at our Travel Centre.

*Should you need a UK visa or a certificate of participation for our conference, please don't hesitate to contact us. We'll be delighted to assist you*

Accommodation

There is on-site accommodation at the Scarman conference centre but availability is very limited (See website: Warwick Conferences - Scarman - Guest Reservations).

Other popular hotels nearby include:

You could also try:

The Telegraph Hotel

Hotel Indigo, Coventry

Holiday Inn Kenilworth- Warwick

Ramada Hotel and Suites by Wyndham, Coventry

The Dakota, Baginton

Nailcote Hall Hotel

Best Western, Coventry

Double Tree by Hilton Hotel

Contact us at CoMEIn2024@gmail.com