The DMN between Imagination, Creativity and Musement: a new path for neurosemiotics
Linguistic Frontiers July 1, 2026 Luigi Lobaccaro
The Default Mode Network (DMN) is reshaping cognitive neuroscience and offers insights into the relationship between the humanities and natural sciences. This article examines how DMN research can inform a neurosemiotic approach, building on Duarte's proposal to associate DMN activity with Peirce's concept of musement. Through analysis of Peirce's writings and neuroscientific literature, the article demonstrates that musement and the DMN can only be linked indirectly, and the DMN plays a non-specific role in creative production. It further suggests the DMN is tied to a more fundamental semiotic process essential to everyday semiosis: imagination.