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Abstract
Iconic words and signs are characterized by a perceived resemblance between aspects of their form and aspects of their meaning. For example, in English, iconic words include peep and crash, which mimic the sounds they denote, and wiggle and zigzag, which mimic motion. As a semiotic property of words and signs, iconicity has been demonstrated to play a role in word learning, language processing, and language evolution. This paper presents the results of a large-scale norming study for more than 14,000 English words conducted with over 1400 American English speakers. We demonstrate the utility of these ratings by replicating a number of existing findings showing that iconicity ratings are related to age of acquisition, sensory modality, semantic neighborhood density, structural markedness, and playfulness. We discuss possible use cases and limitations of the rating dataset, which is made publicly available.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bodo Winter
- Department of English Language & Linguistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
| | - Gary Lupyan
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Lynn K Perry
- Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Marcus Perlman
- Department of English Language & Linguistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
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2
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Dingemanse M, Enfield NJ. Interactive repair and the foundations of language. Trends Cogn Sci 2024; 28:30-42. [PMID: 37852803 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2023.09.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2023] [Revised: 08/16/2023] [Accepted: 09/15/2023] [Indexed: 10/20/2023]
Abstract
The robustness and flexibility of human language is underpinned by a machinery of interactive repair. Repair is deeply intertwined with two core properties of human language: reflexivity (it can communicate about itself) and accountability (it is used to publicly enforce social norms). We review empirical and theoretical advances from across the cognitive sciences that mark interactive repair as a domain of pragmatic universals, a key place to study metacognition in interaction, and a system that enables collective computation. This provides novel insights into the role of repair in comparative cognition, language development, and human-computer interaction. As an always-available fallback option and an infrastructure for negotiating social commitments, interactive repair is foundational to the resilience, complexity, and flexibility of human language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Dingemanse
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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3
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Dideriksen C, Christiansen MH, Dingemanse M, Højmark-Bertelsen M, Johansson C, Tylén K, Fusaroli R. Language-Specific Constraints on Conversation: Evidence from Danish and Norwegian. Cogn Sci 2023; 47:e13387. [PMID: 38009981 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13387] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2023] [Revised: 10/30/2023] [Accepted: 11/13/2023] [Indexed: 11/29/2023]
Abstract
Establishing and maintaining mutual understanding in everyday conversations is crucial. To do so, people employ a variety of conversational devices, such as backchannels, repair, and linguistic entrainment. Here, we explore whether the use of conversational devices might be influenced by cross-linguistic differences in the speakers' native language, comparing two matched languages-Danish and Norwegian-differing primarily in their sound structure, with Danish being more opaque, that is, less acoustically distinguished. Across systematically manipulated conversational contexts, we find that processes supporting mutual understanding in conversations vary with external constraints: across different contexts and, crucially, across languages. In accord with our predictions, linguistic entrainment was overall higher in Danish than in Norwegian, while backchannels and repairs presented a more nuanced pattern. These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that native speakers of Danish may compensate for its opaque sound structure by adopting a top-down strategy of building more conversational redundancy through entrainment, which also might reduce the need for repairs. These results suggest that linguistic differences might be met by systematic changes in language processing and use. This paves the way for further cross-linguistic investigations and critical assessment of the interplay between cultural and linguistic factors on the one hand and conversational dynamics on the other.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Morten H Christiansen
- School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University
- The Interacting Minds Center, Aarhus University
- Department of Psychology, Cornell University
| | | | | | - Christer Johansson
- Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen
| | - Kristian Tylén
- School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University
- The Interacting Minds Center, Aarhus University
| | - Riccardo Fusaroli
- School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University
- The Interacting Minds Center, Aarhus University
- Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania
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4
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Rossi G, Dingemanse M, Floyd S, Baranova J, Blythe J, Kendrick KH, Zinken J, Enfield NJ. Shared cross-cultural principles underlie human prosocial behavior at the smallest scale. Sci Rep 2023; 13:6057. [PMID: 37076538 PMCID: PMC10115833 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-30580-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2022] [Accepted: 02/27/2023] [Indexed: 04/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Prosociality and cooperation are key to what makes us human. But different cultural norms can shape our evolved capacities for interaction, leading to differences in social relations. How people share resources has been found to vary across cultures, particularly when stakes are high and when interactions are anonymous. Here we examine prosocial behavior among familiars (both kin and non-kin) in eight cultures on five continents, using video recordings of spontaneous requests for immediate, low-cost assistance (e.g., to pass a utensil). We find that, at the smallest scale of human interaction, prosocial behavior follows cross-culturally shared principles: requests for assistance are very frequent and mostly successful; and when people decline to give help, they normally give a reason. Although there are differences in the rates at which such requests are ignored, or require verbal acceptance, cultural variation is limited, pointing to a common foundation for everyday cooperation around the world.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Simeon Floyd
- Department of Anthropology, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador
| | - Julija Baranova
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Joe Blythe
- Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
| | - Kobin H Kendrick
- Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, York, UK
| | - Jörg Zinken
- Leibniz Institute for the German Language, Mannheim, Germany
| | - N J Enfield
- Discipline of Linguistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
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5
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Van Hoey T, Thompson AL, Do Y, Dingemanse M. Iconicity in Ideophones: Guessing, Memorizing, and Reassessing. Cogn Sci 2023; 47:e13268. [PMID: 37062829 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13268] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2022] [Revised: 02/15/2023] [Accepted: 02/21/2023] [Indexed: 04/18/2023]
Abstract
Iconicity, or the resemblance between form and meaning, is often ascribed to a special status and contrasted with default assumptions of arbitrariness in spoken language. But does iconicity in spoken language have a special status when it comes to learnability? A simple way to gauge learnability is to see how well something is retrieved from memory. We can further contrast this with guessability, to see (1) whether the ease of guessing the meanings of ideophones outperforms the rate at which they are remembered; and (2) how willing participants' are to reassess what they were taught in a prior task-a novel contribution of this study. We replicate prior guessing and memory tasks using ideophones and adjectives from Japanese, Korean, and Igbo. Our results show that although native Cantonese speakers guessed ideophone meanings above chance level, they memorized both ideophones and adjectives with comparable accuracy. However, response time data show that participants took significantly longer to respond correctly to adjective-meaning pairs-indicating a discrepancy in a cognitive effort that favored the recognition of ideophones. In a follow-up reassessment task, participants who were taught foil translations were more likely to choose the true translations for ideophones rather than adjectives. By comparing the findings from our guessing and memory tasks, we conclude that iconicity is more accessible if a task requires participants to actively seek out sound-meaning associations.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Youngah Do
- Department of Linguistics, The University of Hong Kong
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6
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Dingemanse M, Liesenfeld A, Rasenberg M, Albert S, Ameka FK, Birhane A, Bolis D, Cassell J, Clift R, Cuffari E, De Jaegher H, Novaes CD, Enfield NJ, Fusaroli R, Gregoromichelaki E, Hutchins E, Konvalinka I, Milton D, Rączaszek-Leonardi J, Reddy V, Rossano F, Schlangen D, Seibt J, Stokoe E, Suchman L, Vesper C, Wheatley T, Wiltschko M. Beyond Single-Mindedness: A Figure-Ground Reversal for the Cognitive Sciences. Cogn Sci 2023; 47:e13230. [PMID: 36625324 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13230] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/01/2022] [Accepted: 11/27/2022] [Indexed: 01/11/2023]
Abstract
A fundamental fact about human minds is that they are never truly alone: all minds are steeped in situated interaction. That social interaction matters is recognized by any experimentalist who seeks to exclude its influence by studying individuals in isolation. On this view, interaction complicates cognition. Here, we explore the more radical stance that interaction co-constitutes cognition: that we benefit from looking beyond single minds toward cognition as a process involving interacting minds. All around the cognitive sciences, there are approaches that put interaction center stage. Their diverse and pluralistic origins may obscure the fact that collectively, they harbor insights and methods that can respecify foundational assumptions and fuel novel interdisciplinary work. What might the cognitive sciences gain from stronger interactional foundations? This represents, we believe, one of the key questions for the future. Writing as a transdisciplinary collective assembled from across the classic cognitive science hexagon and beyond, we highlight the opportunity for a figure-ground reversal that puts interaction at the heart of cognition. The interactive stance is a way of seeing that deserves to be a key part of the conceptual toolkit of cognitive scientists.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Marlou Rasenberg
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
| | - Saul Albert
- Discourse and Rhetoric Group, Loughborough University
| | | | - Abeba Birhane
- Mozilla Foundation
- School of Computer Science, University College Dublin
| | - Dimitris Bolis
- Independent Max Planck Research Group for Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry
- National Institute for Physiological Sciences
| | - Justine Cassell
- School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
- Paris Artificial Intelligence Research Institute
| | - Rebecca Clift
- Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex
| | - Elena Cuffari
- Department of Psychology, Franklin and Marshall College
| | - Hanne De Jaegher
- IAS-Research Center for Mind, Life and Society, Department of Philosophy, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
| | | | - N J Enfield
- Department of Linguistics, The University of Sydney
| | - Riccardo Fusaroli
- Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science & Semiotics, Aarhus University
- Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University
- Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania
| | | | - Edwin Hutchins
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego
| | - Ivana Konvalinka
- Section for Cognitive Systems, DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark
| | | | | | | | - Federico Rossano
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California San Diego
| | | | - Johanna Seibt
- Research Unit for Robophilosophy and Integrative Social Robotics, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University
| | - Elizabeth Stokoe
- Discourse and Rhetoric Group, Loughborough University
- Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, London School of Economics
| | | | - Cordula Vesper
- Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science & Semiotics, Aarhus University
- Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University
| | - Thalia Wheatley
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College
- Santa Fe Institute
| | - Martina Wiltschko
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Universitat Pompeu Fabra
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7
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Dideriksen C, Christiansen MH, Tylén K, Dingemanse M, Fusaroli R. Quantifying the interplay of conversational devices in building mutual understanding. J Exp Psychol Gen 2022; 152:864-889. [PMID: 36521115 DOI: 10.1037/xge0001301] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
Humans readily engage in idle chat and heated discussions and negotiate tough joint decisions without ever having to think twice about how to keep the conversation grounded in mutual understanding. However, current attempts at identifying and assessing the conversational devices that make this possible are fragmented across disciplines and investigate single devices within single contexts. We present a comprehensive conceptual framework to investigate conversational devices, their relations, and how they adjust to contextual demands. In two corpus studies, we systematically test the role of three conversational devices: backchannels, repair, and linguistic entrainment. Contrasting affiliative and task-oriented conversations within participants, we find that conversational devices adaptively adjust to the increased need for precision in the latter: We show that low-precision devices such as backchannels are more frequent in affiliative conversations, whereas more costly but higher-precision mechanisms, such as specific repairs, are more frequent in task-oriented conversations. Further, task-oriented conversations involve higher complementarity of contributions in terms of the content and perspective: lower semantic entrainment and less frequent (but richer) lexical and syntactic entrainment. Finally, we show that the observed variations in the use of conversational devices are potentially adaptive: pairs of interlocutors that show stronger linguistic complementarity perform better across the two tasks. By combining motivated comparisons of several conversational contexts and theoretically informed computational analyses of empirical data the present work lays the foundations for a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding the use of conversational devices in dialogue. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
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8
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Eijk L, Rasenberg M, Arnese F, Blokpoel M, Dingemanse M, Doeller CF, Ernestus M, Holler J, Milivojevic B, Özyürek A, Pouw W, van Rooij I, Schriefers H, Toni I, Trujillo J, Bögels S. The CABB dataset: A multimodal corpus of communicative interactions for behavioural and neural analyses. Neuroimage 2022; 264:119734. [PMID: 36343884 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119734] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2022] [Revised: 10/07/2022] [Accepted: 11/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
We present a dataset of behavioural and fMRI observations acquired in the context of humans involved in multimodal referential communication. The dataset contains audio/video and motion-tracking recordings of face-to-face, task-based communicative interactions in Dutch, as well as behavioural and neural correlates of participants' representations of dialogue referents. Seventy-one pairs of unacquainted participants performed two interleaved interactional tasks in which they described and located 16 novel geometrical objects (i.e., Fribbles) yielding spontaneous interactions of about one hour. We share high-quality video (from three cameras), audio (from head-mounted microphones), and motion-tracking (Kinect) data, as well as speech transcripts of the interactions. Before and after engaging in the face-to-face communicative interactions, participants' individual representations of the 16 Fribbles were estimated. Behaviourally, participants provided a written description (one to three words) for each Fribble and positioned them along 29 independent conceptual dimensions (e.g., rounded, human, audible). Neurally, fMRI signal evoked by each Fribble was measured during a one-back working-memory task. To enable functional hyperalignment across participants, the dataset also includes fMRI measurements obtained during visual presentation of eight animated movies (35 min total). We present analyses for the various types of data demonstrating their quality and consistency with earlier research. Besides high-resolution multimodal interactional data, this dataset includes different correlates of communicative referents, obtained before and after face-to-face dialogue, allowing for novel investigations into the relation between communicative behaviours and the representational space shared by communicators. This unique combination of data can be used for research in neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, and beyond.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lotte Eijk
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Marlou Rasenberg
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Flavia Arnese
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands
| | - Mark Blokpoel
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Christian F Doeller
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Centre for Neural Computation, The Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits, Jebsen Centre for Alzheimer's Disease, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; Wilhelm Wundt Institute of Psychology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Mirjam Ernestus
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Judith Holler
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Branka Milivojevic
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands
| | - Asli Özyürek
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands
| | - Wim Pouw
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Iris van Rooij
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands; Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science, and Semiotics, and the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University, Denmark
| | - Herbert Schriefers
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands
| | - Ivan Toni
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands
| | - James Trujillo
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Sara Bögels
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, P.O.Box 9010, Nijmegen, Gelderland 6500, the Netherlands; Department of Cognition and Communication, Tilburg University, the Netherlands.
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9
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Heesen R, Fröhlich M, Sievers C, Woensdregt M, Dingemanse M. Coordinating social action: a primer for the cross-species investigation of communicative repair. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20210110. [PMID: 35876201 PMCID: PMC9310172 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0110] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2021] [Accepted: 12/06/2021] [Indexed: 09/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Human joint action is inherently cooperative, manifested in the collaborative efforts of participants to minimize communicative trouble through interactive repair. Although interactive repair requires sophisticated cognitive abilities, it can be dissected into basic building blocks shared with non-human animal species. A review of the primate literature shows that interactionally contingent signal sequences are at least common among species of non-human great apes, suggesting a gradual evolution of repair. To pioneer a cross-species assessment of repair this paper aims at (i) identifying necessary precursors of human interactive repair; (ii) proposing a coding framework for its comparative study in humans and non-human species; and (iii) using this framework to analyse examples of interactions of humans (adults/children) and non-human great apes. We hope this paper will serve as a primer for cross-species comparisons of communicative breakdowns and how they are repaired. This article is part of the theme issue 'Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination'.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Marlen Fröhlich
- Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
- Paleoanthropology, Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, University of Tübingen, Germany
| | | | - Marieke Woensdregt
- Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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10
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Rasenberg M, Özyürek A, Bögels S, Dingemanse M. The Primacy of Multimodal Alignment in Converging on Shared Symbols for Novel Referents. Discourse Processes 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/0163853x.2021.1992235] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Marlou Rasenberg
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
- Communicative Alignment in Brain and Behaviour team, Language in Interaction consortium, the Netherlands
| | - Asli Özyürek
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University
- Communicative Alignment in Brain and Behaviour team, Language in Interaction consortium, the Netherlands
| | - Sara Bögels
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University
- Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University
- Communicative Alignment in Brain and Behaviour team, Language in Interaction consortium, the Netherlands
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
- Communicative Alignment in Brain and Behaviour team, Language in Interaction consortium, the Netherlands
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11
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Winter B, Sóskuthy M, Perlman M, Dingemanse M. Trilled /r/ is associated with roughness, linking sound and touch across spoken languages. Sci Rep 2022; 12:1035. [PMID: 35058475 PMCID: PMC8776840 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-04311-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2021] [Accepted: 12/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Cross-modal integration between sound and texture is important to perception and action. Here we show this has repercussions for the structure of spoken languages. We present a new statistical universal linking speech with the evolutionarily ancient sense of touch. Words that express roughness—the primary perceptual dimension of texture—are highly likely to feature a trilled /r/, the most commonly occurring rhotic consonant. In four studies, we show the pattern to be extremely robust, being the first widespread pattern of iconicity documented not just across a large, diverse sample of the world’s spoken languages, but also across numerous sensory words within languages. Our deep analysis of Indo-European languages and Proto-Indo-European roots indicates remarkable historical stability of the pattern, which appears to date back at least 6000 years.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bodo Winter
- Department of English Language and Linguistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
| | - Márton Sóskuthy
- Department of Linguistics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
| | - Marcus Perlman
- Department of English Language and Linguistics, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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12
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van Leeuwen TM, Wilsson L, Norrman HN, Dingemanse M, Bölte S, Neufeld J. Perceptual processing links autism and synesthesia: A co-twin control study. Cortex 2021; 145:236-249. [PMID: 34763130 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.09.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2020] [Revised: 05/21/2021] [Accepted: 09/02/2021] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Synesthesia occurs more commonly in individuals fulfilling criteria for an autism spectrum diagnosis than in the general population. It is associated with autistic traits and autism-related perceptual processing characteristics, including a more detail-focused attentional style and altered sensory sensitivity. In addition, these characteristics correlate with the degree of grapheme-color synesthesia (consistency of grapheme-color associations) in non-synesthetes. We investigated a predominantly non-synesthetic twin sample, including individuals fulfilling criteria for an autism spectrum diagnosis or other neurodevelopmental disorders (n = 65, 14-34 years, 60% female). We modelled linear relationships between the degree of grapheme-color synesthesia and autistic traits, sensory sensitivity, and visual perception, both within-twin pairs (22 pairs) where all factors shared by twins are implicitly controlled (including 50-100% genetics), and across the entire cohort. We found that the degree of grapheme-color synesthesia was associated with autistic traits within the domain of Attention to Details and with sensory hyper-, but not hypo-sensitivity. These associations were stronger within-twin pairs than across the sample. Further, twins with a higher degree of grapheme-color synesthesia were better than their co-twins at identifying fragmented images (Fragmented Pictures Test). This is the first twin study on the association between synesthesia and autism-related perceptual features and traits. The results suggest that investigating these associations within-twin pairs, implicitly adjusting for potential confounding factors shared by twins, is more sensitive than doing so in non-related individuals. Consistent with previous findings, the results suggest an association between the degree of grapheme-color synesthesia and autism-related perceptual features, while utilizing a different measure for sensory sensitivity. The novel finding of enhanced fragmented picture integration in twins with a higher degree of grapheme-color synesthesia challenges the view of a generally more detail-focused attentional style in synesthesia and might be related to enhanced memory or mental imagery in more synesthetic individuals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tessa M van Leeuwen
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands
| | - Lowe Wilsson
- Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (KIND), Centre for Psychiatry Research, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet & Stockholm Health Care Services, Region Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Hjalmar Nobel Norrman
- Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (KIND), Centre for Psychiatry Research, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet & Stockholm Health Care Services, Region Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Sven Bölte
- Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (KIND), Centre for Psychiatry Research, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet & Stockholm Health Care Services, Region Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden; Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Stockholm Health Care Services, Region Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden; Curtin Autism Research Group, Curtin School of Allied Health, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia
| | - Janina Neufeld
- Center of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (KIND), Centre for Psychiatry Research, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet & Stockholm Health Care Services, Region Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden.
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13
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Pouw W, Dingemanse M, Motamedi Y, Özyürek A. A Systematic Investigation of Gesture Kinematics in Evolving Manual Languages in the Lab. Cogn Sci 2021; 45:e13014. [PMID: 34288069 PMCID: PMC8365719 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2021] [Revised: 05/25/2021] [Accepted: 06/09/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Silent gestures consist of complex multi‐articulatory movements but are now primarily studied through categorical coding of the referential gesture content. The relation of categorical linguistic content with continuous kinematics is therefore poorly understood. Here, we reanalyzed the video data from a gestural evolution experiment (Motamedi, Schouwstra, Smith, Culbertson, & Kirby, 2019), which showed increases in the systematicity of gesture content over time. We applied computer vision techniques to quantify the kinematics of the original data. Our kinematic analyses demonstrated that gestures become more efficient and less complex in their kinematics over generations of learners. We further detect the systematicity of gesture form on the level of thegesture kinematic interrelations, which directly scales with the systematicity obtained on semantic coding of the gestures. Thus, from continuous kinematics alone, we can tap into linguistic aspects that were previously only approachable through categorical coding of meaning. Finally, going beyond issues of systematicity, we show how unique gesture kinematic dialects emerged over generations as isolated chains of participants gradually diverged over iterations from other chains. We, thereby, conclude that gestures can come to embody the linguistic system at the level of interrelationships between communicative tokens, which should calibrate our theories about form and linguistic content.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wim Pouw
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen.,Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Radboud University Nijmegen
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen.,Center for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen
| | | | - Aslı Özyürek
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen.,Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Radboud University Nijmegen.,Center for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen
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14
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Neufeld J, Leeuwen TV, Wilsson L, Norrman H, Dingemanse M, Bölte S. Perceptual processing links autism and synesthesia: A twin study. Eur Psychiatry 2021. [PMCID: PMC9471851 DOI: 10.1192/j.eurpsy.2021.367] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Introduction Synesthesia is a non-pathological condition where sensory stimuli (e.g. letters or sounds) lead to additional sensations (e.g. color). It occurs more commonly in individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) and is associated with increased autistic traits and autism-related perceptual processing characteristics, including a more detail-focused attentional style and altered sensory sensitivity. In addition, autistic traits correlate with the degree of synesthesia (consistency of color choices on an objective synesthesia test) in non-synesthetes. Objectives We aimed to investigate whether the degree of synesthesia for graphemes is associated with autistic traits and perceptual processing alterations within twin pairs, where all factors shared by twins (e.g. age, family background, and 50-100% genetics) are implicitly controlled for. Methods We investigated a predominantly non-synesthetic twin sample, enriched for ASC and other neurodevelopmental disorders (n=65, 14-34 years, 60% female), modelling the linear relationships between the degree of synesthesia and autistic traits, sensory sensitivity, and visual perception, both within-twin pairs (22 pairs) and across the entire cohort. Results A higher degree of synesthesia was associated with increased autistic traits only within the attention to details domain, with sensory hyper-, but not hypo-sensitivity and with being better in identifying fragmented images. These associations were stronger within-twin pairs compared to across the sample. Conclusions Consistent with previous findings, the results support an association between the degree of synesthesia and autistic traits and autism-related perceptual features, however restricted to specific domains. Further, the results indicate that a twin design can be more sensitive for detecting these associations. Disclosure No significant relationships.
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15
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Abstract
Interest in iconicity (the resemblance-based mapping between aspects of form and meaning) is in the midst of a resurgence, and a prominent focus in the field has been the possible role of iconicity in language learning. Here we critically review theory and empirical findings in this domain. We distinguish local learning enhancement (where the iconicity of certain lexical items influences the learning of those items) and general learning enhancement (where the iconicity of certain lexical items influences the later learning of non-iconic items or systems). We find that evidence for local learning enhancement is quite strong, though not as clear cut as it is often described and based on a limited sample of languages. Despite common claims about broader facilitatory effects of iconicity on learning, we find that current evidence for general learning enhancement is lacking. We suggest a number of productive avenues for future research and specify what types of evidence would be required to show a role for iconicity in general learning enhancement. We also review evidence for functions of iconicity beyond word learning: iconicity enhances comprehension by providing complementary representations, supports communication about sensory imagery, and expresses affective meanings. Even if learning benefits may be modest or cross-linguistically varied, on balance, iconicity emerges as a vital aspect of language.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Mark Dingemanse, Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Houtlaan 4, Nijmegen, 6500 HD, Netherlands.
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16
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Abstract
When people are engaged in social interaction, they can repeat aspects of each other's communicative behavior, such as words or gestures. This kind of behavioral alignment has been studied across a wide range of disciplines and has been accounted for by diverging theories. In this paper, we review various operationalizations of lexical and gestural alignment. We reveal that scholars have fundamentally different takes on when and how behavior is considered to be aligned, which makes it difficult to compare findings and draw uniform conclusions. Furthermore, we show that scholars tend to focus on one particular dimension of alignment (traditionally, whether two instances of behavior overlap in form), while other dimensions remain understudied. This hampers theory testing and building, which requires a well-defined account of the factors that are central to or might enhance alignment. To capture the complex nature of alignment, we identify five key dimensions to formalize the relationship between any pair of behavior: time, sequence, meaning, form, and modality. We show how assumptions regarding the underlying mechanism of alignment (placed along the continuum of priming vs. grounding) pattern together with operationalizations in terms of the five dimensions. This integrative framework can help researchers in the field of alignment and related phenomena (including behavior matching, mimicry, entrainment, and accommodation) to formulate their hypotheses and operationalizations in a more transparent and systematic manner. The framework also enables us to discover unexplored research avenues and derive new hypotheses regarding alignment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marlou Rasenberg
- Centre for Language StudiesRadboud University
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and BehaviourRadboud University
| | - Asli Özyürek
- Centre for Language StudiesRadboud University
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and BehaviourRadboud University
- Communicative Alignment in Brain and Behaviour TeamLanguage in Interaction Consortium
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Centre for Language StudiesRadboud University
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and BehaviourRadboud University
- Communicative Alignment in Brain and Behaviour TeamLanguage in Interaction Consortium
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17
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van Leeuwen TM, van Petersen E, Burghoorn F, Dingemanse M, van Lier R. Autistic traits in synaesthesia: atypical sensory sensitivity and enhanced perception of details. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2019; 374:20190024. [PMID: 31630653 PMCID: PMC6834020 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/30/2019] [Indexed: 01/16/2023] Open
Abstract
In synaesthetes, specific sensory stimuli (e.g. black letters) elicit additional experiences (e.g. colour). Synaesthesia is highly prevalent among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but the mechanisms of this co-occurrence are not clear. We hypothesized autism and synaesthesia share atypical sensory sensitivity and perception. We assessed autistic traits, sensory sensitivity and visual perception in two synaesthete populations. In Study 1, synaesthetes (N = 79, of different types) scored higher than non-synaesthetes (N = 76) on the Attention-to-detail and Social skills subscales of the autism spectrum quotient indexing autistic traits, and on the Glasgow Sensory Questionnaire indexing sensory hypersensitivity and hyposensitivity which frequently occur in autism. Synaesthetes performed two local/global visual tasks because individuals with autism typically show a bias towards detail processing. In synaesthetes, elevated motion coherence thresholds (MCTs) suggested reduced global motion perception, and higher accuracy on an embedded figures task suggested enhanced local perception. In Study 2, sequence-space synaesthetes (N = 18) completed the same tasks. Questionnaire and embedded figures results qualitatively resembled Study 1 results, but no significant group differences with non-synaesthetes (N = 20) were obtained. Unexpectedly, sequence-space synaesthetes had reduced MCTs. Altogether, our studies suggest atypical sensory sensitivity and a bias towards detail processing are shared features of synaesthesia and ASD. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue 'Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tessa M. van Leeuwen
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Eline van Petersen
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Floor Burghoorn
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Rob van Lier
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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18
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Majid A, Roberts SG, Cilissen L, Emmorey K, Nicodemus B, O'Grady L, Woll B, LeLan B, de Sousa H, Cansler BL, Shayan S, de Vos C, Senft G, Enfield NJ, Razak RA, Fedden S, Tufvesson S, Dingemanse M, Ozturk O, Brown P, Hill C, Le Guen O, Hirtzel V, van Gijn R, Sicoli MA, Levinson SC. Differential coding of perception in the world's languages. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2018; 115:11369-11376. [PMID: 30397135 PMCID: PMC6233065 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1720419115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 79] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Is there a universal hierarchy of the senses, such that some senses (e.g., vision) are more accessible to consciousness and linguistic description than others (e.g., smell)? The long-standing presumption in Western thought has been that vision and audition are more objective than the other senses, serving as the basis of knowledge and understanding, whereas touch, taste, and smell are crude and of little value. This predicts that humans ought to be better at communicating about sight and hearing than the other senses, and decades of work based on English and related languages certainly suggests this is true. However, how well does this reflect the diversity of languages and communities worldwide? To test whether there is a universal hierarchy of the senses, stimuli from the five basic senses were used to elicit descriptions in 20 diverse languages, including 3 unrelated sign languages. We found that languages differ fundamentally in which sensory domains they linguistically code systematically, and how they do so. The tendency for better coding in some domains can be explained in part by cultural preoccupations. Although languages seem free to elaborate specific sensory domains, some general tendencies emerge: for example, with some exceptions, smell is poorly coded. The surprise is that, despite the gradual phylogenetic accumulation of the senses, and the imbalances in the neural tissue dedicated to them, no single hierarchy of the senses imposes itself upon language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Asifa Majid
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands;
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, 6525 HP Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Seán G Roberts
- Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TH, United Kingdom
| | - Ludy Cilissen
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Karen Emmorey
- School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182
| | - Brenda Nicodemus
- Department of Interpretation & Translation, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC 20002
| | - Lucinda O'Grady
- School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182
| | - Bencie Woll
- Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
| | - Barbara LeLan
- English Studies, Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Hilário de Sousa
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Brian L Cansler
- Department of Linguistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
| | - Shakila Shayan
- Education & Pedagogy, Utrecht University, 3512 JE Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Connie de Vos
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, 6525 HP Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Gunter Senft
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - N J Enfield
- Department of Linguistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
| | - Rogayah A Razak
- Centre for Rehabilitation and Specials Needs, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Sebastian Fedden
- Institute of General and Applied Linguistics and Phonetics, Université Paris 3 (Sorbonne-Nouvelle), 75005 Paris, France
| | - Sylvia Tufvesson
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Ozge Ozturk
- Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1TN, United Kingdom
| | - Penelope Brown
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Clair Hill
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Department of Linguistics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
- Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
| | - Olivier Le Guen
- Linguistics Department, Centro de Investigación y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 14000 Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Vincent Hirtzel
- Laboratory of Ethnology and Comparative Sociology, CNRS/Paris Nanterre University, 92000 Nanterre, France
| | - Rik van Gijn
- Center for Linguistics, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Mark A Sicoli
- Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904
| | - Stephen C Levinson
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 6525 XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands;
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, 6525 HP Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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19
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Floyd S, Rossi G, Baranova J, Blythe J, Dingemanse M, Kendrick KH, Zinken J, Enfield NJ. Universals and cultural diversity in the expression of gratitude. R Soc Open Sci 2018; 5:180391. [PMID: 29892463 PMCID: PMC5990755 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.180391] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2018] [Accepted: 04/17/2018] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
Gratitude is argued to have evolved to motivate and maintain social reciprocity among people, and to be linked to a wide range of positive effects-social, psychological and even physical. But is socially reciprocal behaviour dependent on the expression of gratitude, for example by saying 'thank you' as in English? Current research has not included cross-cultural elements, and has tended to conflate gratitude as an emotion with gratitude as a linguistic practice, as might appear to be the case in English. Here, we ask to what extent people express gratitude in different societies by focusing on episodes of everyday life where someone seeks and obtains a good, service or support from another, comparing these episodes across eight languages from five continents. We find that expressions of gratitude in these episodes are remarkably rare, suggesting that social reciprocity in everyday life relies on tacit understandings of rights and duties surrounding mutual assistance and collaboration. At the same time, we also find minor cross-cultural variation, with slightly higher rates in Western European languages English and Italian, showing that universal tendencies of social reciprocity should not be equated with more culturally variable practices of expressing gratitude. Our study complements previous experimental and culture-specific research on gratitude with a systematic comparison of audiovisual corpora of naturally occurring social interaction from different cultures from around the world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Simeon Floyd
- Department of Anthropology, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Diego de Robles, Quito 170157, Ecuador
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, Nijmegen 6525XD, The Netherlands
| | - Giovanni Rossi
- Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian, and Scandinavian Studies, University of Helsinki, Vuorikatu 3A, Helsinki 00100, Finland
| | - Julija Baranova
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, Nijmegen 6525XD, The Netherlands
| | - Joe Blythe
- Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Macquarie Walk, North Ryde, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, Nijmegen 6525XD, The Netherlands
| | - Kobin H. Kendrick
- Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK
| | - Jörg Zinken
- Department of Pragmatics, Institute for the German Language in Mannheim, R5 6-13, Mannheim 68161, Germany
| | - N. J. Enfield
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, Nijmegen 6525XD, The Netherlands
- Department of Linguistics, The University of Sydney, John Woolley Building A20, Science Road, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
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20
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Dingemanse M, Blasi DE, Lupyan G, Christiansen MH, Monaghan P. Arbitrariness, Iconicity, and Systematicity in Language. Trends Cogn Sci 2016; 19:603-615. [PMID: 26412098 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.07.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 156] [Impact Index Per Article: 19.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2015] [Revised: 07/20/2015] [Accepted: 07/30/2015] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
The notion that the form of a word bears an arbitrary relation to its meaning accounts only partly for the attested relations between form and meaning in the languages of the world. Recent research suggests a more textured view of vocabulary structure, in which arbitrariness is complemented by iconicity (aspects of form resemble aspects of meaning) and systematicity (statistical regularities in forms predict function). Experimental evidence suggests these form-to-meaning correspondences serve different functions in language processing, development, and communication: systematicity facilitates category learning by means of phonological cues, iconicity facilitates word learning and communication by means of perceptuomotor analogies, and arbitrariness facilitates meaning individuation through distinctive forms. Processes of cultural evolution help to explain how these competing motivations shape vocabulary structure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Dingemanse
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
| | - Damián E Blasi
- Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Gary Lupyan
- University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Morten H Christiansen
- Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA; University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
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21
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Abstract
The existence of sound-symbolism (or a non-arbitrary link between form and meaning) is well-attested. However, sound-symbolism has mostly been investigated with nonwords in forced choice tasks, neither of which are representative of natural language. This study uses ideophones, which are naturally occurring sound-symbolic words that depict sensory information, to investigate how sensitive Dutch speakers are to sound-symbolism in Japanese in a learning task. Participants were taught 2 sets of Japanese ideophones; 1 set with the ideophones' real meanings in Dutch, the other set with their opposite meanings. In Experiment 1, participants learned the ideophones and their real meanings much better than the ideophones with their opposite meanings. Moreover, despite the learning rounds, participants were still able to guess the real meanings of the ideophones in a 2-alternative forced-choice test after they were informed of the manipulation. This shows that natural language sound-symbolism is robust beyond 2-alternative forced-choice paradigms and affects broader language processes such as word learning. In Experiment 2, participants learned regular Japanese adjectives with the same manipulation, and there was no difference between real and opposite conditions. This shows that natural language sound-symbolism is especially strong in ideophones, and that people learn words better when form and meaning match. The highlights of this study are as follows: (a) Dutch speakers learn real meanings of Japanese ideophones better than opposite meanings, (b) Dutch speakers accurately guess meanings of Japanese ideophones, (c) this sensitivity happens despite learning some opposite pairings, (d) no such learning effect exists for regular Japanese adjectives, and (e) this shows the importance of sound-symbolism in scaffolding language learning. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Affiliation(s)
- Gwilym Lockwood
- Neurobiology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
| | - Peter Hagoort
- Neurobiology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
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22
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Abstract
Numerous studies demonstrate people associate colors with letters and numbers in systematic ways. But most of these studies rely on speakers of English, or closely related languages. This makes it difficult to know how generalizable these findings are, or what factors might underlie these associations. We investigated letter–color and number–color associations in Arabic speakers, who have a different writing system and unusual word structure compared to Standard Average European languages. We also aimed to identify grapheme–color synaesthetes (people who have conscious color experiences with letters and numbers). Participants associated colors with 28 basic Arabic letters and ten digits by typing color names that best fit each grapheme. We found language-specific principles determining grapheme–color associations. For example, the word formation process in Arabic was relevant for color associations. In addition, psycholinguistic variables, such as letter frequency and the intrinsic order of graphemes influenced associations. Contrary to previous studies we found no evidence for sounds playing a role in letter–color associations for Arabic, and only a very limited role for shape influencing color associations. These findings highlight the importance of linguistic and psycholinguistic features in cross-modal correspondences, and illustrate why it is important to play close attention to each language on its own terms in order to disentangle language-specific from universal effects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tessa M. van Leeuwen
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Büşra Todil
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
| | - Amira Agameya
- American University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
- Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
| | - Asifa Majid
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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23
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Lockwood G, Dingemanse M. Corrigendum: Iconicity in the lab: a review of behavioral, developmental, and neuroimaging research into sound-symbolism. Front Psychol 2015; 6:1624. [PMID: 26539153 PMCID: PMC4609885 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01624] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/03/2015] [Accepted: 10/08/2015] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Gwilym Lockwood
- Neurobiology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen, Netherlands
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24
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Dingemanse M, Roberts SG, Baranova J, Blythe J, Drew P, Floyd S, Gisladottir RS, Kendrick KH, Levinson SC, Manrique E, Rossi G, Enfield NJ. Universal Principles in the Repair of Communication Problems. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0136100. [PMID: 26375483 PMCID: PMC4573759 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0136100] [Citation(s) in RCA: 64] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2015] [Accepted: 07/29/2015] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
There would be little adaptive value in a complex communication system like human language if there were no ways to detect and correct problems. A systematic comparison of conversation in a broad sample of the world’s languages reveals a universal system for the real-time resolution of frequent breakdowns in communication. In a sample of 12 languages of 8 language families of varied typological profiles we find a system of ‘other-initiated repair’, where the recipient of an unclear message can signal trouble and the sender can repair the original message. We find that this system is frequently used (on average about once per 1.4 minutes in any language), and that it has detailed common properties, contrary to assumptions of radical cultural variation. Unrelated languages share the same three functionally distinct types of repair initiator for signalling problems and use them in the same kinds of contexts. People prefer to choose the type that is the most specific possible, a principle that minimizes cost both for the sender being asked to fix the problem and for the dyad as a social unit. Disruption to the conversation is kept to a minimum, with the two-utterance repair sequence being on average no longer that the single utterance which is being fixed. The findings, controlled for historical relationships, situation types and other dependencies, reveal the fundamentally cooperative nature of human communication and offer support for the pragmatic universals hypothesis: while languages may vary in the organization of grammar and meaning, key systems of language use may be largely similar across cultural groups. They also provide a fresh perspective on controversies about the core properties of language, by revealing a common infrastructure for social interaction which may be the universal bedrock upon which linguistic diversity rests.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Dingemanse
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- * E-mail: (MD): (NJE)
| | - Seán G. Roberts
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Julija Baranova
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Joe Blythe
- School of Language and Linguistics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Paul Drew
- Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom
| | - Simeon Floyd
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Rosa S. Gisladottir
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Kobin H. Kendrick
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Stephen C. Levinson
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Donders Institute, PB 9104, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Elizabeth Manrique
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Giovanni Rossi
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - N. J. Enfield
- Language & Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Donders Institute, PB 9104, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
- * E-mail: (MD): (NJE)
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Lockwood G, Dingemanse M. Iconicity in the lab: a review of behavioral, developmental, and neuroimaging research into sound-symbolism. Front Psychol 2015; 6:1246. [PMID: 26379581 PMCID: PMC4547014 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01246] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2015] [Accepted: 08/04/2015] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
This review covers experimental approaches to sound-symbolism—from infants to adults, and from Sapir’s foundational studies to twenty-first century product naming. It synthesizes recent behavioral, developmental, and neuroimaging work into a systematic overview of the cross-modal correspondences that underpin iconic links between form and meaning. It also identifies open questions and opportunities, showing how the future course of experimental iconicity research can benefit from an integrated interdisciplinary perspective. Combining insights from psychology and neuroscience with evidence from natural languages provides us with opportunities for the experimental investigation of the role of sound-symbolism in language learning, language processing, and communication. The review finishes by describing how hypothesis-testing and model-building will help contribute to a cumulative science of sound-symbolism in human language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gwilym Lockwood
- Neurobiology of Language Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics , Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Mark Dingemanse
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics , Nijmegen, Netherlands
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Dingemanse M, Torreira F, Enfield NJ. Is "huh?" a universal word? Conversational infrastructure and the convergent evolution of linguistic items. PLoS One 2013; 8:e78273. [PMID: 24260108 PMCID: PMC3832628 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0078273] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2013] [Accepted: 09/18/2013] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
A word like Huh?–used as a repair initiator when, for example, one has not clearly heard what someone just said– is found in roughly the same form and function in spoken languages across the globe. We investigate it in naturally occurring conversations in ten languages and present evidence and arguments for two distinct claims: that Huh? is universal, and that it is a word. In support of the first, we show that the similarities in form and function of this interjection across languages are much greater than expected by chance. In support of the second claim we show that it is a lexical, conventionalised form that has to be learnt, unlike grunts or emotional cries. We discuss possible reasons for the cross-linguistic similarity and propose an account in terms of convergent evolution. Huh? is a universal word not because it is innate but because it is shaped by selective pressures in an interactional environment that all languages share: that of other-initiated repair. Our proposal enhances evolutionary models of language change by suggesting that conversational infrastructure can drive the convergent cultural evolution of linguistic items.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mark Dingemanse
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- * E-mail:
| | - Francisco Torreira
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - N. J. Enfield
- Language and Cognition Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Dingemanse M. Ezra Pound among the Mawu. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2011. [DOI: 10.1075/ill.10.03din] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/01/2023]
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Dingemanse M. The Enduring Spoken Word. Science 2009; 323:1010-1; author reply 1010-1. [DOI: 10.1126/science.323.5917.1010b] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/02/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Mark Dingemanse
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
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