3/5/2023 0 Comments Describe chimpanzee hand![]() Hearing speakers make ample use of visually perceivable gestures with speech ( Goldin-Meadow & Singer, 2003 Kendon, 2004 Levy & McNeill, 1992 Müller, 2018). Based on these two types of visual communication in humans-sign language, and displays of intense emotion- Sandler (2018) concludes that humans are compositional communicators. The different elements of such a composite signal are conveyed by different articulators for example, the signal can be a combination of a facial expression and a gesture, or a bodily posture and a facial expression, each contributing an aspect of emotional meaning. This means that whole-body displays of emotions are composed of elements and sets of elements that contribute their meanings to the whole emotional display ( Cavicchio et al., 2018 Sandler, 2018). Human participants are able to distinguish emotions based on different configurations of the face and body ( Cavicchio et al., 2018 Cavicchio & Sandler, 2015). Recent studies have proposed that compositionality is also found in other forms of human communication, in particular, in the expression of intense emotion. In sign languages, different articulators-the hands, the face, and the body-contribute to creating specific meanings, compositionally ( Sandler, 2012). Compositionality characterizes natural sign languages as well, demonstrating convincingly that all natural human language is compositional, whether produced by the voice and perceived by the ears, or produced by external bodily articulators and perceived by the eyes ( Pfau, Steinbach & Woll, 2012 Sandler & Lillo-Martin, 2006). Such flexibility is another key characteristic of human language ( Jackendoff, 2011). ![]() Given the building blocks and the rules at each level of structure, compositionality lends language a high degree of flexibility and productivity, as the combination of a limited number of components facilitates potentially open repertoires. Morphemes combine to make complex words words combine with other words in compounds and in phrases phrases combine to make sentences and simple sentences combine to form complex sentences. We propose that the componentiality exhibited in this study represents a necessary stepping stone toward a fully evolved compositional system.Ĭompositionality is an important characteristic of human language, which allows meaningful elements to be combined to create more complex structures ( Werning, Hinzen & Machery, 2012). Yet our data do not suggest that the components have consistent meanings in each combination-a defining property of compositionality. We show for the first time that the components under study are recombinable, and that different combinations elicit different responses, a property that we refer to as componentiality. Specifically, adding a bared teeth face to a gesture either increased the likelihood of affiliative behavior (for stretched arm gesture) or eliminated the bias toward an affiliative response (for bent arm gesture). Overall, our results suggest that, in positive contexts, such as play or grooming, specific combinations had an impact on the likelihood of the occurrence of particular responses. We analyzed whether the recipients’ response varied depending on the signaler’s usage of a given gesture + face combination and the context in which these were used. Based on a form-based coding procedure of the collected video footage, we identified two frequently used manual gestures (stretched arm gesture and bent arm gesture) and two facial expression (bared teeth face and funneled lip face). Furthermore, we expect context-dependent usage of these combinations. If there are compositional structures in chimpanzee communication, adding a facial expression to a gesture should convey a different message than the gesture alone, a difference that we expect to be measurable by the recipient’s response. We investigated two semi-wild groups of chimpanzees, with focus on their manual gestures and their combinations with facial expressions across different social contexts. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to investigate whether there is evidence for compositional structures in the communication of chimpanzees. While it is known that chimpanzees, our closest relatives, produce a variety of gestures, facial expressions and vocalizations in interactions with their group members, little is known about how these signals combine simultaneously. ![]() Comparative research into the emergence of human language aims at identifying precursors to such key features of human language in the communication of other primates. Compositionality is a defining characteristic of all human language, spoken and signed. Compositionality refers to a structural property of human language, according to which the meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meaning of its parts and the way they are combined.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |