iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

It runs on PC/MAC. +Sharing is also caring 🤗

Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

It’s that time of the year… We’re running experiments testing comprehension of elements that appear in comics. This one still needs participants, so if you’ve experience with reading comics and would like to help science (or lovely thesis students), here is the link: jatos.uvt.nl/publix/run?c...

jatos.uvt.nl

JATOS

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

I don’t know if you did, but it worked. I had an amazing defense day, filled with a discussion i enjoyed much more than i’d expected as a defender, laughter (joking is my “defense mechanism”), and pure joy. I am so proud of my inner child, who has loved discovery for as long as i’ve known her. 🧿🧚💜

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

A fun find: Hokusai used background motion lines about 200 years ago in this page from one of his books of picture stories. This is the oldest example of these that I know of, and interestingly manga tend to use these more than other types of comics (See corpus in: www.visuallanguagelab.com/poc)

Man flying on a giant fish with background motion lines in a woodblock print from an illustrated picture story from Hokusai

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

but such judgments may be influenced by people’s exposure to manga 😍

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

With different cues, it’s possible to explicitly indicate direction, convey varying levels of speed (especially with more lines) and even depict multiple moments. I love this work, even though it pushed back my defense time. Curiosity matters more to me 🥹

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Images don’t necessarily show a single frozen moment. Look how they can depict multiple moments at once:

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

I was mesmerized by the idea that something static can convey not only motion but also temporality, and I decided to test it empirically. It wasn’t an easy task, as the way our data was organized didn’t make it straightforward. But now, here is our paper! ♥️ www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

My dissertation got approved!!!The only thing left is to defend it, pls wish me luck. (You have almost 6 months to wish me luck, so should be good). 🫶🏻 www.tilburguniversity.edu/current/even...

tilburguniversity.edu

PhD Defense Irmak Hacımusaoğlu | Tilburg University

The dynamic out of the static: Representation of motion and spatiotemporality in static images

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

In a new paper, @anakrajinovic.bsky.social, @cogirmak.bsky.social, and I show that living vs. non-living entities are marked differently for motion in graphics. This is similar to spoken languages, so we propose a possible universal across modalities onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Motion lines and circumfixing lines appearing for living and non-living characters in comics panels

Data showing that inanimate entities receive more motion lines than animates across different types of comics

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

I would like to thank Ali Paşaoğlu for the invite and also to my supervisor @neilcohn.bsky.social because he mentioned my name in a podcast, which led to this invitation. Here is the link of the podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/7mbJ...

open.spotify.com

Neil Cohn, "Who Understands Comics?: Questioning the Universality of Visual Language Comprehension" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

New Books in Comics and Graphic Novels · Episode

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Yesterday I gave a guest lecture on Visual Language Theory as part of the Architecture and Comics course at MEF University. It was very interesting and we played around with affixation to find new meanings. For example, the one below means being happy with your miserable self!

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Writing articles was not the best at giving me an immediate reward but I guess it pays off 🥳 if you are curious about the paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Thank you very much Renske! Yes, i can’t believe how fast it goes 🥹

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

I submitted my dissertation!!!! It was the longest thing I've ever done (I like things I can do in one go). I still can't believe how I did it despite my brain (well, also thanks to my brain). 🧿

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Glad to hear that you want to read my work, haha 🙏🏻 once the whole dissertation is published online, i’ll share it here for sure

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Interesting! I see he also mentions repetition of curves there. Repeating postures either fully or partially is also another method to indicate motion in static images. Perhaps there’s a parallel between the ways of giving motion to the static body itself and depicting motion in a broader sense

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

In the picture above though, they are combined! It does not happen often and in my dissertation I also pose a question about whether it’d ease the motion comprehension if they’re combined. We have not tested this though. It was nice to see this being used in Hergé museum 😊

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

In comics, we see motion lines behind movers which can have different shapes such as twirling lines in the picture above. These lines correspond to a path that has been traversed. In case of instructional manuals, we see arrows mostly. They rather show a path yet to be travelled.

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Sure! I am studying the static representation of motion and our work shows there are systematic, patterned ways of depicting motion. For example drawing poses that a figure would take in action or attaching lines behind objects. Depending on which visual narrative system it’s, the methods can vary.

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

such big news! generally he tells me “proud advisor moment” and now it is my turn. proud advisee moment more than ever (well for now, i know he’ll not stop) ♥️

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

spoiler: manga readership makes a difference in interpreting which cues represent faster motion #staytuned

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Go check out this great short talk by my postdoc @anakrajinovic.bsky.social about her work as part of our TINTIN Project on a potential cognitive universal related to marking animacy in motion events in comics and language youtu.be/8Z3Ozin_dco?...

youtu.be

Mark the unexpected! Animacy preference and motion marking in visual language

YouTube video by Ana Krajinovic

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

I should add that @cogirmak.bsky.social and @anakrajinovic.bsky.social have been doing great work analyzing the structure of motion events in comics, and Ana has a nice accessible write up of her findings in this article medium.com/anas-stories...

medium.com

Research on Comics Reveals How We Perceive What Is Alive

I know corals are alive, but they really don’t look like it.

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 19/10/2024

Other people to follow… my PhD student @cogirmak.bsky.social studies how graphics like in comics convey motion events, and my postdoc @anakrajinovic.bsky.social studies how comics and language share universal design features, like in this great Medium article she wrote medium.com/anas-stories...

medium.com

Research on Comics Reveals How We Perceive What Is Alive

I know corals are alive, but they really don’t look like it.

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 28/12/2023

Awhile back @cogirmak.bsky.social had a nice short article about Visual Language Theory and motion events in Turkish, and now there's a version in English! Check it out! thecognizer.com/post/visual-...

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 16/11/2023

I am so grateful. Thank you very much!

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 16/11/2023

Congrats to @cogirmak.bsky.social mak who has a new review paper out in @cogscisociety.bsky.social about how people comprehend motion/speed lines: "The Meaning of Motion Lines?: A Review of Theoretical and Empirical Research on Static Depiction of Motion" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Different types of ways of depicting motion in graphics

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 30/10/2023

Thanks for all the support you provided throughout the process. I can’t believe 😳🧿

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 16/10/2023

Visual Language Conference is coming! ⏩If you want to join us or get more info👇🏻

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 03/10/2023

Another fun visual language lab seminar with @cogirmak.bsky.social and co, today tackling the structure of the Devil’s Fork

A whiteboard with diagrams of an “impossible fork”

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Irmak Hacımusaoğlu, PhD @cogirmak.bsky.social · 02/10/2023

Following instructions are hard sometimes in that context (I am the same)

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Neil Cohn @neilcohn.bsky.social · 01/10/2023

Welcome to Bluesky @cogirmak.bsky.social, my PhD student who studies comics, motion events, and time space relationships. Follow her!

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