Workshop description

Non-verbal (non-lexical) vocalisations in multimodal human-human and human-machine interaction play important roles in displaying social and affective behaviours and in managing the flow of interaction. Laughter, sighs, clicks, filled pauses, and short utterances such as feedback responses are among some of the non-verbal vocalisations that are being increasingly studied from various research fields. However, much is still unknown about the phonetic or visual characteristics of non-verbal vocalisations (production/encoding), their relations to the social actions they are part of, their perceived meanings (perception/decoding), and their ordering in interaction. Furthermore, with the increased interest for more naturalness in human-machine interaction, current times also invite exploring how these phenomena can be integrated in speech applications.

The Laughter and Other Non-Verbal Vocalisations Workshop is an interdisciplinary exchange forum where new findings and work-in-progress are discussed with other scholars from diverse research areas in order to gain a better understanding of these phenomena. In 2027, the workshop would be in its 8th edition, celebrating the 20th anniversary from the first edition, with previous events held in Saarbrücken (2007), Berlin (2009), Dublin (2012), Enschede (2015) Paris (2018), Bielefeld (2020), Belfast (2024). 

Research themes include, but are not restricted to, these aspects pertaining to the production and perception of laughter and other non-verbal (non-lexical) vocalisations in both spoken and signed languages:

• Articulation, acoustics and perception

• Gesture, sign, facial expressions and other bodily behaviour

• Interaction and pragmatics

• Affective and evaluative meanings

• Social perception and organisation

• Disfluency 

• Technology applications

The workshop will take place on April 2nd (Friday, full day) and 3rd (Saturday, half day) at Saarland University, Saarbrücken. We are pleased to welcome Prof. Catherine Pelachaud (CNRS - ISIR, Sorbonne University) and Prof. Leelo Keevallik (Linköping University) as keynote speakers, both showcasing the high quality and breadth of international research in non-verbal vocalisations. 

Calls for 2-page extended abstracts will open on September 1st, with a November 23rd submission deadline. Submissions will be subject to blind peer review, and decisions will be communicated around January 18th, 2027. We intend to host the extended abstracts in an open repository once arrangements have been confirmed.