Lecture 1 Flashcards
What are the components of communication?
- Involves multiple individuals
- Use of symbols and the perceiver
- Different modes (singing)
- Noises made by animals
- Gestured
- Clothing
What channels transmit information?
Visual
Chemical
Tactile
Vocal - auditory
What is the intended effect of communication?
In non human animals, there is a limited function of communication- mating call, threat, alarm call
Human animals:
Very broad range and function of communication - social emotional, requests
How is meaning conveyed during communication?
Icon - a stimulus pattern that signifies what it resembles (home button leads you to home page)
- Index: stimulus pattern represents something because it is naturally correlated with it (smoke =fire)
- Symbol: stimulus pattern signifies something due to arbitrary association (agreed by a particular community)
What are some problems with Peircian categories ?
- Category can change over time (iconic -> symbolic )
- Sometimes it is fuzzy as to what category specific info adheres to
- The full interpretation we assign to a communicative stimulus depends on the context
Which Peircian symbol represents and is indicative of human communication?
The 3rd subtype or symbols- used to elicit a specific interpretation
What happened in the case study of alarm sounds?
- the sound of two distinct alarm calls from ground squirrels was exhibited
- nearby predator call- hide & predator distance - slowly hide , be careful
- chickens - 2 distinct calls (aerial vs. Terrestrial predators) describe the escape strategy of the predator , coming from the ground or above
- vervet monkeys - 3 way signalling system ( eagle,leopard, snake call which indicated which tactics to use to escape from predators)
-> all these examples show how animals communicate in the wild and respond to the external circumstances of their environment
What are the 6 design features of human language?
- Semanticity - what a concept stands for ( the word dog- to mean actual dog)
- Arbitrariness- the symbol and what it refers to arbitrarily
- Arbitrariness - signal is built from a combination of discrete units (dog 3units , 1 vowel, 2 consonants
- Duality of patterning - combing of discrete units to create different signals - formation of complex words or sentences
- Productivity - the ability to create a novel combination & understand what it means
- Displacement : the ability to refer to concepts that are not in the physical here and now, theoretical concepts
Do vervet monkeys (and the use of their 3 distinct alarm calls) satisfy the features of language ?
- Semanticity - sensory pattern is connected to a concept x= y?
Yes - Arbitrariness - does the information relate to a specific meaning in a certain group?
Yes - Discreetness - built up from a combination of units ?
3 distinct sounds, no idea if it forms a sentence so maybe - duality of patterning: combination of discrete units to form sentences or words?
No - Productivity - ability to create a combinationnnever heard before and understand it?
No - Displacement : ability to refer to different concepts that are not in the here and now?
No
What are other examples of animal communication that meet design features?
- Direction of bee dance and on their hive o signals the direction of food relative to the suns angle
Meets :
- Semanticity - this motion refers to where food is
- Discreteness (maybe) waggle = distance & direction is location
- Displacement- food is removed from the present
What was the earliest attempt to teach non human primates human communication?
• in the 1930’s a chimp lived with a human family and learned 70 commands but yet, wasn’t able to produce speech
What are the implications/ lessons of teaching studies involving animals and the use of human communication systems?
•there’s little evidence for symbols being paired with mental faculties
- the evidence for novel combination of symbols is limited
- animals may have a role of imitation rather than speech production
