1
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Youngblood M. Language-like efficiency and structure in house finch song. Proc Biol Sci 2024; 291:20240250. [PMID: 38565151 PMCID: PMC10987240 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.0250] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2023] [Accepted: 03/06/2024] [Indexed: 04/04/2024] Open
Abstract
Communication needs to be complex enough to be functional while minimizing learning and production costs. Recent work suggests that the vocalizations and gestures of some songbirds, cetaceans and great apes may conform to linguistic laws that reflect this trade-off between efficiency and complexity. In studies of non-human communication, though, clustering signals into types cannot be done a priori, and decisions about the appropriate grain of analysis may affect statistical signals in the data. The aim of this study was to assess the evidence for language-like efficiency and structure in house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) song across three levels of granularity in syllable clustering. The results show strong evidence for Zipf's rank-frequency law, Zipf's law of abbreviation and Menzerath's law. Additional analyses show that house finch songs have small-world structure, thought to reflect systematic structure in syntax, and the mutual information decay of sequences is consistent with a combination of Markovian and hierarchical processes. These statistical patterns are robust across three levels of granularity in syllable clustering, pointing to a limited form of scale invariance. In sum, it appears that house finch song has been shaped by pressure for efficiency, possibly to offset the costs of female preferences for complexity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mason Youngblood
- Minds and Traditions Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, Thüringen, Germany
- Institute for Advanced Computational Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
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2
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Wong BWL, Hemelstrand S, Inoue T. Revisiting the influence of phonological similarity on cognate processing: Evidence from Cantonese-Japanese bilinguals. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2024:17470218241242631. [PMID: 38490817 DOI: 10.1177/17470218241242631] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/17/2024]
Abstract
The influences of shared orthography, semantics, and phonology on bilingual cognate processing have been investigated extensively. However, mixed results have been found regarding the effects of phonological similarity on L2 cognate processing. In addition, most existing studies examining the influence of phonological similarity on cognate processing have been conducted on alphabetic scripts, in which phonology and orthography are always associated. Hence, in this study, we recruited Cantonese-Japanese bilinguals who used two logographic scripts, traditional Chinese and Japanese Kanji, to examine the influence of phonological similarity on L2 cognate lexical decision. Importantly, these scripts allow the manipulation of phonological similarity using identical characters across both languages. In addition, we examined how word frequency and L2 proficiency modulate cognate processing. Results showed that although word frequency and L2 proficiency played important roles in cognate processing, there was minimal overall influence of phonological similarity on cognate lexical decision. The latter finding suggests that theoretical models of bilingual word recognition may need to be refined to enhance our understanding of cognate processing regarding the role of phonology among diverse bilingual populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian W L Wong
- Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Shawn Hemelstrand
- Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
| | - Tomohiro Inoue
- Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
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3
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Kim Y, Tjuka A. Cognitive Science From the Perspective of Linguistic Diversity. Cogn Sci 2024; 48:e13418. [PMID: 38407526 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13418] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2023] [Revised: 12/27/2023] [Accepted: 02/11/2024] [Indexed: 02/27/2024]
Abstract
This letter addresses two issues in language research that are important to cognitive science: the comparability of word meanings across languages and the neglect of an integrated approach to writing systems. The first issue challenges generativist claims by emphasizing the importance of comparability of data, drawing on typologists' findings about different languages. The second issue addresses the exclusion of diverse writing systems from linguistic investigation and argues for a more extensive study of their effects on language and cognition. We argue for a refocusing of cognitive science research on linguistic diversity in all modalities to develop the most robust understanding of language and its role in human cognition more broadly.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yoolim Kim
- Department of Psychology, Cognitive & Linguistic Sciences Program, Wellesley College
| | - Annika Tjuka
- Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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4
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Riggsby AM. How standardized must a code be to be useful? Behav Brain Sci 2023; 46:e251. [PMID: 37779297 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x23000699] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/03/2023]
Abstract
If, as it appears, failure of standardization blocks the rise of general-purpose ideography, then a more precise characterization of "standardization" should help illuminate aspects of the process. Comparison is made with several histories of standardization to outline relevant dimensions and thresholds. This line of inquiry is particularly important for the forward-looking question of whether such ideography can ever arise.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew M Riggsby
- Department of Classics, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA ; https://utexas.academia.edu/AndrewRiggsby
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5
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Morin O. Puzzling out graphic codes. Behav Brain Sci 2023; 46:e260. [PMID: 37779296 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x23002418] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/03/2023]
Abstract
This response takes advantage of the diverse and wide-ranging series of commentaries to clarify some aspects of the target article, and flesh out other aspects. My central point is a plea to take graphic codes seriously as codes, rather than as a kind of visual art or as a byproduct of spoken language; only in this way can the puzzle of ideography be identified and solved. In this perspective, I argue that graphic codes do not derive their expressive power from iconicity alone (unlike visual arts), and I clarify the peculiar relationship that ties writing to spoken language. I then discuss three possible solutions to the puzzle of ideography. I argue that a learning account still cannot explain why ideographies fail to evolve, even if we emancipate the learning account from the version that Liberman put forward; I develop my preferred solution, the "standardization account," and contrast it with a third solution suggested by some commentaries, which says that ideographies do not evolve because they would make communication too costly. I consider, by way of conclusion, the consequences of these views for the future evolution of ideography.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olivier Morin
- Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Minds & Traditions Research Group, Jena, Germany ; https://www.shh.mpg.de/94549/themintgroup
- Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS, ENS, PSL University 29, Paris, France
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6
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Koshevoy A, Miton H, Morin O. Zipf's Law of Abbreviation holds for individual characters across a broad range of writing systems. Cognition 2023; 238:105527. [PMID: 37364507 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105527] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2022] [Revised: 06/12/2023] [Accepted: 06/14/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023]
Abstract
Zipf's Law of Abbreviation - the idea that more frequent symbols in a code are simpler than less frequent ones - has been shown to hold at the level of words in many languages. We tested whether it holds at the level of individual written characters. Character complexity is similar to word length in that it requires more cognitive and motor effort for producing and processing more complex symbols. We built a dataset of character complexity and frequency measures covering 27 different writing systems. According to our data, Zipf's Law of Abbreviation holds for every writing system in our dataset - the more frequent characters have lower degrees of complexity and vice-versa. This result provides further evidence of optimization mechanisms shaping communication systems.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexey Koshevoy
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, 13003 Marseille, France; Institut Jean Nicod, Département d'études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, UMR 8129, 75005 Paris, France; Minds and Traditions Group, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, 07745 Jena, Germany.
| | | | - Olivier Morin
- Institut Jean Nicod, Département d'études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, UMR 8129, 75005 Paris, France; Minds and Traditions Group, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, 07745 Jena, Germany
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7
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Yu L, Zhang Q, Ke M, Han Y, Kinoshita S. Some neighbors are more interfering: Asymmetric priming by stroke neighbors in Chinese character recognition. Psychon Bull Rev 2023; 30:1065-1073. [PMID: 36324029 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-022-02207-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 10/17/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Chinese is a visually complex logographic script that consists of square-shaped characters, with each character composed of strokes. Previous masked priming studies using single-character Chinese stroke neighbors (i.e., visually similar characters differing in only one or two strokes, e.g., /) have shown facilitatory or inhibitory priming effects. We tested whether the mixed pattern of stroke neighbor priming might be an instance of asymmetry in priming that has been observed previously with Japanese kana and Latin alphabets. Specifically, a prime lacking a stroke (or line segment) that is present in the target speeds up the recognition of its stroke neighbor almost as much as the identity prime (e.g., - = -), but not the converse (e.g., - >> -). Two experiments, one using a character match task and the second using lexical decision, showed a robust asymmetry in priming by stroke neighbors. The results suggest that the early letter identification process is similar across script types, as anticipated by the Noisy Channel model, which regards the first stage of visual word recognition as a language-universal perceptual process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lili Yu
- School of Psychological Sciences and Macquarie University Centre for Reading (MQCR) Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia.
| | - Qiaoming Zhang
- School of Educational Science, Ludong University, Yantai, Shandong, China
| | - Meiling Ke
- School of Educational Science, Ludong University, Yantai, Shandong, China
| | - Yifei Han
- School of Educational Science, Ludong University, Yantai, Shandong, China
| | - Sachiko Kinoshita
- School of Psychological Sciences and Macquarie University Centre for Reading (MQCR) Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia
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8
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Youngblood M, Miton H, Morin O. Statistical signals of copying are robust to time- and space-averaging. EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES 2023; 5:e10. [PMID: 37587938 PMCID: PMC10426036 DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2023.5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2022] [Revised: 03/23/2023] [Accepted: 04/04/2023] [Indexed: 08/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Cattle brands (ownership marks left on animals) are subject to forces influencing other graphic codes: the copying of constituent parts, pressure for distinctiveness and pressure for complexity. The historical record of cattle brands in some US states is complete owing to legal registration, providing a unique opportunity to assess how sampling processes leading to time- and space-averaging influence our ability to make inferences from limited datasets in fields like archaeology. In this preregistered study, we used a dataset of ~81,000 Kansas cattle brands (1990-2016) to explore two aspects: (1) the relative influence of copying, pressure for distinctiveness and pressure for complexity on the creation and diffusion of brand components; and (2) the effects of time- and space-averaging on statistical signals. By conducting generative inference with an agent-based model, we found that the patterns in our data are consistent with copying and pressure for intermediate complexity. In addition, by comparing mixed and structured datasets, we found that these statistical signals of copying are robust to, and possibly boosted by, time- and space-averaging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mason Youngblood
- Minds and Traditions Group, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany
| | - Helena Miton
- Minds and Traditions Group, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany
- Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
| | - Olivier Morin
- Minds and Traditions Group, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany
- Institut Jean Nicod, ENS, EHESS, PSL University, CNRS, Paris, France
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9
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Lachmann T, Bergström K. The multiple-level framework of developmental dyslexia: the long trace from a neurodevelopmental deficit to an impaired cultural technique. JOURNAL OF CULTURAL COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2023. [DOI: 10.1007/s41809-023-00118-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/19/2023]
Abstract
AbstractDevelopmental dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by an unexpected impairment in literacy acquisition leading to specific poor academic achievement and possible secondary symptoms. The multi-level framework of developmental dyslexia considers five levels of a causal pathway on which a given genotype is expressed and hierarchically transmitted from one level to the next under the increasing influence of individual learning-relevant traits and environmental factors moderated by cultural conditions. These levels are the neurobiological, the information processing and the skill level (prerequisites and acquisition of literacy skills), the academic achievement level and the level of secondary effects. Various risk factors are present at each level within the assumed causal pathway and can increase the likelihood of exhibiting developmental dyslexia. Transition from one level to the next is neither unidirectional nor inevitable. This fact has direct implications for prevention and intervention which can mitigate transitions from one level to the next. In this paper, various evidence-based theories and findings regarding deficits at different levels are placed in the proposed framework. In addition, the moderating effect of cultural impact at and between information processing and skill levels are further elaborated based on a review of findings regarding influences of different writing systems and orthographies. These differences impose culture-specific demands for literacy-specific cognitive procedures, influencing both literacy acquisition and the manifestation of developmental dyslexia.
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11
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Vildavski VY, Lo Verde L, Blumberg G, Parsey J, Norcia AM. PseudoSloan: A perimetric-complexity and area-controlled font for vision and reading research. J Vis 2022; 22:7. [PMID: 36074477 PMCID: PMC9469028 DOI: 10.1167/jov.22.10.7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Artificial orthographies have long been used in studies of verbal learning and reading. These orthographies, also known as pseudo or false fonts, are designed to match the letters of an existing alphabet on a range of visual features, isolating effects of orthography from those owing to lexical processing. In a parallel line of research, there has been much interest in the design of optotypes for measuring visual acuity that have good properties in terms of character complexity and graceful degradation under blur. Here we merge these two traditions by designing a fully scalable pseudofont, “PseudoSloan,” that is based on the design rubric of the widely used Sloan optotypes. The font includes 26 Latin letters as well as two sets of letter-like symbols matching the Latin alphabet on a letter-by-letter basis. Quantitative matching of the pairs of Sloan and PseudoSloan glyphs is done on the basis of ink area and perimetric complexity. We provide the installable PseudoSloan font in TrueType and OpenType formats, plus a large number of PseudoSloan glyphs in .svg format that vary over wide ranges in their perimetric complexity and ink area (https://osf.io/qhj2b/).
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Affiliation(s)
- Vladimir Y Vildavski
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, California, USA.,
| | - Luca Lo Verde
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, California, USA.,
| | - Gail Blumberg
- Blumberg Communication Design, 309 Arden Road, Menlo Park, California, USA.,
| | - Joss Parsey
- Freelance Designer, 3810 Page Mill Road, Los Altos Hills, California, USA.,
| | - Anthony M Norcia
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, California, USA.,
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12
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Bucur D. The network signature of constellation line figures. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0272270. [PMID: 35901190 PMCID: PMC9333327 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272270] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/13/2021] [Accepted: 07/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
In traditional astronomies across the world, groups of stars in the night sky were linked into constellations-symbolic representations rich in meaning and with practical roles. In some sky cultures, constellations are represented as line (or connect-the-dot) figures, which are spatial networks drawn over the fixed background of stars. We analyse 1802 line figures from 56 sky cultures spanning all continents, in terms of their network, spatial, and brightness features, and ask what associations exist between these visual features and culture type or sky region. First, an embedded map of constellations is learnt, to show clusters of line figures. We then form the network of constellations (as linked by their similarity), to study how similar cultures are by computing their assortativity (or homophily) over the network. Finally, we measure the diversity (or entropy) index for the set of constellations drawn per sky region. Our results show distinct types of line figures, and that many folk astronomies with oral traditions have widespread similarities in constellation design, which do not align with cultural ancestry. In a minority of sky regions, certain line designs appear universal, but this is not the norm: in the majority of sky regions, the line geometries are diverse.
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Affiliation(s)
- Doina Bucur
- Department of Computer Science, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands
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13
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Jee H, Tamariz M, Shillcock R. Systematicity in language and the fast and slow creation of writing systems: Understanding two types of non-arbitrary relations between orthographic characters and their canonical pronunciation. Cognition 2022; 226:105197. [PMID: 35689873 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105197] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2021] [Revised: 05/21/2022] [Accepted: 05/31/2022] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Words that sound similar tend to have similar meanings, at a distributed, sub-symbolic level (Monaghan, Shillcock, Christiansen, & Kirby, 2014). We extend this paradigm for measuring systematicity to letters and their canonical pronunciations. We confirm that orthographies that were consciously constructed to be systematic (Korean and two shorthand writing systems) yield significant correlations between visual distances between characters and the corresponding phonological distances between canonical pronunciations. We then extend the approach to Arabic, Hebrew, and English and show that letters that look similar tend to sound similar in their canonical pronunciations. We indicate some of the implications for education, and for understanding typical and atypical reading. By using different visual distance metrics we distinguish between symbol-based (Korean, shorthand) and effort-based (Arabic, Hebrew, English) grapho-phonemic systematicity. We reinterpret existing demonstrations of phono-semantic systematicity in terms of cognitive effort.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hana Jee
- Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK.
| | - Monica Tamariz
- Psychology, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK.
| | - Richard Shillcock
- Psychology, The University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK.
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14
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Perfors A, Kidd E. The Role of Stimulus-Specific Perceptual Fluency in Statistical Learning. Cogn Sci 2022; 46:e13100. [PMID: 35122313 PMCID: PMC9285784 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2020] [Revised: 01/02/2022] [Accepted: 01/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Humans have the ability to learn surprisingly complicated statistical information in a variety of modalities and situations, often based on relatively little input. These statistical learning (SL) skills appear to underlie many kinds of learning, but despite their ubiquity, we still do not fully understand precisely what SL is and what individual differences on SL tasks reflect. Here, we present experimental work suggesting that at least some individual differences arise from stimulus‐specific variation in perceptual fluency: the ability to rapidly or efficiently code and remember the stimuli that SL occurs over. Experiment 1 demonstrates that participants show improved SL when the stimuli are simple and familiar; Experiment 2 shows that this improvement is not evident for simple but unfamiliar stimuli; and Experiment 3 shows that for the same stimuli (Chinese characters), SL is higher for people who are familiar with them (Chinese speakers) than those who are not (English speakers matched on age and education level). Overall, our findings indicate that performance on a standard SL task varies substantially within the same (visual) modality as a function of whether the stimuli involved are familiar or not, independent of stimulus complexity. Moreover, test–retest correlations of performance in an SL task using stimuli of the same level of familiarity (but distinct items) are stronger than correlations across the same task with stimuli of different levels of familiarity. Finally, we demonstrate that SL performance is predicted by an independent measure of stimulus‐specific perceptual fluency that contains no SL component at all. Our results suggest that a key component of SL performance may be related to stimulus‐specific processing and familiarity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew Perfors
- School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
| | - Evan Kidd
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
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15
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Kelly P, Winters J, Miton H, Morin O. The Predictable Evolution of Letter Shapes. CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1086/717779] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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16
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Han SJ, Kelly P, Winters J, Kemp C. Simplification Is Not Dominant in the Evolution of Chinese Characters. Open Mind (Camb) 2022; 6:264-279. [PMID: 36891037 PMCID: PMC9987343 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2022] [Accepted: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Linguistic systems are hypothesised to be shaped by pressures towards communicative efficiency that drive processes of simplification. A longstanding illustration of this idea is the claim that Chinese characters have progressively simplified over time. Here we test this claim by analyzing a dataset with more than half a million images of Chinese characters spanning more than 3,000 years of recorded history. We find no consistent evidence of simplification through time, and contrary to popular belief we find that modern Chinese characters are higher in visual complexity than their earliest known counterparts. One plausible explanation for our findings is that simplicity trades off with distinctiveness, and that characters have become less simple because of pressures towards distinctiveness. Our findings are therefore compatible with functional accounts of language but highlight the diverse and sometimes counterintuitive ways in which linguistic systems are shaped by pressures for communicative efficiency.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simon J Han
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
| | - Piers Kelly
- Department of Archaeology, Classics and History, University of New England, Armidale, Australia
| | - James Winters
- School of Collective Intelligence, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Rabat, Morocco
| | - Charles Kemp
- Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
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17
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Karjus A, Blythe RA, Kirby S, Wang T, Smith K. Conceptual Similarity and Communicative Need Shape Colexification: An Experimental Study. Cogn Sci 2021; 45:e13035. [PMID: 34491584 PMCID: PMC9285023 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2021] [Revised: 06/18/2021] [Accepted: 07/19/2021] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Colexification refers to the phenomenon of multiple meanings sharing one word in a language. Cross‐linguistic lexification patterns have been shown to be largely predictable, as similar concepts are often colexified. We test a recent claim that, beyond this general tendency, communicative needs play an important role in shaping colexification patterns. We approach this question by means of a series of human experiments, using an artificial language communication game paradigm. Our results across four experiments match the previous cross‐linguistic findings: all other things being equal, speakers do prefer to colexify similar concepts. However, we also find evidence supporting the communicative need hypothesis: when faced with a frequent need to distinguish similar pairs of meanings, speakadjust their colexification preferences to maintain communicative efficiency and avoid colexifying those similar meanings which need to be distinguished in communication. This research provides further evidence to support the argument that languages are shaped by the needs and preferences of their speakers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andres Karjus
- ERA Chair for Cultural Data Analytics, Tallinn University.,School of Humanities, Tallinn University.,Centre for Language Evolution, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh
| | - Richard A Blythe
- Centre for Language Evolution, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh.,School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh
| | - Simon Kirby
- Centre for Language Evolution, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh
| | | | - Kenny Smith
- Centre for Language Evolution, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh
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