Marc D. Pell, PhD
Distinguished James McGill Professor
School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill University
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The Neuropragmatics and Emotion Lab (Pell Lab) is one of many research labs in the broad field of social cognitive neuroscience. We are located in the School of Communication Sciences & Disorders at McGill University in Montréal, Québec, CANADA. The School forms one of the units within McGill's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Humans communicate their emotions, attitudes, and intentions in a variety of ways while speaking — these can be detected in the content of language (what we say) and in nonverbal expressions of the voice and face which accompany language (how we say it). Many of our studies focus on how speech prosody ("tone of voice") is used and understood in the context of spoken language. But who is speaking also matters: we look at the social and cultural factors that influence vocal communication — including how social identity markers such as foreign accents and AI-generated speech shape listeners' social perception of the voice. A complementary goal of our research is to understand how acquired diseases of the brain affect the ability to communicate vocal meaning and to process nonliteral or "social-pragmatic" meanings in speech. We test our hypotheses using acoustic, behavioural, electrophysiological, and functional neuroimaging methods.
This site provides an overview of our mission, ongoing projects, human talent, and recent activities. If you are interested in knowing more about our work, or if you wish to conduct research in association with the Pell Lab, do not hesitate to contact us.
The short video below offers a glimpse of our lab.
