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Interdisciplinary research group CoCo

A logo for the CoCo group, showing interwoven circles which feature circle an eye, a soundwave and a group.

Our mission

CoCo stands for the Cologne group on Conversation in Collaborative and Cooperative Contexts and is co-lead by Martine Grice and Kai Vogeley.

We are an interdisciplinary group of researchers that places face-to-face communication at the heart of our work. We bring together perspectives from linguistics, phonetics, psychiatry, psychology, and cognitive (neuro-)science to investigate the nature of human interaction. We are committed to capturing the richness and diversity of multimodal conversational signals in human communication styles, including those across neurotypes (e.g., autism, schizophrenia), and across languages, with a focus on how speaking in a second language affects communication.

Central to our approach is to recognise that there is no single "typical" communication style, not even within an individual, as this may shift depending on context and conversation partner. The variability in human behaviour we seek to highlight in our research is mirrored in the broad variety of methodologies we employ, integrating our diverse academic backgrounds and disciplines. Our emphasis on exploratory research enables us to approach the complexities of human communication with an open mind. We have conducted extensive studies on intonation and social eye gaze and on how conversation is managed in terms of turn-taking and the use of vocal feedback. In our most recent work, we are paying particular attention to the interplay of speech and gesture during interaction and the multiple factors affecting what is perceived as rapport.

Members of Coco

Solveigh Vera Janzen, B.A.

Funding for our research

Project “Individual behaviour in encoding and decoding prosodic prominence”

Project A02 at the CRC 1252 Prominence in Language

This project investigates the interplay of prosodic prominence, discourse prominence, and interactional prominence as structuring principles in dyadic conversation. We explore the behaviour of autistic as well as non-autistic and native as well as non-native speakers. On the basis of different conversational contexts, we examine these and other sources of speaker variability as well as dyad-specific patterns in the use and interpretation of multimodal cues (e.g., intonation, hand and head gestures, backchannels, and eye gaze).

Webpage: https://sfb1252.uni-koeln.de/en/projects/a02-individual-specificity

Project “Communicative behaviour in multimodal dyadic face-to-face conversation: with a focus on eye-gaze and the effect of cognitive styles”

by Qualitätsverbesserungskomission of the University Clinic Cologne

Project “Confidential Interaction using Eye-Contact (CUE)”

by Priority Programme UGaze (Ulm)

This project is concerned with the various behaviours exhibited by people when non-verbally communicating in confidential versus non-confidential situations, specifically focusing on triadic (three person) interactions. The main behavioural foci being investigated are eye gaze patterns (e.g., joint attention and mutual gaze), head and facial gestures (e.g., head nods, smiling, etc), and closed-mouth non-lexical vocalisations (e.g., ’mhmm’), and how these can (co-)occur in a variety of ways depending on the intended meaning.

Webpage: https://ifl.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/phonetik/forschung/projekte/cue

Publications and Conference Contributions

2026 - Journal articles and book chapters

  • Wehrle, Simon, Spaniol, Malin, Vogeley, Kai & Grice, Martine. (2026). Consistently longer silent gaps in autistic speaker pairs across three conversational contexts. PsyArXiv / OSF Preprint. DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/tksnb_v1
  • Wehrle, Simon, Oliver, Sabina, Vogeley, Kai & Grice, Martine. (2026). Entropy, individual differences, and autism: Quantifying the diversity of intonation style in face-to-face conversation. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2026, Philadelphia, USA.

2026 - Conference Contributions

  • Lorenzen, Janne, Baumann, Stefan, Schmelzer, Matteo, Pelageina, Nadia, & Grice, Martine. (2026). Multimodal marking of information status in unscripted dialogue – lexical form is key. Poster at MMSYM 2026, University of Leuven.
  • Maier, Fiona. (2026). Empathische Kommunikation messbar machen? Der Einsatz von mobilen Eye-Tracking-Brillen im Kommunikationstraining für angehende Ärztinnen und Ärzte. Talk at DGSS-Jahrestagung 2026.
  • Schmelzer, Matteo, Spaniol, Malin, Wehrle, Simon, & Grice, Martine. (2026). Co-occurrence of head nods and vocal backchannels in German conversations. Talk at MMSYM 2026, University of Leuven.
  • Spaniol, Malin, Wehrle, Simon, Vogeley, Kai, & Grice, Martine. (2026). Face to face: Exploring mutual gaze and vocal feedback across conversational settings. Poster at MMSYM 2026, University of Leuven.
  • Wehrle, Simon, Oliver, Sabina, Vogeley, Kai, & Grice, Martine. (2026). Quantifying the diversity of intonation style in face-to-face conversation. Talk at Speech Prosody 2026. Speech Prosody 2026, Philadelphia, PA, USA. https://www.speechprosody2026.org/program/detailed-program.
  • Wehrle, Simon. (2026). Individual Differences in Conversation: Insights from Autism and Non-Native Speakers. Symposium on “Multimodal Coordination in Naturalistic Dyadic Social Interactions” (Antonia Hamilton, Judith Holler, MagdaLena Matyjek & Simon Wehrle). ESCAN 2026, Rome, Italy, June 2026.
  • Wehrle, Simon. (2026). Capturing the melodicity of speech. Invited talk, LingPril (Annual Linguistics Workshop), Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia, April 2026.
  • Wehrle, Simon. (2026). Individual variability and the natural habitat of language: Insights from autism and non-native speech. Invited talk, Colloquium of the Department of English and American Studies at UKF, Nitra/Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava; Slovakia, March 2026.
  • Wünsche, Mark, Spaniol, Malin, Grice, Martine, & Vogeley, Kai. (2026, June 3). How do individual communication modalities perturb conversation dynamics. Talk at ISCS 2026. 6th International Symposium on Complex Systems.

2025 - Journal articles and book chapters

  • Sbranna, Simona, Savino, Michelina, Baills, Florence, & Grice, Martine. (2025). Gaze behaviour and vocal feedback in task-based dyadic conversations with and without eye contact. Frontiers in Communication, 10, 1524453. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2025.1524453
  • Sbranna, Simona, Wehrle, Simon, & Grice, Martine. (2025). A multi-dimensional analysis of backchannels in L1 German, L1 Italian and L2 German. Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 15(2), 243–277. doi.org/10.1075/lia.00026.sbr

2025 - Conference contributions

  • Lorenzen, Janne, Baumann, Stefan, Pelageina, Nadia, & Grice, Martine. (2025, June 25). Signalling information status in face-to-face dialogue. Talk at Satellite Workshop: ‘Multimodality and IS’ at 6th Phonetics and Phonology in Europe (PaPE). 6th Phonetics and Phonology in Europe (PaPE) - Phonetics and Phonology in a Multilingual World. https://agenda.uib.es/120122/section/53648/6th-phonetics-and-phonology-in-europe-pape-2025.html
  • Möking, Eduardo, Wehrle, Simon, Kaland, Constantijn, & Grice, Martine. (2025, June 25). Intonational dynamics of German backchannels across conversational contexts. Poster at 6th Phonetics and Phonology in Europe (PaPE). 6th Phonetics and Phonology in Europe (PaPE) - Phonetics and Phonology in a Multilingual World. https://agenda.uib.es/120122/section/53648/6th-phonetics-and-phonology-in-europe-pape-2025.html
  • Spaniol, Malin, Wehrle, Simon, Grice, Martine & Vogeley, Kai. (2025). Gaze accompanying vocal feedback in dyadic face-to-face conversation. 12th ICOM, Groningen, Netherlands, October 2025.
  • Spaniol, Malin, Wehrle, Simon, Grice, Martine & Vogeley, Kai. (2025). Mutual gaze and vocal feedback in inter-autistic face-to-face conversation. 14th Autism Europe International Congress, Dublin, Ireland, September 2025.
  • Spaniol, Malin, Wehrle, Simon, Wessing, Felix, Grice, Martine & Vogeley, Kai. (2025). Blickkontakt und vokales Feedback in homogenen autistischen Gesprächen. 16. WTAS, Heidelberg, Germany, March 2025.
  • Wehrle, Simon & Spaniol, Malin (2025). Effects of Conversational Context on Turn-Timing in (Non-)Autistic Dyads. Conference on Rational Approaches in Language Science (RAILS), Saarbrücken, Germany, February 2025.
  • Wehrle, Simon (2025). Individual variability and the natural habitat of language: Insights from autism and non-native speech. Keynote speech, Konstanz linguistics conference (KLC) 2025, Konstanz, Germany, October 2025.
  • Wehrle, Simon (2025). Intonation in inter-autistic conversations: global patterns and local cues. Invited talk, Kiel Linguistics Colloquium, Kiel, Germany, October 2025.
  • Wehrle, Simon (2025). Autism and (what it can teach us about) prosody. Invited talk, SProSIG online Speech Prosody Lecture Series, September 2025. Youtube link: Autism and (what it can teach us about) prosody.
  • Wehrle, Simon (2025). Turn management and conversational signals in atypical speech: autism, language learners, and individual specificity. Invited talk, Potsdam linguistics colloquium (Outi Tuomainen), Potsdam, Germany, April 2025.