Publications

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 recognised 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 towards cognition as a process involving interacting minds. All around the cognitive sciences, there are approaches that put interaction centre stage. Their diverse and pluralistic origins may obscure the fact that collectively, they harbour 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 multidisciplinary 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.

Abstract

The human experience is shaped by information from different perceptual channels, but it is still debated whether and how differential experience influences language use. To address this, we compared congenitally blind, blindfolded, and sighted people's descriptions of the same motion events experienced auditorily by all participants (i.e., via sound alone) and conveyed in speech and gesture. Comparison of blind and sighted participants to blindfolded participants helped us disentangle the effects of a lifetime experience of being blind versus the task-specific effects of experiencing a motion event by sound alone. Compared to sighted people, blind people's speech focused more on path and less on manner of motion, and encoded paths in a more segmented fashion using more landmarks and path verbs. Gestures followed the speech, such that blind people pointed to landmarks more and depicted manner less than sighted people. This suggests that visual experience affects how people express spatial events in the multimodal language and that blindness may enhance sensitivity to paths of motion due to changes in event construal. These findings have implications for the claims that language processes are deeply rooted in our sensory experiences.

Abstract

We investigated cross-modal influences between speech and sign in hearing bimodal bilinguals, proficient in a spoken and a sign language, and its consequences on visual attention during message preparation using eye-tracking. We focused on spatial expressions in which sign languages, unlike spoken languages, have a modality-driven preference to mention grounds (big objects) prior to figures (smaller objects). We compared hearing bimodal bilinguals’ spatial expressions and visual attention in Dutch and Dutch Sign Language (N = 18) to those of their hearing non-signing (N = 20) and deaf signing peers (N = 18). In speech, hearing bimodal bilinguals expressed more ground-first descriptions and fixated grounds more than hearing non-signers, showing influence from sign. In sign, they used as many ground-first descriptions as deaf signers and fixated grounds equally often, demonstrating no influence from speech. Cross-linguistic influence of word order preference and visual attention in hearing bimodal bilinguals appears to be one-directional modulated by modality-driven differences.

Abstract

Continuers —words like mm, mmhm, uhum and the like— are among the most frequent types of responses in conversation. They play a key role in joint action coordination by showing positive evidence of understanding and scaffolding narrative delivery. Here we investigate the hypothesis that their functional importance along with their conversational ecology places selective pressures on their form and may lead to cross-linguistic similarities through convergent cultural evolution. We compare continuer tokens in linguistically diverse conversational corpora and find languages make available highly similar forms. We then approach the causal mechanism of convergent cultural evolution using exemplar modelling, simulating the process by which a combination of effort minimization and functional specialization may push continuers to a particular region of phonological possibility space. By combining comparative linguistics and computational modelling we shed new light on the question of how language structure is shaped by and for social interaction.

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 minutes 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.

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 nonhuman 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.

Abstract

Prior work with hearing children acquiring a spoken language as their first language shows that spatial language and cognition are related systems and spatial language use predicts spatial memory. Here, we further investigate the extent of this relationship in signing deaf children and adults and ask if late sign language exposure, as well as the frequency and the type of spatial language use that might be affected by late exposure, modulate subsequent memory for spatial relations. To do so, we compared spatial language and memory of 8-year-old late-signing children (after 2 years of exposure to a sign language at the school for the deaf) and late-signing adults to their native-signing counterparts. We elicited picture descriptions of Left-Right relations in Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili) and measured the subsequent recognition memory accuracy of the described pictures. Results showed that late-signing adults and children were similar to their native-signing counterparts in how often they encoded the spatial relation. However, late-signing adults but not children differed from their native-signing counterparts in the type of spatial language they used. However, neither late sign language exposure nor the frequency and type of spatial language use modulated spatial memory accuracy. Therefore, even though late language exposure seems to influence the type of spatial language use, this does not predict subsequent memory for spatial relations. We discuss the implications of these findings based on the theories concerning the correspondence between spatial language and cognition as related or rather independent systems.

Abstract

Expressing Left-Right relations is challenging for speaking-children. Yet, this challenge was absent for signing-children, possibly due to iconicity in the visual-spatial modality of expression. We investigate whether there is also a modality advantage when speaking-children’s co-speech gestures are considered. Eight-year-old child and adult hearing monolingual Turkish speakers and deaf signers of Turkish-Sign-Language described pictures of objects in various spatial relations. Descriptions were coded for informativeness in speech, sign, and speech-gesture combinations for encoding Left-Right relations. The use of co-speech gestures increased the informativeness of speakers’ spatial expressions compared to speech-only. This pattern was more prominent for children than adults. However, signing-adults and children were more informative than child and adult speakers even when co-speech gestures were considered. Thus, both speaking- and signing-children benefit from iconic expressions in visual modality. Finally, in each modality, children were less informative than adults, pointing to the challenge of this spatial domain in development.

Abstract

Each sensory modality has different affordances: vision has higher spatial acuity than audition, whereas audition has better temporal acuity. This may have consequences for the encoding of events and its subsequent multimodal language production—an issue that has received relatively little attention to date. In this study, we compared motion events presented as audio-only, visual-only, or multimodal (visual + audio) input and measured speech and co-speech gesture depicting path and manner of motion in Turkish. Input modality affected speech production. Speakers with audio-only input produced more path descriptions and fewer manner descriptions in speech compared to speakers who received visual input. In contrast, the type and frequency of gestures did not change across conditions. Path-only gestures dominated throughout. Our results suggest that while speech is more susceptible to auditory vs. visual input in encoding aspects of motion events, gesture is less sensitive to such differences.

Abstract

In many musical styles, vocalists manually gesture while they sing. Coupling between gesture kinematics and vocalization has been examined in speech contexts, but it is an open question how these couple in music making. We examine this in a corpus of South Indian, Karnatak vocal music that includes motion-capture data. Through peak magnitude analysis (linear mixed regression) and continuous time-series analyses (generalized additive modeling), we assessed whether vocal trajectories around peaks in vertical velocity, speed, or acceleration were coupling with changes in vocal acoustics (namely, F0 and amplitude). Kinematic coupling was stronger for F0 change versus amplitude, pointing to F0's musical significance. Acceleration was the most predictive for F0 change and had the most reliable magnitude coupling, showing a one-third power relation. That acceleration, rather than other kinematics, is maximally predictive for vocalization is interesting because acceleration entails force transfers onto the body. As a theoretical contribution, we argue that gesturing in musical contexts should be understood in relation to the physical connections between gesturing and vocal production that are brought into harmony with the vocalists’ (enculturated) performance goals. Gesture–vocal coupling should, therefore, be viewed as a neuro–bodily distributed aesthetic entanglement.

Abstract

Conversational turn taking in humans involves incredibly rapid responding. The timing mechanisms underpinning such responses have been heavily debated, including questions such as who is doing the timing. Similar to findings on rhythmic tapping to a metronome, we show that floor transfer offsets (FTOs) in telephone conversations are serially dependent, such that FTOs are lag-1 negatively autocorrelated. Finding this serial dependence on a turn-by-turn basis (lag-1) rather than on the basis of two or more turns, suggests a counter-adjustment mechanism operating at the level of the dyad in FTOs during telephone conversations, rather than a more individualistic self-adjustment within speakers. This finding, if replicated, has major implications for models describing turn taking, and confirms the joint, dyadic nature of human conversational dynamics. Future research is needed to see how pervasive serial dependencies in FTOs are, such as for example in richer communicative face-to-face contexts where visual signals affect conversational timing.

Abstract

Gestures during speaking are typically understood in a representational framework: they represent absent or distal states of affairs by means of pointing, resemblance, or symbolic replacement. However, humans also gesture along with the rhythm of speaking, which is amenable to a non-representational perspective. Such a perspective centers on the phenomenon of vocal-entangled gestures and builds on evidence showing that when an upper limb with a certain mass decelerates/accelerates sufficiently, it yields impulses on the body that cascade in various ways into the respiratory–vocal system. It entails a physical entanglement between body motions, respiration, and vocal activities. It is shown that vocal-entangled gestures are realized in infant vocal–motor babbling before any representational use of gesture develops. Similarly, an overview is given of vocal-entangled processes in non-human animals. They can frequently be found in rats, bats, birds, and a range of other species that developed even earlier in the phylogenetic tree. Thus, the origins of human gesture lie in biomechanics, emerging early in ontogeny and running deep in phylogeny.

Abstract

Do communicative actions such as gestures fundamentally differ in their control mechanisms from other actions? Evidence for such fundamental differences comes from a classic gesture-speech coordination experiment performed with a person (IW) with deafferentation (McNeill, 2005). Although IW has lost both his primary source of information about body position (i.e., proprioception) and discriminative touch from the neck down, his gesture-speech coordination has been reported to be largely unaffected, even if his vision is blocked. This is surprising because, without vision, his object-directed actions almost completely break down. We examine the hypothesis that IW’s gesture-speech coordination is supported by the biomechanical effects of gesturing on head posture and speech. We find that when vision is blocked, there are micro-scale increases in gesture-speech timing variability, consistent with IW’s reported experience that gesturing is difficult without vision. Supporting the hypothesis that IW exploits biomechanical consequences of the act of gesturing, we find that: (1) gestures with larger physical impulses co-occur with greater head movement, (2) gesture-speech synchrony relates to larger gesture-concurrent head movements (i.e. for bimanual gestures), (3) when vision is blocked, gestures generate more physical impulse, and (4) moments of acoustic prominence couple more with peaks of physical impulse when vision is blocked. It can be concluded that IW’s gesturing ability is not based on a specialized language-based feedforward control as originally concluded from previous research, but is still dependent on a varied means of recurrent feedback from the body.

Abstract

How does communicative efficiency shape language use? We approach this question by studying it at the level of the dyad, and in terms of multimodal utterances. We investigate whether and how people minimize their joint speech and gesture efforts in face-to-face interactions, using linguistic and kinematic analyses. We zoom in on other-initiated repair—a conversational microcosm where people coordinate their utterances to solve problems with perceiving or understanding. We find that efforts in the spoken and gestural modalities are wielded in parallel across repair turns of different types, and that people repair conversational problems in the most cost-efficient way possible, minimizing the joint multimodal effort for the dyad as a whole. These results are in line with the principle of least collaborative effort in speech and with the reduction of joint costs in non-linguistic joint actions. The results extend our understanding of those coefficiency principles by revealing that they pertain to multimodal utterance design.

Abstract

When people establish shared symbols for novel objects or concepts, they have been shown to rely on the use of multiple communicative modalities as well as on alignment (i.e., cross-participant repetition of communicative behavior). Yet these interactional resources have rarely been studied together, so little is known about if and how people combine multiple modalities in alignment to achieve joint reference. To investigate this, we systematically track the emergence of lexical and gestural alignment in a referential communication task with novel objects. Quantitative analyses reveal that people frequently use a combination of lexical and gestural alignment, and that such multimodal alignment tends to emerge earlier compared to unimodal alignment. Qualitative analyses of the interactional contexts in which alignment emerges reveal how people flexibly deploy lexical and gestural alignment (independently, simultaneously or successively) to adjust to communicative pressures.

Abstract

Aging appears to impair the ability to adapt speech and gestures based on knowledge shared with an addressee
(common ground-based recipient design) in narrative settings. Here, we test whether this extends to spatial settings
and is modulated by cognitive abilities. Younger and older adults gave instructions on how to assemble 3D-
models from building blocks on six consecutive trials. We induced mutually shared knowledge by either
showing speaker and addressee the model beforehand, or not. Additionally, shared knowledge accumulated
across the trials. Younger and crucially also older adults provided recipient-designed utterances, indicated by a
significant reduction in the number of words and of gestures when common ground was present. Additionally, we
observed a reduction in semantic content and a shift in cross-modal distribution of information across trials.
Rather than age, individual differences in verbal and visual working memory and semantic fluency predicted the
extent of addressee-based adaptations. Thus, in spatial tasks, individual cognitive abilities modulate the inter-
active language use of both younger and older adul

Abstract

Sign languages use multiple articulators and iconicity in the visual modality which allow linguistic units to be organized not only linearly but also simultaneously. Recent research has shown that users of an established sign language such as LIS (Italian Sign Language) use simultaneous and iconic constructions as a modality-specific resource to achieve communicative efficiency when they are required to encode informationally rich events. However, it remains to be explored whether the use of such simultaneous and iconic constructions recruited for communicative efficiency can be employed even without a linguistic system (i.e., in silent gesture) or whether they are specific to linguistic patterning (i.e., in LIS). In the present study, we conducted the same experiment as in Slonimska et al. with 23 Italian speakers using silent gesture and compared the results of the two studies. The findings showed that while simultaneity was afforded by the visual modality to some extent, its use in silent gesture was nevertheless less frequent and qualitatively different than when used within a linguistic system. Thus, the use of simultaneous and iconic constructions for communicative efficiency constitutes an emergent property of sign languages. The present study highlights the importance of studying modality-specific resources and their use for linguistic expression in order to promote a more thorough understanding of the language faculty and its modality-specific adaptive capabilities.

Abstract

Previous research has shown that spatial language is sensitive to the effects of delayed language exposure. Locative encodings of late-signing deaf adults varied from those of early-signing deaf adults in the preferred types of linguistic forms. In the current study, we investigated whether such differences would be found in spatial language use of deaf children with deaf parents who are either early or late signers of Turkish Sign Language (TİD). We analyzed locative encodings elicited from these two groups of deaf children for the use of different linguistic forms and the types of classifier handshapes. Our findings revealed differences between these two groups of deaf children in their preferred types of linguistic forms, which showed parallels to differences between late versus early deaf adult signers as reported by earlier studies. Deaf children in the current study, however, were similar to each other in the type of classifier handshapes that they used in their classifier constructions. Our findings have implications for expanding current knowledge on to what extent variation in language input (i.e., from early vs. late deaf signers) is reflected in children’s productions as well as the role of linguistic input on language development in general.

Abstract

Language development research suggests a universal tendency for children to be under- informative in narrating motion events by omitting components such as Path, Manner or Ground. However, this assumption has not been tested for children acquiring sign language. Due to the affordances of the visual-spatial modality of sign languages for iconic expression, signing children might omit event components less frequently than speaking children. Here we analysed motion event descriptions elicited from deaf children (4–10 years) acquiring Turkish Sign Language (TİD) and their Turkish-speaking peers. While children omitted all types of event components more often than adults, signing children and adults encoded more Path and Manner in TİD than their peers in Turkish. These results provide more evidence for a general universal tendency for children to omit event components as well as a modality bias for sign languages to encode both Manner and Path more frequently than spoken languages.

Abstract

Persons with and without autism process sensory information differently. Differences in sensory processing are directly relevant to social functioning and communicative abilities, which are known to be hampered in persons with autism. We collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 25 autistic individuals and 25 neurotypical individuals while they performed a silent gesture recognition task. We exploited brain network topology, a holistic quantification of how networks within the brain are organized to provide new insights into how visual communicative signals are processed in autistic and neurotypical individuals. Performing graph theoretical analysis, we calculated two network properties of the action observation network: local efficiency, as a measure of network segregation, and global efficiency, as a measure of network integration. We found that persons with autism and neurotypical persons differ in how the action observation network is organized. Persons with autism utilize a more clustered, local-processing-oriented network configuration (i.e., higher local efficiency), rather than the more integrative network organization seen in neurotypicals (i.e., higher global efficiency). These results shed new light on the complex interplay between social and sensory processing in autism.

Abstract

Speakers’ visual attention to events is guided by linguistic conceptualization of information in spoken language
production and in language-specific ways. Does production of language-specific co-speech gestures further guide
speakers’ visual attention during message preparation? Here, we examine the link between visual attention and
multimodal event descriptions in Turkish. Turkish is a verb-framed language where speakers’ speech and gesture
show language specificity with path of motion mostly expressed within the main verb accompanied by path
gestures. Turkish-speaking adults viewed motion events while their eye movements were recorded during non-
linguistic (viewing-only) and linguistic (viewing-before-describing) tasks. The relative attention allocated to path
over manner was higher in the linguistic task compared to the non-linguistic task. Furthermore, the relative
attention allocated to path over manner within the linguistic task was higher when speakers (a) encoded path in
the main verb versus outside the verb and (b) used additional path gestures accompanying speech versus not.
Results strongly suggest that speakers’ visual attention is guided by language-specific event encoding not only in
speech but also in gesture. This provides evidence consistent with models that propose integration of speech and
gesture at the conceptualization level of language production and suggests that the links between the eye and the
mouth may be extended to the eye and the hand.

Abstract

Ook al hebben we het niet altijd door, onze zintuigen werken altijd samen. Als je iemand ziet praten, bijvoorbeeld, verwerken je hersenen automatisch tegelijkertijd het geluid van de woorden en de bewegingen van de lippen. Omdat onze zintuigen altijd samenwerken zijn onze hersenen erg gevoelig voor dingen die ‘samenhoren’ en goed bij elkaar passen. In dit hoofdstuk beschrijven we een project onderzoekend leren met als thema ‘Samenwerkende zintuigen’.

Abstract

When we use our hands to estimate the length of a stick in the Müller-Lyer illusion, we are highly susceptible to the illusion. But when we prepare to act on sticks under the same conditions, we are significantly less susceptible. Here, we asked whether people are susceptible to illusion when they use their hands not to act on objects but to describe them in spontaneous co-speech gestures or conventional sign languages of the deaf. Thirty-two English speakers and 13 American Sign Language signers used their hands to act on, estimate the length of, and describe sticks eliciting the Müller-Lyer illusion. For both gesture and sign, the magnitude of illusion in the description task was smaller than the magnitude of illusion in the estimation task and not different from the magnitude of illusion in the action task. The mechanisms responsible for producing gesture in speech and sign thus appear to operate not on percepts involved in estimation but on percepts derived from the way we act on objects.

Abstract

Embodied song practices involve the transformation of songs from the acoustic modality into an embodied-visual form, to increase meaningful access for d/Deaf audiences. This goes beyond the translation of lyrics, by combining poetic sign language with other bodily movements to embody the para-linguistic expressive and musical features that enhance the message of a song. To date, the limited research into this phenomenon has focussed on linguistic features and interactions with rhythm. The relationship between bodily actions and music has not been probed beyond an assumed implication of conformance. However, as the primary objective is to communicate equivalent meanings, the ways that the acoustic and embodied-visual signals relate to each other should reveal something about underlying conceptual agreement. This paper draws together a range of pertinent theories from within a grounded cognition framework including semiotics, analogy mapping and cross-modal correspondences. These theories are applied to embodiment strategies used by prominent d/Deaf and hearing Dutch practitioners, to unpack the relationship between acoustic songs, their embodied representations, and their broader conceptual and affective meanings. This leads to the proposition that meaning primarily arises through shared patterns of internal relations across a range of amodal and cross-modal features with an emphasis on dynamic qualities. These analogous patterns can inform metaphorical interpretations and trigger shared emotional responses. This exploratory survey offers insights into the nature of cross-modal and embodied meaning-making, as a jumping-off point for further research.

Abstract

Late exposure to the first language, as in the case of deaf children with hearing parents, hinders the production of linguistic expressions, even in adulthood. Less is known about the development of language soon after language exposure and if late exposure hinders all domains of language in children and adults. We compared late signing adults and children (MAge = 8;5) 2 years after exposure to sign language, to their age-matched native signing peers in expressions of two types of locative relations that are acquired in certain cognitive-developmental order: view-independent (IN-ON-UNDER) and view-dependent (LEFT-RIGHT). Late signing children and adults differed from native signers in their use of linguistic devices for view-dependent relations but not for view-independent relations. These effects were also modulated by the morphological complexity. Hindering effects of late language exposure on the development of language in children and adults are not absolute but are modulated by cognitive and linguistic complexity.

Abstract

There is a strong relation between children’s exposure to
spatial terms and their later memory accuracy. In the current
study, we tested whether the production of spatial terms by
children themselves predicts memory accuracy and whether
and how language modality of these encodings modulates
memory accuracy differently. Hearing child speakers of
Turkish and deaf child signers of Turkish Sign Language
described pictures of objects in various spatial relations to each
other and later tested for their memory accuracy of these
pictures in a surprise memory task. We found that having
described the spatial relation between the objects predicted
better memory accuracy. However, the modality of these
descriptions in sign, speech, or speech-plus-gesture did not
reveal differences in memory accuracy. We discuss the
implications of these findings for the relation between spatial
language, memory, and the modality of encoding.

Abstract

Visual and auditory channels have different affordances and
this is mirrored in what information is available for linguistic
encoding. The visual channel has high spatial acuity, whereas
the auditory channel has better temporal acuity. These
differences may lead to different conceptualizations of events
and affect multimodal language production. Previous studies of
motion events typically present visual input to elicit speech and
gesture. The present study compared events presented as audio-
only, visual-only, or multimodal (visual+audio) input and
assessed speech and co-speech gesture for path and manner of
motion in Turkish. Speakers with audio-only input mentioned
path more and manner less in verbal descriptions, compared to
speakers who had visual input. There was no difference in the
type or frequency of gestures across conditions, and gestures
were dominated by path-only gestures. This suggests that input
modality influences speakers’ encoding of path and manner of
motion events in speech, but not in co-speech gestures.

Abstract

Bimodal bilinguals are hearing individuals fluent in a sign and a spoken language. Can the two languages influence each other in such individuals despite differences in the visual (sign) and vocal (speech) modalities of expression? We investigated cross-linguistic influences on bimodal bilinguals’ expression of spatial relations. Unlike spoken languages, sign uses iconic linguistic forms that resemble physical features of objects in a spatial relation and thus expresses specific semantic information. Hearing bimodal bilinguals (n = 21) fluent in Dutch and Sign Language of the Netherlands and their hearing nonsigning and deaf signing peers (n = 20 each) described left/right relations between two objects. Bimodal bilinguals expressed more specific information about physical features of objects in speech than nonsigners, showing influence from sign language. They also used fewer iconic signs with specific semantic information than deaf signers, demonstrating influence from speech. Bimodal bilinguals’ speech and signs are shaped by two languages from different modalities.

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.

Abstract

Language in its primary face-to-face context is multimodal (e.g., Holler and Levinson, 2019; Perniss, 2018). Thus, understanding how expressions in the vocal and visual modalities together contribute to our notions of language structure, use, processing, and transmission (i.e., acquisition, evolution, emergence) in different languages and cultures should be a fundamental goal of language sciences. This requires a new framework of language that brings together how arbitrary and non-arbitrary and motivated semiotic resources of language relate to each other. Current commentary evaluates such a proposal by Murgiano et al (2021) from a crosslinguistic perspective taking variation as well as systematicity in multimodal utterances into account.

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.

Abstract

Communicative hand gestures are often coordinated with prosodic aspects of speech, and salient moments of gestural movement (e.g., quick changes in speed) often co-occur with salient moments in speech (e.g., near peaks in fundamental frequency and intensity). A common understanding is that such gesture and speech coordination is culturally and cognitively acquired, rather than having a biological basis. Recently, however, the biomechanical physical coupling of arm movements to speech movements has been identified as a potentially important factor in understanding the emergence of gesture-speech coordination. Specifically, in the case of steady-state vocalization and mono-syllable utterances, forces produced during gesturing are transferred onto the tensioned body, leading to changes in respiratory-related activity and thereby affecting vocalization F0 and intensity. In the current experiment (N = 37), we extend this previous line of work to show that gesture-speech physics impacts fluent speech, too. Compared with non-movement, participants who are producing fluent self-formulated speech, while rhythmically moving their limbs, demonstrate heightened F0 and amplitude envelope, and such effects are more pronounced for higher-impulse arm versus lower-impulse wrist movement. We replicate that acoustic peaks arise especially during moments of peak-impulse (i.e., the beat) of the movement, namely around deceleration phases of the movement. Finally, higher deceleration rates of higher-mass arm movements were related to higher peaks in acoustics. These results confirm a role for physical-impulses of gesture affecting the speech system. We discuss the implications of
gesture-speech physics for understanding of the emergence of communicative gesture, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically.

Abstract

It is now widely accepted that the brunt of animal communication is conducted via several modalities, e.g. acoustic and visual, either simultaneously or sequentially. This is a laudable multimodal turn relative to traditional accounts of temporal aspects of animal communication which have focused on a single modality at a time. However, the fields that are currently contributing to the study of multimodal communication are highly varied, and still largely disconnected given their sole focus on a particular level of description or their particular concern with human or non-human animals. Here, we provide an integrative overview of converging findings that show how multimodal processes occurring at neural, bodily, as well as social interactional levels each contribute uniquely to the complex rhythms that characterize communication in human and non-human animals. Though we address findings for each of these levels independently, we conclude that the most important challenge in this field is to identify how processes at these different levels connect.

Abstract

When comprehending speech-in-noise (SiN), younger and older adults benefit from seeing the speaker’s mouth, i.e. visible speech. Younger adults additionally benefit from manual iconic co-speech gestures. Here, we investigate to what extent younger and older adults benefit from perceiving both visual articulators while comprehending SiN, and whether this is modulated by working memory and inhibitory control. Twenty-eight younger and 28 older adults performed a word recognition task in three visual contexts: mouth blurred (speech-only), visible speech, or visible speech + iconic gesture. The speech signal was either clear or embedded in multitalker babble. Additionally, there were two visual-only conditions (visible speech, visible speech + gesture). Accuracy levels for both age groups were higher when both visual articulators were present compared to either one or none. However, older adults received a significantly smaller benefit than younger adults, although they performed equally well in speech-only and visual-only word recognition. Individual differences in verbal working memory and inhibitory control partly accounted for age-related performance differences. To conclude, perceiving iconic gestures in addition to visible speech improves younger and older adults’ comprehension of SiN. Yet, the ability to benefit from this additional visual information is modulated by age and verbal working memory. Future research will have to show whether these findings extend beyond the single word level.

Abstract

Meanings communicated with depictions constitute an integral part of how speakers and signers actually use language (Clark, 2016). Recent studies have argued that, in sign languages, depicting strategy like constructed action (CA), in which a signer enacts the referent, is used for referential purposes in narratives. Here, we tested the referential function of CA in a more controlled experimental setting and outside narrative context. Given the iconic properties of CA we hypothesized that this strategy could be used for efficient information transmission. Thus, we asked if use of CA increased with the increase in the information required to be communicated. Twenty-three deaf signers of LIS described unconnected images, which varied in the amount of information represented, to another player in a director–matcher game. Results revealed that participants used CA to communicate core information about the images and also increased the use of CA as images became informatively denser. The findings show that iconic features of CA can be used for referential function in addition to its depictive function outside narrative context and to achieve communicative efficiency.

Abstract

In everyday conversation, we are often challenged with communicating in non-ideal settings, such as in noise. Increased speech intensity and larger mouth movements are used to overcome noise in constrained settings (the Lombard effect). How we adapt to noise in face-to-face interaction, the natural environment of human language use, where manual gestures are ubiquitous, is currently unknown. We asked Dutch adults to wear headphones with varying levels of multi-talker babble while attempting to communicate action verbs to one another. Using quantitative motion capture and acoustic analyses, we found that (1) noise is associated with increased speech intensity and enhanced gesture kinematics and mouth movements, and (2) acoustic modulation only occurs when gestures are not present, while kinematic modulation occurs regardless of co-occurring speech. Thus, in face-to-face encounters the Lombard effect is not constrained to speech but is a multimodal phenomenon where the visual channel carries most of the communicative burden.

Abstract

In human communication, social intentions and meaning are often revealed in the way we move. In this study, we investigate the flexibility of human communication in terms of kinematic modulation in a clinical population, namely, autistic individuals. The aim of this study was twofold: to assess (a) whether communicatively relevant kinematic features of gestures differ between autistic and neurotypical individuals, and (b) if autistic individuals use communicative kinematic modulation to support gesture recognition. We tested autistic and neurotypical individuals on a silent gesture production task and a gesture comprehension task. We measured movement during the gesture production task using a Kinect motion tracking device in order to determine if autistic individuals differed from neurotypical individuals in their gesture kinematics. For the gesture comprehension task, we assessed whether autistic individuals used communicatively relevant kinematic cues to support recognition. This was done by using stick-light figures as stimuli and testing for a correlation between the kinematics of these videos and recognition performance. We found that (a) silent gestures produced by autistic and neurotypical individuals differ in communicatively relevant kinematic features, such as the number of meaningful holds between movements, and (b) while autistic individuals are overall unimpaired at recognizing gestures, they processed repetition and complexity, measured as the amount of submovements perceived, differently than neurotypicals do. These findings highlight how subtle aspects of neurotypical behavior can be experienced differently by autistic individuals. They further demonstrate the relationship between movement kinematics and social interaction in high-functioning autistic individuals.

Abstract

Aim:

This paper examines whether second-generation Turkish heritage speakers in the Netherlands follow language-specific patterns of reference tracking in Turkish and Dutch, focusing on discourse status and pragmatic contexts as factors that may modulate the choice of referring expressions (REs), that is, the noun phrase (NP), overt pronoun and null pronoun.
Methodology:

Two short silent videos were used to elicit narratives from 20 heritage speakers of Turkish, both in Turkish and in Dutch. Monolingual baseline data were collected from 20 monolingually raised speakers of Turkish in Turkey and 20 monolingually raised speakers of Dutch in the Netherlands. We also collected language background data from bilinguals with an extensive survey.
Data and analysis:

Using generalised logistic mixed-effect regression, we analysed the influence of discourse status and pragmatic context on the choice of subject REs in Turkish and Dutch, comparing bilingual data to the monolingual baseline in each language.
Findings:

Heritage speakers used overt versus null pronouns in Turkish and stressed versus reduced pronouns in Dutch in pragmatically appropriate contexts. There was, however, a slight increase in the proportions of overt pronouns as opposed to NPs in Turkish and as opposed to null pronouns in Dutch. We suggest an explanation based on the degree of entrenchment of differential RE types in relation to discourse status as the possible source of the increase.
Originality:

This paper provides data from an understudied language pair in the domain of reference tracking in language contact situations. Unlike several studies of pronouns in language contact, we do not find differences across monolingual and bilingual speakers with regard to pragmatic constraints on overt pronouns in the minority pro-drop language.
Significance:

Our findings highlight the importance of taking language proficiency and use into account while studying bilingualism and combining formal approaches to language use with usage-based approaches for a more complete understanding of bilingual language production.

Abstract

This paper investigates whether there are changes in gesture rate when speakers of two languages with different gesture rates (Turkish-high gesture; Dutch-low gesture) come into daily contact. We analyzed gestures produced by second-generation heritage speakers of Turkish in the Netherlands in each language, comparing them to monolingual baselines. We did not find differences between bilingual and monolingual speakers, possibly because bilinguals were proficient in both languages and used them frequently – in line with a usage-based approach to language. However, bilinguals produced more deictic gestures than monolinguals in both Turkish and Dutch, which we interpret as a bilingual strategy. Deictic gestures may help organize discourse by placing entities in gesture space and help reduce the cognitive load associated with being bilingual, e.g., inhibition cost. Therefore, gesture rate does not necessarily change in contact situations but might be modulated by frequency of language use, proficiency, and cognitive factors related to being bilingual.

Abstract

In individuals with synaesthesia specific sensory stimulation leads to unusual concurrent perceptions in the same or a different modality. Recent studies have demonstrated a high co-occurrence between synaesthesia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a condition also characterized by altered perception. A potentially shared characteristic of synaesthesia and ASD is a bias towards local (detail-focussed) perception. We investigated whether a bias towards local perception is indeed shared between synaesthesia and ASD. In a neurotypical population, we studied the relation between the degree of autistic traits (measured by the AQ) and the degree of grapheme-colour synaesthesia (measured by a consistency task), as well as whether both are related to a local bias in tasks assessing local/global visual perception. A positive correlation between total AQ scores and the degree of synaesthesia was found. Our study extends previous studies that found a high ASD-synaesthesia co-occurrence in clinical populations. Consistent with the hypothesized local perceptual bias in ASD, scores on the AQ-attention to detail subscale were related to increased performance on an Embedded Figures Task (EFT), and we found evidence for a relation to reduced susceptibility to visual illusions. We found no relation between autistic traits and local visual perception in a motion coherence task (MCT). Also, no relation between synaesthesia and local visual perception was found, although a reduced susceptibility to visual illusions resembled the results obtained for AQ-atttention to detail subscale. A suggested explanation for the absence of a relationship between the degree of synaesthesia and a local bias is that a possible local bias might be more pronounced in supra-threshold synaesthetes (compared to neurotypicals).

Abstract

While speculations on form–meaning resemblances in language go back millennia, the experimental study of iconicity is only about a century old. Here we take stock of experimental work on iconicity and present a double special issue with a diverse set of new contributions. We contextualise the work by introducing a typology of approaches to iconicity in language. Some approaches construe iconicity as a discrete property that is either present or absent; others treat it as involving semiotic relationships that come in kinds; and yet others see it as a gradient substance that comes in degrees. We show the benefits and limitations that come with each of these construals and stress the importance of developing accounts that can fluently switch between them. With operationalisations of iconicity that are well defined yet flexible enough to deal with differences in tasks, modalities, and levels of analysis, experimental research on iconicity is well equipped to contribute to a comprehensive science of language.

Abstract

Words like ‘waddle’, ‘flop’ and ‘zigzag’ combine playful connotations with iconic form-meaning resemblances. Here we propose that structural markedness may be a common factor underlying perceptions of playfulness and iconicity. Using collected and estimated lexical ratings covering a total of over 70,000 English words, we assess the robustness of this assocation. We identify cues of phonotactic complexity that covary with funniness and iconicity ratings and that, we propose, serve as metacommunicative signals to draw attention to words as playful and performative. To assess the generalisability of the findings we develop a method to estimate lexical ratings from distributional semantics and apply it to a dataset 20 times the size of the original set of human ratings. The method can be used more generally to extend coverage of lexical ratings. We find that it reliably reproduces correlations between funniness and iconicity as well as cues of structural markedness, though it also amplifies biases present in the human ratings. Our study shows that the playful and the poetic are part of the very texture of the lexicon.

Abstract

Resource-rational approaches offer much promise for understanding human cognition, especially if they can reach beyond the confines of individual minds. Language allows people to transcend individual resource limitations by augmenting computation and enabling distributed cognition. Interactive language use, an environment where social rational agents routinely deal with resource constraints together, offers a natural laboratory to test resource-rationality in the wild.

Abstract

Aktuelle Vorstellungen von Gehirn-zu-Gehirn-Schnittstellen versprechen, die Sprache zu umgehen. Aber wenn wir sie verfeinern, um ihr kollaboratives Potenzial voll auszuschöpfen, sehen wir Sprache — oder zumindest ein sprachähnliches Infrastruktur für Kommunika­tion und Koordination — durch die Hintertür wieder hereinkommen. Es wäre nicht das erste Mal, dass sich die Sprache neu erfindet.

Current conceptions of brain-to-brain interfaces attempt to bypass language. But when we refine them to more fully realise their collaborative potential we find language —or at least a language-like infrastructure for communication and coordination— slipping through the back door. It wouldn't be the first time that language reinvented itself.

Abstract

Most objects have well-defined affordances. Investigating perception of affordances of objects that were not created for a specific purpose would provide insight into how affordances are perceived. In addition, comparison of perception of affordances for such objects across different exploratory modalities (visual vs. haptic) would offer a strong test of the lawfulness of information about affordances (i.e., the invariance of such information over transformation). Along these lines, “feelies”— objects created by Gibson with no obvious function and unlike any common object—could shed light on the processes underlying affordance perception. This study showed that when observers reported potential uses for feelies, modality significantly influenced what kind of affordances were perceived. Specifically, visual exploration resulted in more noun labels (e.g., “toy”) than haptic exploration which resulted in more verb labels (i.e., “throw”). These results suggested that overlapping, but distinct classes of action possibilities are perceivable using vision and haptics. Semantic network analyses revealed that visual exploration resulted in object-oriented responses focused on object identification, whereas haptic exploration resulted in action-oriented responses. Cluster analyses confirmed these results. Affordance labels produced in the visual condition were more consistent, used fewer descriptors, were less diverse, but more novel than in the haptic condition.

Abstract

Native listeners benefit from both visible speech and iconic gestures to enhance degraded speech comprehension (Drijvers & Ozyürek, 2017). We tested how highly proficient non-native listeners benefit from these visual articulators compared to native listeners. We presented videos of an actress uttering a verb in clear, moderately, or severely degraded speech, while her lips were blurred, visible, or visible and accompanied by a gesture. Our results revealed that unlike native listeners, non-native listeners were less likely to benefit from the combined enhancement of visible speech and gestures, especially since the benefit from visible speech was minimal when the signal quality was not sufficient.

Abstract

During silent problem solving, hand gestures arise that have no communicative intent. The role of such co-thought gestures in
cognition has been understudied in cognitive research as compared to co-speech gestures. We investigated whether gesticulation
during silent problem solving supported subsequent performance in a Tower of Hanoi problem-solving task, in relation
to visual working-memory capacity and task complexity. Seventy-six participants were assigned to either an instructed gesture
condition or a condition that allowed them to gesture, but without explicit instructions to do so. This resulted in three
gesture groups: (1) non-gesturing; (2) spontaneous gesturing; (3) instructed gesturing. In line with the embedded/extended
cognition perspective on gesture, gesturing benefited complex problem-solving performance for participants with a lower
visual working-memory capacity, but not for participants with a lower spatial working-memory capacity.

Abstract

Speakers often use gesture to demonstrate how to perform actions—for example, they might show how to open the top of a jar by making a twisting motion above the jar. Yet it is unclear whether listeners learn as much from seeing such gestures as they learn from seeing actions that physically change the position of objects (i.e., actually opening the jar). Here, we examined participants' implicit and explicit understanding about a series of movements that demonstrated how to move a set of objects. The movements were either shown with actions that physically relocated each object or with gestures that represented the relocation without touching the objects. Further, the end location that was indicated for each object covaried with whether the object was grasped with one or two hands. We found that memory for the end location of each object was better after seeing the physical relocation of the objects, that is, after seeing action, than after seeing gesture, regardless of whether speech was absent (Experiment 1) or present (Experiment 2). However, gesture and action built similar implicit understanding of how a particular handgrasp corresponded with a particular end location. Although gestures miss the benefit of showing the end state of objects that have been acted upon, the data show that gestures are as good as action in building knowledge of how to perform an action.

Abstract

This article makes the case for the universality of the sequence organization observable in informal human conversational interaction. Using the descriptive schema developed by Schegloff (2007), we examine the major patterns of action-sequencing in a dozen nearly all unrelated languages. What we find is that these patterns are instantiated in very similar ways for the most part right down to the types of different action sequences. There are also some notably different cultural exploitations of the patterns, but the patterns themselves look strongly universal. Recent work in gestural communication in the great apes suggests that sequence organization may have been a crucial route into the development of language. Taken together with the fundamental role of this organization in language acquisition, sequential behavior of this kind seems to have both phylogenetic and ontogenetic priority, which probably puts substantial functional pressure on language form.

Abstract

Face-to-face communication is multimodal at its core: it consists of a combination of vocal and visual signalling. However, current evidence suggests that, in the absence of an established communication system, visual signalling, especially in the form of visible gesture, is a more powerful form of communication than vocalisation, and therefore likely to have played a primary role in the emergence of human language. This argument is based on experimental evidence of how vocal and visual modalities (i.e., gesture) are employed to communicate about familiar concepts when participants cannot use their existing languages. To investigate this further, we introduce an experiment where pairs of participants performed a referential communication task in which they described unfamiliar stimuli in order to reduce reliance on conventional signals. Visual and auditory stimuli were described in three conditions: using visible gestures only, using non-linguistic vocalisations only and given the option to use both (multimodal communication). The results suggest that even in the absence of conventional signals, gesture is a more powerful mode of communication compared to vocalisation, but that there are also advantages to multimodality compared to using gesture alone. Participants with an option to produce multimodal signals had comparable accuracy to those using only gesture, but gained an efficiency advantage. The analysis of the interactions between participants showed that interactants developed novel communication systems for unfamiliar stimuli by deploying different modalities flexibly to suit their needs and by taking advantage of multimodality when required.

Abstract

To talk about space, spoken languages rely on arbitrary and categorical forms (e.g., left, right). In sign languages, however, the visual–spatial modality allows for iconic encodings (motivated form-meaning mappings) of space in which form and location of the hands bear resemblance to the objects and spatial relations depicted. We assessed whether the iconic encodings in sign languages guide visual attention to spatial relations differently than spatial encodings in spoken languages during message preparation at the sentence level. Using a visual world production eye-tracking paradigm, we compared 20 deaf native signers of Sign-Language-of-the-Netherlands and 20 Dutch speakers’ visual attention to describe left versus right configurations of objects (e.g., “pen is to the left/right of cup”). Participants viewed 4-picture displays in which each picture contained the same 2 objects but in different spatial relations (lateral [left/right], sagittal [front/behind], topological [in/on]) to each other. They described the target picture (left/right) highlighted by an arrow. During message preparation, signers, but not speakers, experienced increasing eye-gaze competition from other spatial configurations. This effect was absent during picture viewing prior to message preparation of relational encoding. Moreover, signers’ visual attention to lateral and/or sagittal relations was predicted by the type of iconicity (i.e., object and space resemblance vs. space resemblance only) in their spatial descriptions. Findings are discussed in relation to how “thinking for speaking” differs from “thinking for signing” and how iconicity can mediate the link between language and human experience and guides signers’ but not speakers’ attention to visual aspects of the world.

Abstract

An unprecedented number of empirical studies have shown that iconic gestures—those that mimic the sensorimotor attributes of a referent—contribute significantly to language acquisition, perception, and processing. However, there has been a lack of normed studies describing generalizable principles in gesture production and in comprehension of the mappings of different types of iconic strategies (i.e., modes of representation; Müller, 2013). In Study 1 we elicited silent gestures in order to explore the implementation of different types of iconic representation (i.e., acting, representing, drawing, and personification) to express concepts across five semantic domains. In Study 2 we investigated the degree of meaning transparency (i.e., iconicity ratings) of the gestures elicited in Study 1. We found systematicity in the gestural forms of 109 concepts across all participants, with different types of iconicity aligning with specific semantic domains: Acting was favored for actions and manipulable objects, drawing for nonmanipulable objects, and personification for animate entities. Interpretation of gesture–meaning transparency was modulated by the interaction between mode of representation and semantic domain, with some couplings being more transparent than others: Acting yielded higher ratings for actions, representing for object-related concepts, personification for animate entities, and drawing for nonmanipulable entities. This study provides mapping principles that may extend to all forms of manual communication (gesture and sign). This database includes a list of the most systematic silent gestures in the group of participants, a notation of the form of each gesture based on four features (hand configuration, orientation, placement, and movement), each gesture’s mode of representation, iconicity ratings, and professionally filmed videos that can be used for experimental and clinical endeavors.

Abstract

In this study we explore whether different types of iconic gestures
(i.e., acting, drawing, representing) and their combinations are used
systematically to distinguish between different semantic categories in
production and comprehension. In Study 1, we elicited silent gestures
from Mexican and Dutch participants to represent concepts from three
semantic categories: actions, manipulable objects, and non-manipulable
objects. Both groups favoured the acting strategy to represent actions and
manipulable objects; while non-manipulable objects were represented
through the drawing strategy. Actions elicited primarily single gestures
whereas objects elicited combinations of different types of iconic gestures
as well as pointing. In Study 2, a different group of participants were
shown gestures from Study 1 and were asked to guess their meaning.
Single-gesture depictions for actions were more accurately guessed than
for objects. Objects represented through two-gesture combinations (e.g.,
acting + drawing) were more accurately guessed than objects represented
with a single gesture. We suggest iconicity is exploited to make direct
links with a referent, but when it lends itself to ambiguity, individuals
resort to combinatorial structures to clarify the intended referent.
Iconicity and the need to communicate a clear signal shape the structure
of silent gestures and this in turn supports comprehension.

Abstract

When learning a second spoken language, cognates, words overlapping in form and meaning with one’s native language, help breaking into the language one wishes to acquire. But what happens when the to-be-acquired second language is a sign language? We tested whether hearing nonsigners rely on their gestural repertoire at first exposure to a sign language. Participants saw iconic signs with high and low overlap with the form of iconic gestures while electrophysiological brain activity was recorded. Upon first exposure, signs with low overlap with gestures elicited enhanced positive amplitude in the P3a component compared to signs with high overlap. This effect disappeared after a training session. We conclude that nonsigners generate expectations about the form of iconic signs never seen before based on their implicit knowledge of gestures, even without having to produce them. Learners thus draw from any available semiotic resources when acquiring a second language, and not only from their linguistic experience

Abstract

We introduce applications of established methods in time-series and network
analysis that we jointly apply here for the kinematic study of gesture
ensembles. We define a gesture ensemble as the set of gestures produced
during discourse by a single person or a group of persons. Here we are
interested in how gestures kinematically relate to one another. We use
a bivariate time-series analysis called dynamic time warping to assess how
similar each gesture is to other gestures in the ensemble in terms of their
velocity profiles (as well as studying multivariate cases with gesture velocity
and speech amplitude envelope profiles). By relating each gesture event to
all other gesture events produced in the ensemble, we obtain a weighted
matrix that essentially represents a network of similarity relationships. We
can therefore apply network analysis that can gauge, for example, how
diverse or coherent certain gestures are with respect to the gesture ensemble.
We believe these analyses promise to be of great value for gesture
studies, as we can come to understand how low-level gesture features
(kinematics of gesture) relate to the higher-order organizational structures
present at the level of discourse.

Abstract

We show that the human voice has complex acoustic qualities that are directly coupled to peripheral musculoskeletal tensioning of the body, such as subtle wrist movements. In this study, human vocalizers produced a steady-state vocalization while rhythmically moving the wrist or the arm at different tempos. Although listeners could only hear but not see the vocalizer, they were able to completely synchronize their own rhythmic wrist or arm movement with the movement of the vocalizer which they perceived in the voice acoustics. This study corroborates
recent evidence suggesting that the human voice is constrained by bodily tensioning affecting the respiratory-vocal system. The current results show that the human voice contains a bodily imprint that is directly informative for the interpersonal perception of another’s dynamic physical states.

Abstract

Expressive moments in communicative hand gestures often align with emphatic stress in speech. It has recently been found that acoustic markers of emphatic stress arise naturally during steady-state phonation when upper-limb movements impart physical impulses on the body, most likely affecting acoustics via respiratory activity. In this confirmatory study, participants (N = 29) repeatedly uttered consonant-vowel (/pa/) mono-syllables while moving in particular phase relations with speech, or not moving the upper limbs. This study shows that respiration-related activity is affected by (especially high-impulse) gesturing when vocalizations occur near peaks in physical impulse. This study further shows that gesture-induced moments of bodily impulses increase the amplitude envelope of speech, while not similarly affecting the Fundamental Frequency (F0). Finally, tight relations between respiration-related activity and vocalization were observed, even in the absence of movement, but even more so when upper-limb movement is present. The current findings expand a developing line of research showing that speech is modulated by functional biomechanical linkages between hand gestures and the respiratory system. This identification of gesture-speech biomechanics promises to provide an alternative phylogenetic, ontogenetic, and mechanistic explanatory route of why communicative upper limb movements co-occur with speech in humans.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Abstract

n two ERP experiments, we investigated how the Dutch discourse markers eigenlijk “actually”, signalling expectation disconfirmation, and inderdaad “indeed”, signalling expectation confirmation, affect incremental dialogue comprehension. We investigated their effects on the processing of subsequent (un)predictable words, and on the quality of word representations in memory. Participants read dialogues with (un)predictable endings that followed a discourse marker (eigenlijk in Experiment 1, inderdaad in Experiment 2) or a control adverb. We found no strong evidence that discourse markers modulated online predictability effects elicited by subsequently read words. However, words following eigenlijk elicited an enhanced posterior post-N400 positivity compared with words following an adverb regardless of their predictability, potentially reflecting increased processing costs associated with pragmatically driven discourse updating. No effects of inderdaad were found on online processing, but inderdaad seemed to influence memory for (un)predictable dialogue endings. These findings nuance our understanding of how pragmatic markers affect incremental language comprehension.

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.

Abstract

Children perceive iconic gestures, along with speech they hear. Previous studies have shown
that children integrate information from both modalities. Yet it is not known whether children
can integrate both types of information simultaneously as soon as they are available as adults
do or processes them separately initially and integrate them later. Using electrophysiological
measures, we examined the online neurocognitive processing of gesture-speech integration in
6- to 7-year-old children. We focused on the N400 event-related potentials component which
is modulated by semantic integration load. Children watched video clips of matching or
mismatching gesture-speech combinations, which varied the semantic integration load. The
ERPs showed that the amplitude of the N400 was larger in the mismatching condition than in
the matching condition. This finding provides the first neural evidence that by the ages of 6
or 7, children integrate multimodal semantic information in an online fashion comparable to
that of adults.

Abstract

A fundamental assumption about language is that, regardless of language modality, it faces the linearization problem, i.e., an event that occurs simultaneously in the world has to be split in language to be organized on a temporal scale. However, the visual modality of signed languages allows its users not only to express meaning in a linear manner but also to use iconicity and multiple articulators together to encode information simultaneously. Accordingly, in cases when it is necessary to encode informatively rich events, signers can take advantage of simultaneous encoding in order to represent information about different referents and their actions simultaneously. This in turn would lead to more iconic and direct representation. Up to now, there has been no experimental study focusing on simultaneous encoding of information in signed languages and its possible advantage for efficient communication. In the present study, we assessed how many information units can be encoded simultaneously in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and whether the amount of simultaneously encoded information varies based on the amount of information that is required to be expressed. Twenty-three deaf adults participated in a director-matcher game in which they described 30 images of events that varied in amount of information they contained. Results revealed that as the information that had to be encoded increased, signers also increased use of multiple articulators to encode different information (i.e., kinematic simultaneity) and density of simultaneously encoded information in their production. Present findings show how the fundamental properties of signed languages, i.e., iconicity and simultaneity, are used for the purpose of efficient information encoding in Italian Sign Language (LIS).

Abstract

Linguistic expressions of locative spatial relations in sign languages are mostly visually- motivated representations of space involving mapping of entities and spatial relations between them onto the hands and the signing space. These are also morphologically complex forms. It is debated whether modality-specific aspects of spatial expressions modulate spatial language development differently in signing compared to speaking children. In a picture description task, we compared the use of locative expressions for containment, support and occlusion relations by deaf children acquiring Turkish Sign Language and hearing children acquiring Turkish (3;5-9;11 years). Unlike previous reports suggesting a boosting effect of iconicity, and / or a hindering effect of morphological complexity of the locative forms in sign languages, our results show similar developmental patterns for signing and speaking children's acquisition of these forms. Our results suggest the primacy of cognitive development guiding the acquisition of locative expressions by speaking and signing children.

Abstract

Social interaction requires us to recognize subtle cues in behavior, such as kinematic differences in actions and gestures produced with different social intentions. Neuroscientific studies indicate that the putative mirror neuron system (pMNS) in the premotor cortex and mentalizing system (MS) in the medial prefrontal cortex support inferences about contextually unusual actions. However, little is known regarding the brain dynamics of these systems when viewing communicatively exaggerated kinematics. In an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, 28 participants viewed stick-light videos of pantomime gestures, recorded in a previous study, which contained varying degrees of communicative exaggeration. Participants made either social or nonsocial classifications of the videos. Using participant responses and pantomime kinematics, we modeled the probability of each video being classified as communicative. Interregion connectivity and activity were modulated by kinematic exaggeration, depending on the task. In the Social Task, communicativeness of the gesture increased activation of several pMNS and MS regions and modulated top-down coupling from the MS to the pMNS, but engagement of the pMNS and MS was not found in the nonsocial task. Our results suggest that expectation violations can be a key cue for inferring communicative intention, extending previous findings from wholly unexpected actions to more subtle social signaling.

Abstract

Humans are unique in their ability to communicate information through representational gestures which visually simulate an action (eg. moving hands as if opening a jar). Previous research indicates that the intention to communicate modulates the kinematics (e.g., velocity, size) of such gestures. If and how this modulation influences addressees’ comprehension of gestures have not been investigated. Here we ask whether communicative kinematic modulation enhances semantic comprehension (i.e., identification) of gestures. We additionally investigate whether any comprehension advantage is due to enhanced early identification or late identification. Participants (n = 20) watched videos of representational gestures produced in a more- (n = 60) or less-communicative (n = 60) context and performed a forced-choice recognition task. We tested the isolated role of kinematics by removing visibility of actor’s faces in Experiment I, and by reducing the stimuli to stick-light figures in Experiment II. Three video lengths were used to disentangle early identification from late identification. Accuracy and response time quantified main effects. Kinematic modulation was tested for correlations with task performance. We found higher gesture identification performance in more- compared to less-communicative gestures. However, early identification was only enhanced within a full visual context, while late identification occurred even when viewing isolated kinematics. Additionally, temporally segmented acts with more post-stroke holds were associated with higher accuracy. Our results demonstrate that communicative signaling, interacting with other visual cues, generally supports gesture identification, while kinematic modulation specifically enhances late identification in the absence of other cues. Results provide insights into mutual understanding processes as well as creating artificial communicative agents.

Abstract

How can people communicate successfully while keeping resource costs low in the face of ambiguity? We present a principled theoretical analysis comparing two strategies for disambiguation in communication: (i) pragmatic reasoning, where communicators reason about each other, and (ii) other-initiated repair, where communicators signal and resolve trouble interactively. Using agent-based simulations and computational complexity analyses, we compare the efficiency of these strategies in terms of communicative success, computation cost and interaction cost. We show that agents with a simple repair mechanism can increase efficiency, compared to pragmatic agents, by reducing their computational burden at the cost of longer interactions. We also find that efficiency is highly contingent on the mechanism, highlighting the importance of explicit formalisation and computational rigour.

Abstract

Ideophones, also termed “mimetics” or “expressives,” are marked words that depict sensory imagery. They are found in many of the world’s languages, and sizable lexical classes of ideophones are particularly well-documented in languages of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Ideophones are not limited to onomatopoeia like meow and smack, but cover a wide range of sensory domains, such as manner of motion (e.g., plisti plasta ‘splish-splash’ in Basque), texture (e.g., tsaklii ‘rough’ in Ewe), and psychological states (e.g., wakuwaku ‘excited’ in Japanese). Across languages, ideophones stand out as marked words due to special phonotactics, expressive morphology including certain types of reduplication, and relative syntactic independence, in addition to production features like prosodic foregrounding and common co-occurrence with iconic gestures.

Three intertwined issues have been repeatedly debated in the century-long literature on ideophones. (a) Definition: Isolated descriptive traditions and cross-linguistic variation have sometimes obscured a typologically unified view of ideophones, but recent advances show the promise of a prototype definition of ideophones as conventionalised depictions in speech, with room for language-specific nuances. (b) Integration: The variable integration of ideophones across linguistic levels reveals an interaction between expressiveness and grammatical integration, and has important implications for how to conceive of dependencies between linguistic systems. (c) Iconicity: Ideophones form a natural laboratory for the study of iconic form-meaning associations in natural languages, and converging evidence from corpus and experimental studies suggests important developmental, evolutionary, and communicative advantages of ideophones.

Abstract

Referent accessibility influences expressions in speech and gestures in similar ways. Speakers mostly use richer forms as noun phrases (NPs) in speech and gesture more when referents have low accessibility, whereas they use reduced forms such as pronouns more often and gesture less when referents have high accessibility. We investigated the relationships between speech and gesture during reference tracking in a pro-drop language—Turkish. Overt pronouns were not strongly associated with accessibility but with pragmatic context (i.e., marking similarity, contrast). Nevertheless, speakers gestured more when referents were re-introduced versus maintained and when referents were expressed with NPs versus pronouns. Pragmatic context did not influence gestures. Further, pronouns in low-accessibility contexts were accompanied with gestures—possibly for reference disambiguation—more often than previously found for non-pro-drop languages in such contexts. These findings enhance our understanding of the relationships between speech and gesture at the discourse level.

Abstract

We report associations between vowel sounds, graphemes, and colours collected online from over 1000 Dutch speakers. We provide open materials including a Python implementation of the structure measure, and code for a single page web application to run simple cross-modal tasks. We also provide a full dataset of colour-vowel associations from 1164 participants, including over 200 synaesthetes identified using consistency measures. Our analysis reveals salient patterns in cross-modal associations, and introduces a novel measure of isomorphism in cross-modal mappings. We find that while acoustic features of vowels significantly predict certain mappings (replicating prior work), both vowel phoneme category and grapheme category are even better predictors of colour choice. Phoneme category is the best predictor of colour choice overall, pointing to the importance of phonological representations in addition to acoustic cues. Generally, high/front vowels are lighter, more green, and more yellow than low/back vowels. Synaesthetes respond more strongly on some dimensions, choosing lighter and more yellow colours for high and mid front vowels than non-synaesthetes. We also present a novel measure of cross-modal mappings adapted from ecology, which uses a simulated distribution of mappings to measure the extent to which participants' actual mappings are structured isomorphically across modalities. Synaesthetes have mappings that tend to be more structured than non-synaesthetes, and more consistent colour choices across trials correlate with higher structure scores. Nevertheless, the large majority (~70%) of participants produce structured mappings, indicating that the capacity to make isomorphically structured mappings across distinct modalities is shared to a large extent, even if the exact nature of mappings varies across individuals. Overall, this novel structure measure suggests a distribution of structured cross-modal association in the population, with synaesthetes on one extreme and participants with unstructured associations on the other.

Abstract

Do interlocutors adjust their conversational strategies to the specific contextual demands of a given situation? Prior studies have yielded conflicting results, making it unclear how strategies vary with demands. We combine insights from qualitative and quantitative approaches in a within-participant experimental design involving two different contexts: spontaneously occurring conversations (SOC) and task-oriented conversations (TOC). We systematically assess backchanneling, other-repair and linguistic alignment. We find that SOC exhibit a higher number of backchannels, a reduced and more generic repair format and higher rates of lexical and syntactic alignment. TOC are characterized by a high number of specific repairs and a lower rate of lexical and syntactic alignment. However, when alignment occurs, more linguistic forms are aligned. The findings show that conversational strategies adapt to specific contextual demands.

Abstract

This chapter makes the case for ‘ideophone’ as a comparative concept: a notion that captures a recurrent typological pattern and provides a template for understanding language-specific phenomena that prove similar. It revises an earlier definition to account for the observation that ideophones typically form an open lexical class, and uses insights from canonical typology to explore the larger typological space. According to the resulting definition, a canonical ideophone is a member of an open lexical class of marked words that depict sensory imagery. The five elements of this definition can be seen as dimensions that together generate a possibility space to characterise cross-linguistic diversity in depictive means of expression. This approach allows for the systematic comparative treatment of ideophones and ideophone-like phenomena. Some phenomena in the larger typological space are discussed to demonstrate the utility of the approach: phonaesthemes in European languages, specialised semantic classes in West-Chadic, diachronic diversions in Aslian, and depicting constructions in signed languages.

Abstract

Visual information conveyed by iconic hand gestures and visible speech can enhance speech comprehension under adverse listening conditions for both native and non‐native listeners. However, how a listener allocates visual attention to these articulators during speech comprehension is unknown. We used eye‐tracking to investigate whether and how native and highly proficient non‐native listeners of Dutch allocated overt eye gaze to visible speech and gestures during clear and degraded speech comprehension. Participants watched video clips of an actress uttering a clear or degraded (6‐band noise‐vocoded) action verb while performing a gesture or not, and were asked to indicate the word they heard in a cued‐recall task. Gestural enhancement was the largest (i.e., a relative reduction in reaction time cost) when speech was degraded for all listeners, but it was stronger for native listeners. Both native and non‐native listeners mostly gazed at the face during comprehension, but non‐native listeners gazed more often at gestures than native listeners. However, only native but not non‐native listeners' gaze allocation to gestures predicted gestural benefit during degraded speech comprehension. We conclude that non‐native listeners might gaze at gesture more as it might be more challenging for non‐native listeners to resolve the degraded auditory cues and couple those cues to phonological information that is conveyed by visible speech. This diminished phonological knowledge might hinder the use of semantic information that is conveyed by gestures for non‐native compared to native listeners. Our results demonstrate that the degree of language experience impacts overt visual attention to visual articulators, resulting in different visual benefits for native versus non‐native listeners.

Abstract

Listeners are often challenged by adverse listening conditions during language comprehension induced by external factors, such as noise, but also internal factors, such as being a non-native listener. Visible cues, such as semantic information conveyed by iconic gestures, can enhance language comprehension in such situations. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG) we investigated whether spatiotemporal oscillatory dynamics can predict a listener's benefit of iconic gestures during language comprehension in both internally (non-native versus native listeners) and externally (clear/degraded speech) induced adverse listening conditions. Proficient non-native speakers of Dutch were presented with videos in which an actress uttered a degraded or clear verb, accompanied by a gesture or not, and completed a cued-recall task after every video. The behavioral and oscillatory results obtained from non-native listeners were compared to an MEG study where we presented the same stimuli to native listeners (Drijvers et al., 2018a). Non-native listeners demonstrated a similar gestural enhancement effect as native listeners, but overall scored significantly slower on the cued-recall task. In both native and non-native listeners, an alpha/beta power suppression revealed engagement of the extended language network, motor and visual regions during gestural enhancement of degraded speech comprehension, suggesting similar core processes that support unification and lexical access processes. An individual's alpha/beta power modulation predicted the gestural benefit a listener experienced during degraded speech comprehension. Importantly, however, non-native listeners showed less engagement of the mouth area of the primary somatosensory cortex, left insula (beta), LIFG and ATL (alpha) than native listeners, which suggests that non-native listeners might be hindered in processing the degraded phonological cues and coupling them to the semantic information conveyed by the gesture. Native and non-native listeners thus demonstrated similar yet distinct spatiotemporal oscillatory dynamics when recruiting visual cues to disambiguate degraded speech.

Abstract

Studies have claimed that blind people’s spatial representations are different from sighted people, and blind people display superior auditory processing. Due to the nature of auditory and haptic information, it has been proposed that blind people have spatial representations that are more sequential than sighted people. Even the temporary loss of sight—such as through blindfolding—can affect spatial representations, but not much research has been done on this topic. We compared blindfolded and sighted people’s linguistic spatial expressions and non-linguistic localization accuracy to test how blindfolding affects the representation of path in auditory motion events. We found that blindfolded people were as good as sighted people when localizing simple sounds, but they outperformed sighted people when localizing auditory motion events. Blindfolded people’s path related speech also included more sequential, and less holistic elements. Our results indicate that even temporary loss of sight influences spatial representations of auditory motion events

Abstract

The sign languages of deaf communities and the gestures produced by hearing people are communicative systems that exploit the manual-visual modality as means of expression. Despite their striking differences they share the property of iconicity, understood as the direct relationship between a symbol and its referent. Here we investigate whether non-signing hearing adults exploit their implicit knowledge of gestures to bootstrap accurate understanding of the meaning of iconic signs they have never seen before. In Study 1 we show that for some concepts gestures exhibit systematic forms across participants, and share different degrees of form overlap with the signs for the same concepts (full, partial, and no overlap). In Study 2 we found that signs with stronger resemblance with signs are more accurately guessed and are assigned higher iconicity ratings by non-signers than signs with low overlap. In addition, when more people produced a systematic gesture resembling a sign, they assigned higher iconicity ratings to that sign. Furthermore, participants had a bias to assume that signs represent actions and not objects. The similarities between some signs and gestures could be explained by deaf signers and hearing gesturers sharing a conceptual substrate that is rooted in our embodied experiences with the world. The finding that gestural knowledge can ease the interpretation of the meaning of novel signs and predicts iconicity ratings is in line with embodied accounts of cognition and the influence of prior knowledge to acquire new schemas. Through these mechanisms we propose that iconic gestures that overlap in form with signs may serve as some type of ‘manual cognates’ that help non-signing adults to break into a new language at first exposure.

Abstract

Thematic roles such as Agent and Instrument have a long-standing place in theories of event representation. Nonetheless, the structure of these categories has been difficult to determine. We investigated how instrumental events, such as someone slicing bread with a knife, are categorized in English. Speakers described a variety of typical and atypical instrumental events, and we determined the similarity structure of their descriptions using correspondence analysis. We found that events where the instrument is an extension of an intentional agent were most likely to elicit similar language, highlighting the importance of agency in structuring instrumental categories.

Abstract

The status of thematic roles such as Agent and Patient in cognitive science is highly controversial: To some they are universal components of core knowledge, to others they are scholarly fictions without psychological reality. We address this debate by posing two critical questions: to what extent do humans represent events in terms of abstract role categories, and to what extent are these categories shaped by universal cognitive biases? We review a range of literature that contributes answers to these questions: psycholinguistic and event cognition experiments with adults, children, and infants; typological studies grounded in cross-linguistic data; and studies of emerging sign languages. We pose these questions for a variety of roles and find that the answers depend on the role. For Agents and Patients, there is strong evidence for abstract role categories and a universal bias to distinguish the two roles. For Goals and Recipients, we find clear evidence for abstraction but mixed evidence as to whether there is a bias to encode Goals and Recipients as part of one or two distinct categories. Finally, we discuss the Instrumental role and do not find clear evidence for either abstraction or universal biases to structure instrumental categories.

Abstract

Speakers can adapt their speech and co-speech gestures based on knowledge shared with an addressee (common ground-based recipient design). Here, we investigate whether these adaptations are modulated by the speaker’s age and cognitive abilities. Younger and older participants narrated six short comic stories to a same-aged addressee. Half of each story was known to both participants, the other half only to the speaker. The two age groups did not differ in terms of the number of words and narrative events mentioned per narration, or in terms of gesture frequency, gesture rate, or percentage of events expressed multimodally. However, only the younger participants reduced the amount of verbal and gestural information when narrating mutually known as opposed to novel story content. Age-related differences in cognitive abilities did not predict these differences in common ground-based recipient design. The older participants’ communicative behaviour may therefore also reflect differences in social or pragmatic goals.

Abstract

In everyday life, people see, describe and remember motion events. We tested whether the type of motion event information (path or manner) encoded in speech and gesture predicts which information is remembered and if this varies across speakers of typologically different languages. We focus on intransitive motion events (e.g., a woman running to a tree) that are described differently in speech and co-speech gesture across languages, based on how these languages typologically encode manner and path information (Kita & Özyürek, 2003; Talmy, 1985). Speakers of Dutch (n = 19) and Turkish (n = 22) watched and described motion events. With a surprise (i.e. unexpected) recognition memory task, memory for manner and path components of these events was measured. Neither Dutch nor Turkish speakers’ memory for manner went above chance levels. However, we found a positive relation between path speech and path change detection: participants who described the path during encoding were more accurate at detecting changes to the path of an event during the memory task. In addition, the relation between path speech and path memory changed with native language: for Dutch speakers encoding path in speech was related to improved path memory, but for Turkish speakers no such relation existed. For both languages, co-speech gesture did not predict memory speakers. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the relations between speech, gesture, type of encoding in language and memory.

Abstract

Action, gesture, and sign represent unique aspects of human communication that use form and movement to convey meaning. Researchers typically use manual coding of video data to characterize naturalistic, meaningful movements at various levels of description, but the availability of markerless motion-tracking technology allows for quantification of the kinematic features of gestures or any meaningful human movement. We present a novel protocol for extracting a set of kinematic features from movements recorded with Microsoft Kinect. Our protocol captures spatial and temporal features, such as height, velocity, submovements/strokes, and holds. This approach is based on studies of communicative actions and gestures and attempts to capture features that are consistently implicated as important kinematic aspects of communication. We provide open-source code for the protocol, a description of how the features are calculated, a validation of these features as quantified by our protocol versus manual coders, and a discussion of how the protocol can be applied. The protocol effectively quantifies kinematic features that are important in the production (e.g., characterizing different contexts) as well as the comprehension (e.g., used by addressees to understand intent and semantics) of manual acts. The protocol can also be integrated with qualitative analysis, allowing fast and objective demarcation of movement units, providing accurate coding even of complex movements. This can be useful to clinicians, as well as to researchers studying multimodal communication or human–robot interactions. By making this protocol available, we hope to provide a tool that can be applied to understanding meaningful movement characteristics in human communication.

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 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 toward detail processing. In synaesthetes, elevated motion coherence thresholds 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 motion coherence thresholds. Altogether, our studies suggest atypical sensory sensitivity and a bias towards detail processing are shared features of synaesthesia and autism spectrum disorder.

Abstract

Ideophones (also known as expressives or mimetics, and including onomatopoeia) have been systematically studied in linguistics since the 1850s, when they were first described as a lexical class of vivid sensory words in West-African languages. This paper surveys the research history of ideophones, from its roots in African linguistics to its fruits in general linguistics and typology around the globe. It shows that despite a recurrent narrative of marginalisation, work on ideophones has made an impact in many areas of linguistics, from theories of phonological features to typologies of manner and motion, and from sound symbolism to sensory language. Due to their hybrid nature as gradient vocal gestures that grow roots in discrete linguistic systems, ideophones provide opportunities to reframe typological questions, reconsider the role of language ideology in linguistic scholarship, and rethink the margins of language. With ideophones increasingly being brought into the fold of the language sciences, this review synthesises past theoretical insights and empirical findings in order to enable future work to build on them.

Abstract

In conversation, people regularly deal with problems of speaking, hearing, and understanding. We report on a cross-linguistic investigation of the conversational structure of other-initiated repair (also known as collaborative repair, feedback, requests for clarification, or grounding sequences). We take stock of formats for initiating repair across languages (comparable to English huh?, who?, y’mean X?, etc.) and find that different languages make available a wide but remarkably similar range of linguistic resources for this function. We exploit the patterned variation as evidence for several underlying concerns addressed by repair initiation: characterising trouble, managing responsibility, and handling knowledge. The concerns do not always point in the same direction and thus provide participants in interaction with alternative principles for selecting one format over possible others. By comparing conversational structures across languages, this paper contributes to pragmatic typology: the typology of systems of language use and the principles that shape them.

Abstract

Previous work revealed that visual semantic information conveyed by gestures can enhance degraded speech comprehension, but the mechanisms underlying these integration processes under adverse listening conditions remain poorly understood. We used MEG to investigate how oscillatory dynamics support speech–gesture integration when integration load is manipulated by auditory (e.g., speech degradation) and visual semantic (e.g., gesture congruency) factors. Participants were presented with videos of an actress uttering an action verb in clear or degraded speech, accompanied by a matching (mixing gesture + “mixing”) or mismatching (drinking gesture + “walking”) gesture. In clear speech, alpha/beta power was more suppressed in the left inferior frontal gyrus and motor and visual cortices when integration load increased in response to mismatching versus matching gestures. In degraded speech, beta power was less suppressed over posterior STS and medial temporal lobe for mismatching compared with matching gestures, showing that integration load was lowest when speech was degraded and mismatching gestures could not be integrated and disambiguate the degraded signal. Our results thus provide novel insights on how low-frequency oscillatory modulations in different parts of the cortex support the semantic audiovisual integration of gestures in clear and degraded speech: When speech is clear, the left inferior frontal gyrus and motor and visual cortices engage because higher-level semantic information increases semantic integration load. When speech is degraded, posterior STS/middle temporal gyrus and medial temporal lobe are less engaged because integration load is lowest when visual semantic information does not aid lexical retrieval and speech and gestures cannot be integrated.

Abstract

During face-to-face communication, listeners integrate speech with gestures. The semantic information conveyed by iconic gestures (e.g., a drinking gesture) can aid speech comprehension in adverse listening conditions. In this magnetoencephalography (MEG) study, we investigated the spatiotemporal neural oscillatory activity associated with gestural enhancement of degraded speech comprehension. Participants watched videos of an actress uttering clear or degraded speech, accompanied by a gesture or not and completed a cued-recall task after watching every video. When gestures semantically disambiguated degraded speech comprehension, an alpha and beta power suppression and a gamma power increase revealed engagement and active processing in the hand-area of the motor cortex, the extended language network (LIFG/pSTS/STG/MTG), medial temporal lobe, and occipital regions. These observed low- and high-frequency oscillatory modulations in these areas support general unification, integration and lexical access processes during online language comprehension, and simulation of and increased visual attention to manual gestures over time. All individual oscillatory power modulations associated with gestural enhancement of degraded speech comprehension predicted a listener's correct disambiguation of the degraded verb after watching the videos. Our results thus go beyond the previously proposed role of oscillatory dynamics in unimodal degraded speech comprehension and provide first evidence for the role of low- and high-frequency oscillations in predicting the integration of auditory and visual information at a semantic level.