scholarly journals Language as a coordination tool evolves slowly

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (12) ◽  
pp. 160259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamas David-Barrett ◽  
Robin I. M. Dunbar

Social living ultimately depends on coordination between group members, and communication is necessary to make this possible. We suggest that this might have been the key selection pressure acting on the evolution of language in humans and use a behavioural coordination model to explore the impact of communication efficiency on social group coordination. We show that when language production is expensive but there is an individual benefit to the efficiency with which individuals coordinate their behaviour, the evolution of efficient communication is selected for. Contrary to some views of language evolution, the speed of evolution is necessarily slow because there is no advantage in some individuals evolving communication abilities that much exceed those of the community at large. However, once a threshold competence has been achieved, evolution of higher order language skills may indeed be precipitate.

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-418
Author(s):  
Kate Thompson ◽  
Pippa Brown ◽  
Stephanie Vieira

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe an intervention with a group of homeless men from the Horn of Africa, service users of the Horn of Africa Health and Wellbeing Project in London. The group was conceived by the second author who noted the presence of significant psychosocial issues for her clients, but equally their reluctance to access mainstream mental health or social care services. Design/methodology/approach Designing the group and introducing it to the men involved threw up some challenges which are explored, and the impact of the group on participants is evaluated. Findings Overall both the participants and the facilitators evaluated the group positively and it appeared to have led to lasting change for some of the group members, and this is described. The authors argue that this sort of group may be a more acceptable way to work on psychosocial issues than something more directly focused on mental health intervention. The group protocol is outlined along with suggestions for future work in this area. Originality/value This intervention represents a creative alternative to more mainstream psychological interventions for homeless or exiled men.


2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy K. Teal ◽  
Charles E. Taylor

Abstract For many adaptive complex systems information about the environment is not simply recorded in a look-up table, but is rather encoded in a theory, schema, or model, which compresses information. The grammar of a language can be viewed as such a schema or theory. In a prior study [Teal et al., 1999] we proposed several conjectures about the learning and evolution of language that should follow from these observations: (C1) compression aids in generalization; (C2) compression occurs more easily in a “smooth”, as opposed to a “rugged”, problem space; and (C3) constraints from compression make it likely that natural languages evolve towards smooth string spaces. This previous work found general, if not complete support for these three conjectures. Here we build on that study to clarify the relationship between Minimum Description Length (MDL) and error in our model and examine evolution of certain languages in more detail. Our results suggest a fourth conjecture: that all else being equal, (C4) more complex languages change more rapidly during evolution.


2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 147470490700500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Scott-Phillips

Recent years have witnessed an increased interest in the evolution of the human capacity for language. Such a project is necessarily interdisciplinary. However, that interdisciplinarity brings with it a risk: terms with a technical meaning in their own field are used wrongly or too loosely by those from other backgrounds. Unfortunately, this risk has been realized in the case of language evolution, where many of the terms of social evolution theory (reciprocal altruism, honest signaling, etc.) are incorrectly used in a way that suggests that certain key fundamentals have been misunderstood. In particular the distinction between proximate and ultimate explanations is often lost, with the result that several claims made by those interested in language evolution are epistemically incoherent. However, the correct application of social evolution theory provides simple, clear explanations of why language most likely evolved and how the signals used in language — words — remain cheap yet arbitrary.


Author(s):  
Robert K. Logan

In this presentation we will study propagating organization. We begin by examining the evolution and origin of language by briefly reviewing the impact of the phonetic alphabet (Logan 2004a), the evolution of notated language (Logan 2004b), the origin of language and culture (Logan 2006, 2007), the role of collaboration in knowledge management (Logan and Stokes 2004), the impact of “new media” (Logan in preparation). We will then connect this work to the propagating organization of all living organisms (Kauffman et al. in press) where we will show that information in biotic systems are the constraints that instruct living organisms how to operate. We will demonstrate that instructional or biotic information is quite different than the classical notion of information Shannon developed for addressing engineering problems in telecommunications. We also will show that biosemiosis is in some sense equivalent to propagating organization (Kauffman et al. in press). We then conclude our presentation with the speculation that there exist at least seven levels of biosemiosis.


Author(s):  
Steven Moran ◽  
Nicholas A. Lester ◽  
Eitan Grossman

In this paper, we investigate evolutionarily recent changes in the distributions of speech sounds in the world's languages. In particular, we explore the impact of language contact in the past two millennia on today's distributions. Based on three extensive databases of phonological inventories, we analyse the discrepancies between the distribution of speech sounds of ancient and reconstructed languages, on the one hand, and those in present-day languages, on the other. Furthermore, we analyse the degree to which the diffusion of speech sounds via language contact played a role in these discrepancies. We find evidence for substantive differences between ancient and present-day distributions, as well as for the important role of language contact in shaping these distributions over time. Moreover, our findings suggest that the distributions of speech sounds across geographic macro-areas were homogenized to an observable extent in recent millennia. Our findings suggest that what we call the Implicit Uniformitarian Hypothesis, at least with respect to the composition of phonological inventories, cannot be held uncritically. Linguists who would like to draw inferences about human language based on present-day cross-linguistic distributions must consider their theories in light of even short-term language evolution. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reconstructing prehistoric languages’.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 498-505
Author(s):  
Sukendi Sukendi ◽  
Dewita Dewita ◽  
Thamrin Thamrin ◽  
Ridwan Manda Putra ◽  
Windarti Windarti ◽  
...  

The purpose of this community service activity is to provide knowledge and technology to the community from the Sinar Mentari Business Group, Sungai Geringging Village, Kampar Kiri District, Kampar Regency, in terms of processing fishery products into snack food products in the form of fish brains, fish dragon feet, and processing methods. packing and the process of presenting the resulting product better. The method used is the method of lectures, discussions, and direct practice on how to process fishery products. The results of this evaluation found that there had been a change in knowledge of 6 members of the Sinar Mentari Business Group, which showed that 5 people (83.33%) had been able to absorb the material given with a very good predicate (grade A), 1 person (16.67 %) can absorb the material given with a good predicate (B value), while those who get a sufficient predicate (C value) and poor predicate (D value) are not found. Based on the results of this evaluation, it is known that the skill level of the members of the Sinar Mentari Business group, it turns out that they have been able to process fishery products into snack food products in the form of fish brains, fish dragon legs and the process of packing as well as the process of presenting products independently and better. Meanwhile, the impact of this activity is that the housewives of Karya Mandiri Cultivator Group members have succeeded in having side activities to help their family's economy in the form of processing fish farming products.


2020 ◽  
Vol 245 ◽  
pp. 04027
Author(s):  
X. Espinal ◽  
S. Jezequel ◽  
M. Schulz ◽  
A. Sciabà ◽  
I. Vukotic ◽  
...  

HL-LHC will confront the WLCG community with enormous data storage, management and access challenges. These are as much technical as economical. In the WLCG-DOMA Access working group, members of the experiments and site managers have explored different models for data access and storage strategies to reduce cost and complexity, taking into account the boundary conditions given by our community.Several of these scenarios have been evaluated quantitatively, such as the Data Lake model and incremental improvements of the current computing model with respect to resource needs, costs and operational complexity.To better understand these models in depth, analysis of traces of current data accesses and simulations of the impact of new concepts have been carried out. In parallel, evaluations of the required technologies took place. These were done in testbed and production environments at small and large scale.We will give an overview of the activities and results of the working group, describe the models and summarise the results of the technology evaluation focusing on the impact of storage consolidation in the form of Data Lakes, where the use of streaming caches has emerged as a successful approach to reduce the impact of latency and bandwidth limitation.We will describe the experience and evaluation of these approaches in different environments and usage scenarios. In addition we will present the results of the analysis and modelling efforts based on data access traces of the experiments.


DYNA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 83 (195) ◽  
pp. 138-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Lacayo Mendoza ◽  
Carmen De Pablos Heredero

Digital social networks have proven to be of great support for organizations that are increasingly using new forms of social communication every day, seeking to improve their productivity and competitiveness. The main objective of this study is to explain how organizations, particularly Institutions of Higher Education, can improve their competitive position through the use of digital social networks from the perspective of relationship management and management of communications, in order to achieve better results in terms of teamwork satisfaction, relationship marketing and educational excellence. For this objective, the application of a relational coordination model, based on the sharing of objectives, optimal knowledge management, mutual respect and efficient communication mechanisms, is suggested.


Author(s):  
Sruti Bala

Chapter II addresses the relationship between participatory art and the concept of ‘impact’. It investigates the assumptions around impact, as well as the methodological challenges of thinking the impact of a work of art. Using the 2012 Spanish language production Afuera: lesbianas en escena (Outside: Lesbians on Stage) by the theatre collective Teatro Siluetas from Guatemala and El Salvador as a point of departure, the chapter reflects on the assessment of impact in relation to the question of participation. It critically engages with the field of evidence-led impact studies in the arts. It situates the debate on the usefulness or non-utility of participatory art in relation to social science scholarship pertaining to the ascendancy of ‘participation’ in the context of international development. It suggests that it is worthwhile extending the kinds of activities considered as relevant to a participatory aesthetic, to thus not only analyse performances as distinct works, but to place them in a longer-term aesthetic continuum with workshops, rehearsals, after-talks, meetings with the artists, and other para-theatrical events. The chapter grapples with the question of how to discuss impact in relation to participatory art without it being mortgaged into a matter of quantifiable impact alone.


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