1 Principles of com

Question 1

What is communication?

Answer 1

“A way of promoting changes in the world - specifically of influencing others by using signs”

Mechanical vs Communicative actions

Components of communication:
- Unit: communicative action
- Producer (P): someone who produces a communicative action
Recipient (R: the recipient of a communicative action

Question 2

Mechanical vs Communicative actions

Answer 2

Communicative actions:
- Used as an alternative to mechanical
- Involve the use of signs (things that stand for something else)

Mechanical:
e.g. growling. basic physical signals

Question 3

is sign language communicative or mechanical?

Answer 3

communicative

Question 4

Communicative actions: types of signs (Peirce, 1903)

Answer 4

Icon

Index

Symbols

Question 5

Icon

Answer 5

e.g. an image of a cat

Question 6

index

Answer 6

e.g. a sign, like pointing a finger

Question 7

symbols

Answer 7

e.g. words

Question 8

role of producer

Answer 8

to promote changes in R’s feelings, thoughts, motivations or actions (not forced)

Question 9

Shannon & Weaver’s Transmission model

Answer 9

• Designing a mechanism to communicate messages

Over time people have used this model (not created as an explanation, but a machine) and it has misguided some communication

Question 10

Communication is synergetic, Bateson

Answer 10

Synergetic = not linear

	○ P doesn’t cause a change in R in a mechanical way
	○ R's response depends on how they make sense of P's communication, actively

Question 11

Pointing problems (Tomasello 2008)

Answer 11

○ Pointing = an index sign
○ Process generates 2 practical problems…
§ How to get across clearly? (P’s problem)
R’s outcome is not certain

a sign, something that stands for something else, r needs to make sense of it

Question 12

problems with pointing

Answer 12

• message relies on r’s interpretation of it

potential for misunderstanding

also depends on r’s motivation to respond

outcome not certain

Question 13

Another problem with idea of com as transmission:

Answer 13

it is interactive, not linear…

P monitor’s R’s response

R’s response works as feedback

Question 14

Communication: Synergetic or Interactive

Answer 14

synergetic (non-linear)

interactive (feedback from each other)

Question 15

Communication in the natural world:

Answer 15

• Wolves use signs (teeth baring + growling) to convey a communicative action (a ‘threat’)
  ○ Have specialised communication over time
  • Is this communication the same as human communication?
    ○ Does have intention, however is very different…

Question 16

Wolf compared to human communication

Answer 16

wolf:
fixed/scripted
determined (genetics)
indiscriminate
unintentional

Human:
flexible
learned
recipient-designed
intentional

Question 17

intentional communication

Answer 17

humans capable of this

can also be capable of unintentional comunication (e.g. if we answer a call with a croaky voice this communicated something unintentionally)

may not be the only species capable of it…

	○ Flexible
	○ Learned R-designed

Question 18

Great Apes: Vocalisations:

Answer 18

It is still controversial whether great ape vocalisations are fixed, determined and done indiscriminately for any individual in the surrounding environment
But see Fischer (2021) and Schel et al. (2013)

Question 19

Great ape gestures: intention movements

Answer 19

In other animals: genetically fixed (e.g., wolf baring teeth)

Example in great apes: infant-mother intention movement to request to be carried
- Flexible,
- Learned (there are different signs so we know it’s not just genetic)
- recipient-designed
○ P monitors R’s attention
○ R learns to anticipate P’s action
○ P learns to anticipate R’s response and waits
○ R discriminates between gestures done for them and for others
○ Persistence
(Rossano, 2013)

Question 20

Some limitations of great apes’ intentional communication (4)

Answer 20

Referential limitation

Signal limitation

Temporal limitation

Action limitation

Question 21

Apes: Referential limitation

Answer 21

communication between P and R only (no external referent)

	○ Cannot triangulate (i.e. communicate that another ape would like to be carried)

Question 22

Apes: Signal limitation

Answer 22

‘natural’ meaning only
○ Meaning is not conventional (not using words)

Question 23

Apes: Temporal limitation

Answer 23

here and now

Question 24

Apes: Action limitation

Answer 24

imperative only (Command)

Question 25

Human communication features (compared to what apes cannot do)

Answer 25

can use external references (triangulate)

conventional meaning

temporarily flexible

many communicative actions

Question 26

Where human communication comes from

Answer 26

pointing

Question 27

Human pointing compared to great ape intention movements

Answer 27

• No referential limitation to human pointing
  
  • (Still a temporal limitation, overcome with spoken, sign, and written language)*
  • No signal limitation
  • No action limitation: the same gesture can implement several different types of action
  • What makes this possible?

*But see an exception to this limitation discussed in the key reading (p. 80)

Question 28

Three principles of human communication: Clark, 1996; Tomasello, 2008

Answer 28

• Context: Physical setting. Infinite parts to a context
  • Relevance: aspects of the context, needing to follow the physical context. Makes sense of a communicative action
  • Common ground: awareness of previous knowledge/ shared knowledge

These are connected by cooperation…

helps P and R to solve their communicative problems

Question 29

Cooperation

Answer 29

People’s search for the meaning of communicative signals is guided by cooperative thinking:
○ The context in which you and I are together
○ What is relevant to the activity/situation we are both in (not just me, egocentrically) e.g. mentioning a friend’s name, who you know many others but you think of the friend you have in common as that is the most likely topic.
What you and I know in commo

Question 30

Summary:

Answer 30

• Human communication is synergetic and interactive
  ○ (not linear)
  • It is flexible, learned, and recipient-designed
  • It follows three principles: context, relevance, and common ground
• These three principles require cooperative thinking and motivations

Question 31

Reading: coded vs non-coded com

Answer 31

Pointing and pantomiming: (non-coded)

- Establishing an explicit code requires some preexisting form of communication that is at least as rich as that code. Therefore to understand communication we cannot begin with language (coded)

(sign language is coded as it contains complexities of human lang)

Question 32

Reading: Pointing

Answer 32

“attention-directing” or “deictic gestures”

- Basic function is to point attention
- Extra cognitive work must then be done to tell the social intention

- Is gleaning the meaning behind a point reliant on the fact that we already know language?
- However infants (before they have much/ any language) can use pointing to direct others and to communicate social intentions.

Question 33

Reading: the cooperation model

Answer 33

Human cooperation is unique, involving shared intentionality

Question 34

reading: creating common ground

Answer 34

context

- it is only because humans are able to construct with others various forms of conceptual common ground and joint attention that very simple pointing and iconic gestures can be used to communicate in complex ways— ways that go far beyond what great apes are able to communicate with their intention-movement and attention-getting gestures.

Question 35

reading: Social motivations: helping and sharing

Answer 35

• Thus may use 3 general types of communicative motives:

    ○ Requesting: want help with something
    ○ Informing: want you to know something
    ○ Sharing: I want you to feel something (share emotions/ attitudes)