scholarly journals Do iconic gestures pave the way for children's early verbs?

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 1143-1162 ◽  
Author(s):  
ŞEYDA ÖZÇALIŞKAN ◽  
DEDRE GENTNER ◽  
SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Label ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Object Point ◽  
Deictic Gesture ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACTChildren produce a deictic gesture for a particular object (point at dog) approximately 3 months before they produce the verbal label for that object (“dog”; Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 2005). Gesture thus paves the way for children's early nouns. We ask here whether the same pattern of gesture preceding and predicting speech holds for iconic gestures. In other words, do gestures that depict actions precede and predict early verbs? We observed spontaneous speech and gestures produced by 40 children (22 girls, 18 boys) from age 14 to 34 months. Children produced their first iconic gestures 6 monthslaterthan they produced their first verbs. Thus, unlike the onset of deictic gestures, the onset of iconic gestures conveying action meanings followed, rather than preceded, children's first verbs. However, iconic gestures increased in frequency at the same time as verbs did and, at that time, began to convey meanings not yet expressed in speech. Our findings suggest that children can use gesture to expand their repertoire of action meanings, but only after they have begun to acquire the verb system underlying their language.

Spontaneous Speech Summarization: Transformers All The Way Through

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomoki Hayashi ◽  
Takenori Yoshimura ◽  
Masaya Inuzuka ◽  
Ibuki Kuroyanagi ◽  
Osamu Segawa
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Speech Summarization ◽  
The Way

scholarly journals Infant-directed speech as a window into the dynamic nature of phonology

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiko Mazuka ◽  
Yosuke Igarashi ◽  
Andrew Martin ◽  
Akira Utsugi
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Natural Speech ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
High Vowels ◽  
Static Conditions ◽  
Japanese Mothers ◽  
Read Speech ◽  
The Way

AbstractTheoretical frameworks of phonology are built largely on the basis of idealized speech, typically recorded in a laboratory under static conditions. Natural speech, in contrast, occurs in a variety of communicative contexts where speakers and hearers dynamically adjust their speech to fit their needs. The present paper demonstrates that phonologically informed analysis of specialized speech registers, such as infant-directed speech, can reveal specific ways segmental and supra-segmental aspects of phonology are modulated dynamically to accommodate the specific communicative needs of speakers and hearers. Data for the analyses come from a corpus of Japanese mothers’ spontaneous speech directed to their infant child (infant-directed speech, IDS) and an adult (adult-directed speech, ADS), as well as read speech (RS). The speech samples in the corpus are annotated with segmental, morphological, and intonational information. We will show that the way intonation is exaggerated in Japanese IDS reflects the intonational structure of Japanese, which is different from that of English. We will also demonstrate that rules of phonological grammar, such as devoicing of high vowels and non-high vowels in Japanese, can be differently affected by the needs of the speaker to accommodate the specific characteristics of the listener.

scholarly journals Different Bodies, Different Minds

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 378-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Casasanto
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cognitive Differences ◽  
Motor Experience ◽  
Abstract Ideas ◽  
Action Verbs ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Right And Left Hands ◽  
The Way

Do people with different kinds of bodies think differently? According to the body-specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009), they should. In this article, I review evidence that right- and left-handers, who perform actions in systematically different ways, use correspondingly different areas of the brain for imagining actions and representing the meanings of action verbs. Beyond concrete actions, the way people use their hands also influences the way they represent abstract ideas with positive and negative emotional valence like “goodness,” “honesty,” and “intelligence” and how they communicate about these ideas in spontaneous speech and gesture. Changing how people use their right and left hands can cause them to think differently, suggesting that motoric differences between right- and left-handers are not merely correlated with cognitive differences. Body-specific patterns of motor experience shape the way we think, feel, communicate, and make decisions.

scholarly journals Illocution and attitude

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Tommaso Raso ◽  
Bruno Rocha
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Speech Corpora ◽  
The Way

This paper aims at investigating the prosodic relations between the category of illocution and that of attitude, the latter defined as the way the illocution (verbal action) is performed (Modis on Actum). We set three experiments and relative perception tests seeking to understand: (i) how different attitudes of the same illocution (Order) are perceived in different contexts; (ii) whether the illocutions of Order and Instruction are conveyed by the same prosodic form; (iii) how pragmatic/cognitive parameters work to accommodate a different prosodic form, using the illocutions of Offer and Question of Confirmation. We conclude that the methodology for the study of the illocutionary prosodic forms must pay close attention to the prosodic aspects of attitude, since they are always present when an illocution is performed, superposing their features over those of the illocution. We also claim that the identification of a specific illocution must consider some pragmatic and cognitive parameters, and not only prosody, since different illocutions can be prosodically performed with the same form. This becomes clear if we look for data in spontaneous speech corpora, where the pragmatic conditions can be at least partially reconstructed.

scholarly journals The Icelandic (Pilot) Project in ScanDiaSyn

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.91 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Höskuldur Thráinsson ◽  
Ásgrímur Angantýsson ◽  
Ásta Svavarsdóttir ◽  
Thórhallur Eythórsson ◽  
Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Pilot Project ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Work Done ◽  
The Way

In this paper we outline the Icelandic research plans in the Scandinavian Dialect Syntax project and explain why we have made these plans the way we have. We begin by reporting on a pilot project that was conducted in Iceland 2004-2005, explain its nature and describe the resulting plans. As will be seen, our research project includes the collection and analysis of spoken language corpora (“spontaneous speech” of different kinds), collection of syntactic material by using different elicitation techniques (including written questionnaires and interviews), and the comparison of this material. The spoken language corpora are listed and described in the second section of the paper. In the third section we describe how our present (and future) work relates to some previous work done on syntactic variation in Icelandic (and Faroese) and offer some thoughts on the nature of syntactic variation in general.

Self-sacrifice for in-group's history: A diachronic perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Babińska ◽  
Michal Bilewicz
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Emotional Events ◽  
Reciprocal Process ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe problem of extended fusion and identification can be approached from a diachronic perspective. Based on our own research, as well as findings from the fields of social, political, and clinical psychology, we argue that the way contemporary emotional events shape local fusion is similar to the way in which historical experiences shape extended fusion. We propose a reciprocal process in which historical events shape contemporary identities, whereas contemporary identities shape interpretations of past traumas.

What is the purpose of cognition?

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aba Szollosi ◽  
Ben R. Newell
Keyword(s):  
Infinite Number ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
The Way

Abstract The purpose of human cognition depends on the problem people try to solve. Defining the purpose is difficult, because people seem capable of representing problems in an infinite number of ways. The way in which the function of cognition develops needs to be central to our theories.

Peculiarity Parameters

1976 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 233-254
Author(s):  
H. M. Maitzen
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Magnetic Fields ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Observational Evidence ◽  
Rotator Model ◽  
Peculiar Behaviour ◽  
Field Spectrum ◽  
Oblique Rotator ◽  
Ap Stars ◽  
The Way

Ap stars are peculiar in many aspects. During this century astronomers have been trying to collect data about these and have found a confusing variety of peculiar behaviour even from star to star that Struve stated in 1942 that at least we know that these phenomena are not supernatural. A real push to start deeper theoretical work on Ap stars was given by an additional observational evidence, namely the discovery of magnetic fields on these stars by Babcock (1947). This originated the concept that magnetic fields are the cause for spectroscopic and photometric peculiarities. Great leaps for the astronomical mankind were the Oblique Rotator model by Stibbs (1950) and Deutsch (1954), which by the way provided mathematical tools for the later handling pulsar geometries, anti the discovery of phase coincidence of the extrema of magnetic field, spectrum and photometric variations (e.g. Jarzebowski, 1960).

The mensuration of interfaces

1992 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 216-217
Author(s):  
W.M. Stobbs
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
50Th Anniversary ◽  
Numerical Data ◽  
Industrial Applications ◽  
Dynamical Theory ◽  
Large Strains ◽  
Reasonable Approach ◽  
Lattice Resolution ◽  
Analogue To Digital ◽  
The Way

I do not have access to the abstracts of the first meeting of EMSA but at this, the 50th Anniversary meeting of the Electron Microscopy Society of America, I have an excuse to consider the historical origins of the approaches we take to the use of electron microscopy for the characterisation of materials. I have myself been actively involved in the use of TEM for the characterisation of heterogeneities for little more than half of that period. My own view is that it was between the 3rd International Meeting at London, and the 1956 Stockholm meeting, the first of the European series , that the foundations of the approaches we now take to the characterisation of a material using the TEM were laid down. (This was 10 years before I took dynamical theory to be etched in stone.) It was at the 1956 meeting that Menter showed lattice resolution images of sodium faujasite and Hirsch, Home and Whelan showed images of dislocations in the XlVth session on “metallography and other industrial applications”. I have always incidentally been delighted by the way the latter authors misinterpreted astonishingly clear thickness fringes in a beaten (”) foil of Al as being contrast due to “large strains”, an error which they corrected with admirable rapidity as the theory developed. At the London meeting the research described covered a broad range of approaches, including many that are only now being rediscovered as worth further effort: however such is the power of “the image” to persuade that the above two papers set trends which influence, perhaps too strongly, the approaches we take now. Menter was clear that the way the planes in his image tended to be curved was associated with the imaging conditions rather than with lattice strains, and yet it now seems to be common practice to assume that the dots in an “atomic resolution image” can faithfully represent the variations in atomic spacing at a localised defect. Even when the more reasonable approach is taken of matching the image details with a computed simulation for an assumed model, the non-uniqueness of the interpreted fit seems to be rather rarely appreciated. Hirsch et al., on the other hand, made a point of using their images to get numerical data on characteristics of the specimen they examined, such as its dislocation density, which would not be expected to be influenced by uncertainties in the contrast. Nonetheless the trends were set with microscope manufacturers producing higher and higher resolution microscopes, while the blind faith of the users in the image produced as being a near directly interpretable representation of reality seems to have increased rather than been generally questioned. But if we want to test structural models we need numbers and it is the analogue to digital conversion of the information in the image which is required.

Effects of Gender, Parental Role, and Time on Infant- and Adult-Directed Read and Spontaneous Speech

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (11) ◽  
pp. 4001-4014
Author(s):  
Melanie Weirich ◽  
Adrian Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Parental Involvement ◽  
Gender Identity ◽  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
First Year ◽  
Space Size ◽  
Vowel Space ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Description Task

Purpose The study sets out to investigate inter- and intraspeaker variation in German infant-directed speech (IDS) and considers the potential impact that the factors gender, parental involvement, and speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech) may have. In addition, we analyze data from 3 time points prior to and after the birth of the child to examine potential changes in the features of IDS and, particularly also, of adult-directed speech (ADS). Here, the gender identity of a speaker is considered as an additional factor. Method IDS and ADS data from 34 participants (15 mothers, 19 fathers) is gathered by means of a reading and a picture description task. For IDS, 2 recordings were made when the baby was approximately 6 and 9 months old, respectively. For ADS, an additional recording was made before the baby was born. Phonetic analyses comprise mean fundamental frequency (f0), variation in f0, the 1st 2 formants measured in /i: ɛ a u:/, and the vowel space size. Moreover, social and behavioral data were gathered regarding parental involvement and gender identity. Results German IDS is characterized by an increase in mean f0, a larger variation in f0, vowel- and formant-specific differences, and a larger acoustic vowel space. No effect of gender or parental involvement was found. Also, the phonetic features of IDS were found in both spontaneous and read speech. Regarding ADS, changes in vowel space size in some of the fathers and in mean f0 in mothers were found. Conclusion Phonetic features of German IDS are robust with respect to the factors gender, parental involvement, speech material (read vs. spontaneous speech), and time. Some phonetic features of ADS changed within the child's first year depending on gender and parental involvement/gender identity. Thus, further research on IDS needs to address also potential changes in ADS.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document