Interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinarity has a longstanding tradition at the NeuroPsychoLinguistics Lab. In 2000, Jean-Luc Nespoulous, the first director of the Lab, founded the brain sciences institute, now TMBI, whose logo symbolizes the necessary and essential bridges between disciplines. In 2004, he was awarded the CNRS silver medal for his interdisciplinary research, which originated from an original approach to the study of language, combined with the investigation of cognitive functions and their neural correlates.

Since then, this interdisciplinary approach has been further enriched by incorporating singular experiences (sensory-motor, emotional, intercultural) into the analysis of practices. This integration of diverse disciplinary perspectives in the study of language results in a synergy among researchers in language sciences, developmental and cognitive psychology, language learning, and health. It also manifests in collaborative research in neuropsycholinguistics and neuroimaging, computer science, cognitive sciences, and intercultural psychology with other laboratories at the University of Toulouse belonging to the HSHS centers - humanities, human sciences, and societies. They include the Psychopathological and Intercultural Clinics Laboratory (LCPI), Cognition, Language, Languages, Ergonomics (CLLE), MST2I - Mathematics, Information, and Engineering Sciences and Technologies including the Toulouse Computer Research Institute (IRIT), Samova team, and BABS - Biology, Agronomy, Biotechnology, Health - such as the Toulouse NeuroImaging Center (ToNiC), Brain and Cognition lab (CerCo), as well as with the Toulouse University Hospital.

Interdisciplinarity is also evident in our networks and collaborations. Over the past decade, more than 16 interdisciplinary research projects have been selected and conducted at the LNPL, and 12 theses have been co-supervised with cognitive science or computer science laboratories at the University of Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. Several interdisciplinary projects are currently ongoing, such as the Parolothèque, a multidisciplinary scientific consortium comprising the LNPL and the computer science research laboratories of Toulouse and Avignon (IRIT and LIA), linguistics laboratories of Toulouse and Aix-en-Provence (CLLE and LPL), a Toulouse Health Psychology Laboratory, the Center for Study and Research in Psychopathology and Health (CERPPS), the Center for Epidemiology and Population Health Research (CERPOP) in Toulouse, and the two main actors of the University Cancer Institute of Toulouse IUCT (CHU and ICR).