Gestural communication in Apes Flashcards
What is meant by the term reference?
The acquired ability to capture and direct the attention of a social partner to a specific entity
What are the two different ways humans reference?
Verbally and non-verbally (showing, placing, pointing)
Finish the sentences about the semiotic triangle…
1. Symbolic linguistic references are irreducibly ______
2. ______ relationship between word and _______
3. Internal _______ of the world
4. Semantic ________
- conceptual
- Arbitrary, referent
- representations
- lexicon
What is a linguistic reference?
The act of referring through which one concept is connected to another
Functional reference calls have the common property of external ____, all of which are relatively ____ in nature
designate, specific
A call repertoire means ____ responses implicate a ____ code
Group, shared
Define gestural reference
Directing of attention TO some thing or person
What relationship does gestural or nonverbal reference have with referent?
Nonarbitrary, or indexical
Ability to use and comprehend pointing gestures implies an understanding of the gesture as a ____ device.
deictic
What are the four key concepts of The Shannon-Weaver Mathematical Model, 1949?
How does language fit this model well?
Entropy
Redundancy
Noise
Channel Capacity
Shared code, linear, serially ordered structure (S -> R), assumption of a pre-existing message to be encoded and transmitted
What are some problems of the Telementational model?
What causes mental states?
Mental causes assumed, not measured
Process is hypothetical
Process is assumed, not measured
What are the six criteria used to identify intentional acts of communication in nonhuman primates?
- Social use
- Visual-orienting behaviour or gaze alternation
- Influence of attentional state
- Attention-getting behaviours
- Persistence
- Elaboration
By themselves, all gestures are meaningless to observers. Observers need what three things to allocate meaning?
- A learning history with the gesture that is influenced by
- Antecedents of gestural signals (behaviour, context)
- Consequences of gestural signals (receiver’s responses)
Gestures don’t stand for referents, their meaning is ______ except in particular socio-cultural contexts
Opaque
What were some meanings determined by apparently satisfactory outcomes in chimpanzees?
Directed push has multiple ASOs, meaning is more diffuse
Hand fling has only one ASO, meaning is unambiguous within the group
When signaller ceases gestures, assumption is made that the receiver’s immediately previous response was viewed by the signaller as a satisfactory response
Give an example of ontogenetic ritualisation
- Chimpanzee babies actively take food from mothers’ mouths
- Then they hold their hands very close to the mothers’ mouth
- Then they display a begging gesture from a distance
The begging gesture becomes ritualised from a physical tool to catch any falling food, to a social tool to request food
A ritualised gesture is an abbreviated version of what?
A mechanically effective act
Finish the sentences about the key factors of biologically determined species repertoire…
1. Very large ____-_____ repertoire
2.Each individual displays a ______ of the full repertoire
3. High ____ in gesture meaning across groups
4. Evidence for ____ in ____ studies is attributable to overwhelming influence of predominantly ____ contexts
- species-typical
- subset
- concordance
- variability, captive, play (which renders a biased perception of inter-group variability)
What are three factors of co-construction of meaning…
1. Some gestures appear to be largely _______ (wrist present)
2. Little support for _________ ritualisation, except that gestures are shaped through _______ interaction (tickling)
3. Some gestures seem neither ______ nor ________ from mechanically effective actions: individual pairs achieve a ________ understanding of a gesture’s meaning (grooming)
- innate
- ontogenetic, dyadic
3.innate, ritualised, negotiated
What are three factors of gestural theory of language origins…
1. Like speech, ape gestures are manifestly ________
2. Like speech, ape gestures reflect _____ ________ _________ dominance
3. Like humans, apes are even more ______-________ when they vocalise while gesturing
- intentional
- left cerebral hemisphere
- right-handed
How many years ago was the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees?
6-7 million years ago
Reference is an i___ c____ phenomenon
Irreducibly conceptual
What are the three poles of the semiotic triangle?
- Thing(s)
- Sign(s)
- Concept(s)
What kind of relationships are there between the poles in the semiotic triangle?
Arbitrary
Where do concepts in the semiotic triangle take place?
In the mind
What is a semantic lexicon?
A bunch of words about a concept stored in the mind
What is meant by a dyadic gesture?
A gesture displayed from one individual to another individual
What is meant by a triadic gesture?
Gesture and gaze directed to different things
E.g. gaze directed art human and gesture directed towards wanted food/desired outcome
What is meant by a broadcast gesture?
A gesture not directed at something specific
What is the key concept of The Shannon-Weaver Mathematical Model?
Information broadcasted/transmitted through channel; (noise source, e.g. voice travelling through air), speech decoded by receiver, recover original message in destination (receiver)
Briefly describe an experiment into measuring persistence in chimpanzees
Banana outside case on one side, purina primate chow on other, all showed prefer for banana, gave banana, chow or half of banana
all that got banana stopped signalling completely after given banana
Persisted if given chow, persisted if only given half banana
