scholarly journals Cultural selection drives the evolution of human communication systems

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1788) ◽  
pp. 20140488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Tamariz ◽  
T. Mark Ellison ◽  
Dale J. Barr ◽  
Nicolas Fay
Keyword(s):  
Communication Systems ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Parameter Setting ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Cultural Selection ◽  
Egocentric Bias ◽  
Best Fitting ◽  
Drift Models

Human communication systems evolve culturally, but the evolutionary mechanisms that drive this evolution are not well understood. Against a baseline that communication variants spread in a population following neutral evolutionary dynamics (also known as drift models), we tested the role of two cultural selection models: coordination- and content-biased. We constructed a parametrized mixed probabilistic model of the spread of communicative variants in four 8-person laboratory micro-societies engaged in a simple communication game. We found that selectionist models, working in combination, explain the majority of the empirical data. The best-fitting parameter setting includes an egocentric bias and a content bias, suggesting that participants retained their own previously used communicative variants unless they encountered a superior (content-biased) variant, in which case it was adopted. This novel pattern of results suggests that (i) a theory of the cultural evolution of human communication systems must integrate selectionist models and (ii) human communication systems are functionally adaptive complex systems.

scholarly journals The Mirroring of Symbols: An EEG Study on the Role of Mirroring in the Formation of Symbolic Communication Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guanhong Li ◽  
Takashi Hashimoto ◽  
Takeshi Konno ◽  
Jiro Okuda ◽  
Kazuyuki Samejima ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Communication Systems ◽  
Action Observation ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Symbolic Form ◽  
Communicative Behavior ◽  
Symbolic Communication ◽  
Mu Suppression

The underlying mechanism of communicative behavior in both humans and other animals was proposed to be “mirroring”, which refers to the similar neural pattern during action production and action observation. Nevertheless, the role of mirroring in human communication remains a puzzle, since human communication systems can take a symbolic form not relying directly on body action. We hypothesized that mirroring contributes to the formation of implied meaning, i.e., connotation, in symbolic communication. We used electroencephalography to study human brain mirroring activity, indexed by mu-suppression measured in 10–12 Hz band over the left-central area, firstly in a non-communicative single-player game then in a communicative coordination game. We evaluated the effect of the mirroring activity in each game upon the performance of symbolic communication in the communicative game. We found that the participants showed significant mirroring in both games performed better on connotation-forming than those who showed significant mirroring in the communicative game only. Our results suggest that imagining signaling action in both communicative and non-communicative contexts could be a key to connotation-forming in symbolic communication.

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.

The Effect of Information Technology on Fluidity of Contemporary Architectural Space

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-72
Author(s):  
Shatha Abbas Hassan ◽  
Noor Ali Aljorani
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Architectural Space ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Ease Of Access ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Role Of Information

The increasing importance of the information revolution and terms such as ‘speed’, ‘disorientation’, and ‘changing the concept of distance’, has provided us with tools that had not been previously available. Technological developments are moving toward Fluidity, which was previously unknown and cannot be understood through modern tools. With acceleration of the rhythm in the age we live in and the clarity of the role of information technology in our lives, as also the ease of access to information, has helped us to overcome many difficulties. Technology in all its forms has had a clear impact on all areas of daily life, and it has a clear impact on human thought in general, and the architectural space in particular, where the architecture moves from narrow spaces and is limited to new spaces known as the ‘breadth’, and forms of unlimited and stability to spaces characterized with fluidity. The research problem (the lack of clarity of knowledge about the impact of vast information flow associated with the technology of the age in the occurrence of liquidity in contemporary architectural space) is presented here. The research aims at defining fluidity and clarifying the effect of information technology on the changing characteristics of architectural space from solidity to fluidity. The research follows the analytical approach in tracking the concept of fluidity in physics and sociology to define this concept and then to explain the effect of Information Technology (IT) to achieve the fluidity of contemporary architectural space, leading to an analysis of the Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) architectural model. The research concludes that information technology achieves fluidity through various tools (communication systems, computers, automation, and artificial intelligence). It has changed the characteristics of contemporary architectural space and made it behave like an organism, through using smart material.

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 Landscape resistance constrains hybridization across contact zones in a reproductively and morphologically polymorphic salamander

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillermo Velo-Antón ◽  
André Lourenço ◽  
Pedro Galán ◽  
Alfredo Nicieza ◽  
Pedro Tarroso
Keyword(s):  
Contact Zone ◽  
Environmental Heterogeneity ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Morphological Differentiation ◽  
Phenotypic Traits ◽  
Hybrid Zones ◽  
Landscape Resistance ◽  
Phenotypic Differentiation ◽  
Contact Zones

AbstractExplicitly accounting for phenotypic differentiation together with environmental heterogeneity is crucial to understand the evolutionary dynamics in hybrid zones. Species showing intra-specific variation in phenotypic traits that meet across environmentally heterogeneous regions constitute excellent natural settings to study the role of phenotypic differentiation and environmental factors in shaping the spatial extent and patterns of admixture in hybrid zones. We studied three environmentally distinct contact zones where morphologically and reproductively divergent subspecies of Salamandra salamandra co-occur: the pueriparous S. s. bernardezi that is mostly parapatric to its three larviparous subspecies neighbours. We used a landscape genetics framework to: (i) characterise the spatial location and extent of each contact zone; (ii) assess patterns of introgression and hybridization between subspecies pairs; and (iii) examine the role of environmental heterogeneity in the evolutionary dynamics of hybrid zones. We found high levels of introgression between parity modes, and between distinct phenotypes, thus demonstrating the evolution to pueriparity alone or morphological differentiation do not lead to reproductive isolation between these highly divergent S. salamandra morphotypes. However, we detected substantial variation in patterns of hybridization across contact zones, being lower in the contact zone located on a topographically complex area. We highlight the importance of accounting for spatial environmental heterogeneity when studying evolutionary dynamics of hybrid zones.

scholarly journals Molecular Signatures of Reticulate Evolution within the Complex of European Pine Taxa

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 489
Author(s):  
Bartosz Łabiszak ◽  
Witold Wachowiak
Keyword(s):  
Gene Flow ◽  
Reticulate Evolution ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Closely Related Species ◽  
Interspecific Gene Flow ◽  
Nucleotide Sequence Variation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Best Fitting ◽  
Species Integrity

Speciation mechanisms, including the role of interspecific gene flow and introgression in the emergence of new species, are the major focus of evolutionary studies. Inference of taxonomic relationship between closely related species may be challenged by past hybridization events, but at the same time, it may provide new knowledge about mechanisms responsible for the maintenance of species integrity despite interspecific gene flow. Here, using nucleotide sequence variation and utilizing a coalescent modeling framework, we tested the role of hybridization and introgression in the evolutionary history of closely related pine taxa from the Pinus mugo complex and P. sylvestris. We compared the patterns of polymorphism and divergence between taxa and found a great overlap of neutral variation within the P. mugo complex. Our phylogeny reconstruction indicated multiple instances of reticulation events in the past, suggesting an important role of interspecific gene flow in the species divergence. The best-fitting model revealed P. mugo and P. uncinata as sister species with basal P. uliginosa and asymmetric migration between all investigated species after their divergence. The magnitude of interspecies gene flow differed greatly, and it was consistently stronger from representatives of P. mugo complex to P. sylvestris than in the opposite direction. The results indicate the prominent role of reticulation evolution in those forest trees and provide a genetic framework to study species integrity maintained by selection and local adaptation.

The role of internalizing and externalizing liability factors in accounting for gender differences in the prevalence of common psychopathological syndromes

2007 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark D. Kramer ◽  
Robert F. Krueger ◽  
Brian M. Hicks
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Common Mental Disorders ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Latent Factor ◽  
Gender Invariance ◽  
Co Morbidity ◽  
Best Fitting ◽  
Invariance Model ◽  
Internalizing And Externalizing

BackgroundWe hypothesized that gender differences in average levels on the internalizing and externalizing factors that account for co-morbidity among common psychopathological syndromes in both men and women account for gender differences in the prevalence of specific syndromes.MethodThe latent structure of 11 syndromes was examined in a middle-aged (mean age=52.66 years, s.d.=5.82) sample of 2992 (37% men) members of the community-based Minnesota Twin Registry (MTR) assessed using 10 scales of the Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire (PDSQ) and an adult antisocial behavior scale. Confirmatory factorial invariance models were applied to a best-fitting, internalizing–externalizing model.ResultsA ‘strong gender invariance model’ fit best, indicating that gender differences in the means of individual syndromes were well accounted for by gender differences in mean levels of internalizing and externalizing. Women exhibited higher mean levels of internalizing (d=0.23) and lower mean levels of externalizing (d=−0.52) than men.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that risk factors for common mental disorders exhibiting gender differences may influence prevalence at the latent factor level. Future research may benefit from focusing on both the latent factor and individual syndrome levels in explaining gender differences in psychopathology.

scholarly journals Early Visual Communication: Introducing the 6000-Year-Old Buon Frescoes from Teleilat Ghassul, Jordan

Arts ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Bernadette Drabsch ◽  
Stephen Bourke
Keyword(s):  
Visual Communication ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
Complex Society ◽  
Geometric Designs

The collection of 5th Millennium BCE frescoes from the Chalcolithic (4700–3700 BC) township of Teleilat Ghassul, Jordan, are vital signposts for our understanding of early visual communication systems and the role of art in preliterate societies. The collection of polychrome wall murals includes intricate geometric designs, scenes illustrative of a stratified and complex society, and possibly early examples of landscape vistas. These artworks were produced by specialists using the buon fresco technique, and provide a visual archive documenting a fascinating, and largely unknown culture. This paper will consider the place these pictorial artefacts hold in the prehistory of art.

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