scholarly journals Motor constraints influence cultural evolution of rhythm

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1937) ◽  
pp. 20202001
Author(s):  
Helena Miton ◽  
Thomas Wolf ◽  
Cordula Vesper ◽  
Günther Knoblich ◽  
Dan Sperber
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Learning Experiment ◽  
Cultural Productions ◽  
Transmission Chain ◽  
Iterated Learning ◽  
The Way

While widely acknowledged in the cultural evolution literature, ecological factors—aspects of the physical environment that affect the way in which cultural productions evolve—have not been investigated experimentally. Here, we present an experimental investigation of this type of factor by using a transmission chain (iterated learning) experiment. We predicted that differences in the distance between identical tools (drums) and in the order in which they are to be used would cause the evolution of different rhythms. The evidence confirms our predictions and thus provides a proof of concept that ecological factors—here a motor constraint—can influence cultural productions and that their effects can be experimentally isolated and measured. One noteworthy finding is that ecological factors can on their own lead to more complex rhythms.

scholarly journals How material constraints affect the cultural evolution of rhythm

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Miton ◽  
Thomas Wolf ◽  
Cordula Vesper ◽  
Günther Knoblich ◽  
Sperber
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Ecological Factors ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Cultural Productions ◽  
Transmission Chain ◽  
Material Constraints

While widely acknowledged in the cultural evolution literature, ecological factors - i.e., differences in the physical environment in which cultural productions evolve - haven’t been investigated experimentally. Here we present an experimental investigation of this type of factors by using a transmission chain experiment. We predicted that differencesin the distance between identical tools (drums) and in the order in which they are to be used would cause the evolution of different rhythms. The evidence confirms our predictions and thus provide a proof of concept that ecological factors can influence cultural productions and that their effects can be experimentally isolated and measured. One noteworthy finding is that ecological factors can on their own lead to more complex rhythms.

scholarly journals Cultural evolution leads to vocal iconicity in an experimental iterated learning task

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Niklas Erben Johansson ◽  
Jon W Carr ◽  
Simon Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Word Form ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Transmission Chain ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
Iterated Learning

Abstract Experimental and cross-linguistic studies have shown that vocal iconicity is prevalent in words that carry meanings related to size and shape. Although these studies demonstrate the importance of vocal iconicity and reveal the cognitive biases underpinning it, there is less work demonstrating how these biases lead to the evolution of a sound symbolic lexicon in the first place. In this study, we show how words can be shaped by cognitive biases through cultural evolution. Using a simple experimental setup resembling the game telephone, we examined how a single word form changed as it was passed from one participant to the next by a process of immediate iterated learning. About 1,500 naïve participants were recruited online and divided into five condition groups. The participants in the control-group received no information about the meaning of the word they were about to hear, while the participants in the remaining four groups were informed that the word meant either big or small (with the meaning being presented in text), or round or pointy (with the meaning being presented as a picture). The first participant in a transmission chain was presented with a phonetically diverse word and asked to repeat it. Thereafter, the recording of the repeated word was played for the next participant in the same chain. The sounds of the audio recordings were then transcribed and categorized according to six binary sound parameters. By modelling the proportion of vowels or consonants for each sound parameter, the small-condition showed increases of front unrounded vowels and the pointy-condition increases of acute consonants. The results show that linguistic transmission is sufficient for vocal iconicity to emerge, which demonstrates the role non-arbitrary associations play in the evolution of language.

scholarly journals Melodic Universals Emerge or Are Sustained Through Cultural Evolution

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tessa Verhoef ◽  
Andrea Ravignani
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Adaptation ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Musical Structures ◽  
Iterated Learning ◽  
Musical Traditions ◽  
Musical Systems ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
The Way

To understand why music is structured the way it is, we need an explanation that accounts for both the universality and variability found in musical traditions. Here we test whether statistical universals that have been identified for melodic structures in music can emerge as a result of cultural adaptation to human biases through iterated learning. We use data from an experiment in which artificial whistled systems, where sounds produced with a slide whistle were learned by human participants and transmitted multiple times from person to person. These sets of whistled signals needed to be memorised and recalled and the reproductions of one participant were used as the input set for the next. We tested for the emergence of seven different melodic features, such as discrete pitches, motivic patterns, or phrase repetition, and found some evidence for the presence of most of these statistical universals. We interpret this as promising evidence that, similarly to rhythmic universals, iterated learning experiments can also unearth melodic statistical universals. More, ideally cross-cultural, experiments are nonetheless needed. Simulating the cultural transmission of artificial proto-musical systems can help unravel the origins of universal tendencies in musical structures.

Markets, Trust, and the Construction of Macro-Organizations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Brunsson ◽  
Ingrid Gustafsson ◽  
Kristina Tamm Hallström
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
Stable Solution ◽  
Formal Organizations ◽  
Certification Organizations ◽  
Buying In ◽  
The Way

How can buyers know what they are buying? In many markets this is no trivial problem, particularly for ambitious, contemporary consumers who care about the way a product has been produced and its effects on health or the physical environment. Buyers have little choice but to trust sellers’ descriptions of the origins and effects of the product, which, in turn, evokes the question of how the buyers can trust the sellers. We describe how the problem of trust has justified the production of new formal organizations, such as certification organizations, accreditation organizations, meta-organizations for the accreditation organizations, and meta-meta-organizations for these meta-organizations. In order to create trust in organizations at one level, a new level of organizations has been created for monitoring the lower level. We argue that such a ‘macro-organization’ is unlikely to represent a stable solution, but has inherent tendencies for further growth.

scholarly journals Aesthetics and Creativity. Identity Configurations

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Livia Durac ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
State Of Mind ◽  
Human Attitude ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Nature And Society ◽  
The Way

Reflecting on human attitude towards reality, together with deciphering the emotional code that accompanies it, has configured - in time – the aesthetic universe, open to human reflection, creation, and evaluation. Aesthetics appears through the way in which consciousness reacts and capitalises upon things in nature and society, or which belong to human subjectivity, including on artistic work, which have an effect on sensitiveness due to their harmony, balance and grandeur. As a fundamental attribute of the human being, creativity is the engine of cultural evolution, meaning the degree of novelty that man brings in his ideas, actions, and creations. Aesthetical values, together with the other types of values, contribute to what society represents and to what it can become, hence motivating human action and creation. Their role is to create a state of mind that encourages the cohesion, cooperation, and mutual understanding of the society. Integrating a chronological succession of the evolution of the concepts that objectify its structure, its aesthetics and creativity, this article stresses the synergetic nature of the two dimensions of human personality, paving the way to beauty, as a form of enchantment of the human spirit.

scholarly journals From storytelling to Facebook. Content biases when retelling or sharing a story

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Acerbi
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
Oral Storytelling ◽  
Oral Transmission ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Transmission Chain ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Content Information

Cultural evolution researchers use transmission chain experiments to investigate which content is more likely to survive when transmitted from one individual to another. These experiments resemble oral storytelling, where individuals need to understand, memorise, and reproduce the content. However, prominent contemporary forms of cultural transmission—think an online sharing— only involve the willingness to transmit the content. Here I present two fully preregistered online experiments that explicitly investigated the differences between these two modalities of transmission. The first experiment (N=1080) examined whether negative content, information eliciting disgust, and threat-related information were better transmitted than their neutral counterpart in a traditional transmission chain set-up. The second experiment (N=1200), used the same material, but participants were asked whether they would share or not the content in two conditions: in a large anonymous social network, or with their friends, in their favourite social network. Negative content was both better transmitted in transmission chain experiments and shared more than its neutral counterpart. Threat-related information was successful in transmission chain experiments but not when sharing, and, finally, information eliciting disgust was not advantaged in either. Overall, the results present a composite picture, suggesting that the interactions between the specific content and the medium of transmission are important and, possibly, that content biases are stronger when memorisation and reproduction are involved in the transmission—like in oral transmission—than when they are not—like in online sharing.

Experimental investigation of the thermal power pump cycle – Proof of concept

2018 ◽  
Vol 134 ◽  
pp. 182-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Nihill ◽  
Abhijit Date ◽  
Jason Velardo ◽  
Sandesh Jadkar
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Investigation ◽  
Thermal Power ◽  
Proof Of Concept

Favelas for Sale

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kátia da Costa Bezerra
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Cultural Productions ◽  
Modes Of Representation ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Way

This chapter analyzes the short-story “Maria Déia” written by Lia Vieira, which traces the story of some residents who were evicted from Morro de Santo Antonio in the 1950s. It also examines the video ImPACtos produced in 2010 by the collective multimedia group Favela em Foco. These two cultural productions enable us to trace a series of discourses/modes of representation that have been used to legitimize and justify urban interventions. This chapter examines the way both cultural productions challenge the recurring, dominant representations of favelas as a space of otherness and/or spectacles of consumption. The chapter illustrates how these cultural productions allow us to understand that these urban interventions are not simply a dispute over the control of a territory, but are part of the continuing struggle over the meanings and boundaries vis-à-vis conflicting views of citizenship and belonging.

Towards a Re-Definition of Government Interpreters' Agency Against a Backdrop of Sociopolitical and Cultural Evolution

2018 ◽  
pp. 238-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chonglong Gu
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Actual Practice ◽  
Press Conference ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Global Engagement ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Reform And Opening Up ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
The Way

The sociopolitical and cultural evolution as a result of the Reform and Opening up in 1978, facilitated not least by the inexorable juggernaut of globalization and technological advancement, has revolutionized the way China engages domestically and interacts with the outside world. The need for more proactive diplomacy and open engagement witnessed the institutionalization of the interpreter-mediated premier's press conferences. Such a discursive event provides a vital platform for China to articulate its discourse and rebrand its image in tandem with the profound changes signaled by the Dengist reform. This chapter investigates critically how political press conference interpreting and interpreters' agency in China are impacted in relation to such dramatic transformations. It is revealed that, while interpreters are confronted with seemingly conflicting expectations, in actual practice they are often able to negotiate a way as highly competent interpreting professionals with the additional missions of advancing China's global engagement and safeguarding China's national interests.

The Word Refreshed

2021 ◽  
pp. 358-374
Author(s):  
Jeremy Begbie
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
New Creation ◽  
The World ◽  
In Christ ◽  
Theological Language ◽  
The Way

This chapter takes its cue from the vision of music adumbrated by the previous three essayists: in which music is seen as depending on a ‘faith in an order of things that exceeds the logic of statement and counterstatement’, arising from an embodied dwelling in the world which is pre-conceptual, pre-theoretical. As such, music has the capacity to free us from the kind of alienating relation to our physical environment that an over-dependence on instrumental language brings, and free us for a more fruitful indwelling of it that has been largely lost to modernity. This resonates with broadly biblical-theological view of humanity’s intended relation to the cosmos, as exemplified in the concept of New Creation in Christ. This essay returns to language, considered in this light: how can music, and thinking about music, enrich language? Specifically, how might music facilitate a deeper understanding of the way ‘God-talk’ operates? It is argued that music can offer a powerful witness to the impossibility (and danger) of imagining we can grasp or circumscribe the divine (the antithesis of human freedom). More positively, it can greatly enrich our use (and understanding) of existing theological language, and generate fresh language that enables a more faithful perception of, and participation in the realities it engages.

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