Origins and complexities of infant communication and social cognition

2018 ◽  
pp. 660-684
Author(s):  
Ulf Liszkowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Early Infancy ◽  
Gestural Communication ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Ape Communication ◽  
Pointing Gesture ◽  
Human Pointing

This chapter investigates how infants communicate before they have acquired a language; the underlying social cognition and motivation; and the evolutionary and ontogenetic origins of human communication. Evidence is reviewed that by 12 months of age, infants’ production and comprehension of the human pointing gesture involves several interwoven layers of communicative intentions, and pertains in complexity to unique forms of human communication. Limits of infant communication pertain to representational gesture use, particularly the spontaneous creation of pantomimic iconic gestures, and to the expression of referential intentions in early infancy. Commonalities and differences to ape communication are identified at different developmental ages regarding the use of reaching gestures and communication about distal and absent referents. Recent evidence is presented for the role of social interaction in the early ontogenetic emergence of uniquely human forms of gestural communication.

Temporal and Spatial Aspects of Pointing Gestures

2010 ◽  
pp. 166-186
Author(s):  
Christian Müller-Tomfelde ◽  
Fang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Dwell Time ◽  
Spatial Organisation ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Temporal Domain ◽  
Pointing Gestures ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Right ◽  
Pointing Gesture ◽  
Human Pointing

The detailed and profound understanding of the temporal and spatial organisation of human pointing actions is key to enable developers to build applications that successfully incorporate multimodal human computer interaction. Rather than discussing an ideal detection method for manual pointing we will discuss crucial aspects of pointing actions in time and space to develop the right solution for a particular application. One core element of pointing in the temporal domain is the so called dwell-time, the time span that people remain nearly motionless during pointing at objects to express their intention. We also discuss important findings about the spatial characteristics of the target representation for the pointing gesture.The findings foster better understanding of the role of pointing gestures in combination with other modalities and inform developer with substantial knowledge about the temporal-spatial organisation of the pointing gesture.

The origins of narrative

2002 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Dautenhahn
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Developmental Continuity ◽  
Narrative Format

This article presents work in progress towards a better understanding of the origins of narrative. Assuming an evolutionary and developmental continuity of mental experiences, we propose a grounding of human narrative capacities in non-verbal narrative transactions in non-human animals, and in pre-verbal narrative transactions of human children. We discuss narrative intelligence in the context of the evolution of primate (social) intelligence, and with respect to the particular cognitive limits that constrain the development of human social networks and societies. We explain the Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis which suggests that the evolutionary origin of communicating in a narrative format co-evolved with increasingly complex social dynamics among our human ancestors. This article gives examples of social interactions in non-human primates and how these can be interpreted in terms of narrative formats. Due to the central role of narrative in human communication and social interaction, we discuss how research into the origins of narrative can impact the development of humane technology which is designed to meet the biological, cognitive and social needs of human story-tellers.

Iconicity

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 244-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Fay ◽  
Mark Ellison ◽  
Simon Garrod
Keyword(s):  
Communication System ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Gestural Communication ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Graphical Communication ◽  
Iconic Signs

This paper explores the role of iconicity in spoken language and other human communication systems. First, we concentrate on graphical and gestural communication and show how semantically motivated iconic signs play an important role in creating such communication systems from scratch. We then consider how iconic signs tend to become simplified and symbolic as the communication system matures and argue that this process is driven by repeated interactive use of the signs. We then consider evidence for iconicity at the level of the system in graphical communication and finally draw comparisons between iconicity in graphical and gestural communication systems and in spoken language.

scholarly journals One-month-old infants show visual preference for human-like feature

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wakako Sanefuji ◽  
Kazuko Wada ◽  
Tomoka Yamamoto ◽  
Miho Shizawa ◽  
Junko Matsuzaki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Physical Appearance ◽  
Motion Information ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Visual Preference ◽  
Still Image ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Human Faces

Infants’ behaviors toward humans differ from those toward objects since early development.  Previous studies have mainly investigated the role of motion for the distinction between human and non-human objects, although physical appearance is another crucial factor.  The present study investigated one-month-old infants’ responses to the still-image of human faces and non-human objects including face-like pattern (doll and object), using this infant-control preferential looking procedure.  The results revealed the infants’ preference for human faces over objects including face-like patterns but no such preferences for humans over dolls.  The infants preferred faces resembling human faces in the absence of motion information.  Such preferences for human-like features supplement evidence on the first step of early social cognition, which is important in human communication.

scholarly journals Reciprocity of social influence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Mahmoodi ◽  
Bahador Bahrami ◽  
Carsten Mehring
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Human Communication

Humans seek advice, via social interaction, to improve their decisions. While social interaction is often reciprocal, the role of reciprocity in social influence is unknown. Here, we tested the hypothesis that our influence on others affects how much we are influenced by them. Participants first made a visual perceptual estimate and then shared their estimate with an alleged partner. Then, in alternating trials, the participant either revised their decisions or observed how the partner revised theirs. We systematically manipulated the partner’s susceptibility to influence from the participant. We show that participants reciprocated influence with their partner by gravitating towards the susceptible (but not insusceptible) partner’s opinion. In further experiments, we showed that reciprocity is both a dynamic process and is abolished when people believed that they interacted with a computer. Reciprocal social influence is a signaling medium for human-to-human communication that goes beyond aggregation of evidence for decision improvement.

Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Technological Culture

Abstract The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.

Music and Gesture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Zbikowski
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Processes ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Charlie Chaplin ◽  
Swing Time ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the relationship between music and physical gesture, drawing on recent research on the spontaneous gestures that accompany speech. Such gestures appear to be motivated by thought processes that are independent from speech and that in many cases offer analogs for dynamic processes. The chapter outlines the infrastructure for human communication that supports language and gesture as well as music. This outline provides a framework for exploring how music and gesture are similar and for how they are different. These comparisons are made through analyses of the movements Fred Astaire makes while accompanying himself at the piano in the 1936 film Swing Time and those Charlie Chaplin makes to Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5 in the 1941 film The Great Dictator. These analyses further explicate the role of syntactic processes and syntactic layers in musical grammar and introduce referential frameworks, which serve as perceptual anchors for syntactic processes.

scholarly journals In search of a Goldilocks zone for credible AI

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Allan ◽  
Nir Oren ◽  
Jacqui Hutchison ◽  
Douglas Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Single Source ◽  
Multiple Tests ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
Scene Content ◽  
Different Sources ◽  
Source Accuracy

AbstractIf artificial intelligence (AI) is to help solve individual, societal and global problems, humans should neither underestimate nor overestimate its trustworthiness. Situated in-between these two extremes is an ideal ‘Goldilocks’ zone of credibility. But what will keep trust in this zone? We hypothesise that this role ultimately falls to the social cognition mechanisms which adaptively regulate conformity between humans. This novel hypothesis predicts that human-like functional biases in conformity should occur during interactions with AI. We examined multiple tests of this prediction using a collaborative remembering paradigm, where participants viewed household scenes for 30 s vs. 2 min, then saw 2-alternative forced-choice decisions about scene content originating either from AI- or human-sources. We manipulated the credibility of different sources (Experiment 1) and, from a single source, the estimated-likelihood (Experiment 2) and objective accuracy (Experiment 3) of specific decisions. As predicted, each manipulation produced functional biases for AI-sources mirroring those found for human-sources. Participants conformed more to higher credibility sources, and higher-likelihood or more objectively accurate decisions, becoming increasingly sensitive to source accuracy when their own capability was reduced. These findings support the hypothesised role of social cognition in regulating AI’s influence, raising important implications and new directions for research on human–AI interaction.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document