scholarly journals From the field into the lab: Causal approaches to the evolution of spatial language

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Nölle ◽  
Michael Spranger
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Language ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Neutral Drift ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Spatial Frames Of Reference ◽  
Linguistic Strategies ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
Selection Of

There is striking variation in preferences for specific spatial linguistic strategies among different speech communities. Increasing evidence now suggests that this might not simply be a result of neutral drift, but rather a form of linguistic adaptation to the local social, cultural, or physical environment. Recent studies indicate that different factors like, e.g., topography, subsistence style, or bilingualism successfully predict the choice of spatial Frames of Reference (FoR) on linguistic and non-linguistic tasks. However, the exact causal relationships between these variables and the cultural evolutionary mechanisms that lead to selection of one FoR strategy over another are still not fully understood. In this paper, we argue that in order to arrive at a more mechanistic and causal understanding of the cultural evolution of spatial language, observations from descriptive fieldwork should be combined with experimental and computational methods. In such a framework, causal relationships between linguistic and non-linguistic variables (such as topography and FoR choice) can be isolated and empirically tested in order to shed light on how sociotopographic factors motivate the variation in spatial language we observe cross-linguistically.

scholarly journals Untangling the environmental from the dietary: dust does not matter

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1838) ◽  
pp. 20161032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gildas Merceron ◽  
Anusha Ramdarshan ◽  
Cécile Blondel ◽  
Jean-Renaud Boisserie ◽  
Noël Brunetiere ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Tooth Wear ◽  
Textural Analysis ◽  
Significant Determinant ◽  
Intrinsic Properties ◽  
Dental Microwear ◽  
Natural Conditions ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Selection Of

Both dust and silica phytoliths have been shown to contribute to reducing tooth volume during chewing. However, the way and the extent to which they individually contribute to tooth wear in natural conditions is unknown. There is still debate as to whether dental microwear represents a dietary or an environmental signal, with far-reaching implications on evolutionary mechanisms that promote dental phenotypes, such as molar hypsodonty in ruminants, molar lengthening in suids or enamel thickening in human ancestors. By combining controlled-food trials simulating natural conditions and dental microwear textural analysis on sheep, we show that the presence of dust on food items does not overwhelm the dietary signal. Our dataset explores variations in dental microwear textures between ewes fed on dust-free and dust-laden grass or browse fodders. Browsing diets with a dust supplement simulating Harmattan windswept environments contain more silica than dust-free grazing diets. Yet browsers given a dust supplement differ from dust-free grazers. Regardless of the presence or the absence of dust, sheep with different diets yield significantly different dental microwear textures. Dust appears a less significant determinant of dental microwear signatures than the intrinsic properties of ingested foods, implying that diet plays a critical role in driving the natural selection of dental innovations.

Language, culture and cognition: The view from space / Sprache, Kultur und Kognition: Die Betrachtung vom Raum

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Penelope Brown
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Spatial Language ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Linguistic Group ◽  
Spatial Frames Of Reference ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language And Cognition ◽  
Cultural Explanation ◽  
Core Role

AbstractThis paper addresses the vexed questions of how language relates to culture, and what kind of notion of culture is important for linguistic explanation. I first sketch five perspectives - five different construals - of culture apparent in linguistics and in cognitive science more generally. These are: (i) culture as ethno-linguistic group, (ii) culture as a mental module, (iii) culture as knowledge, (iv) culture as context, and (v) culture as a process emergent in interaction. I then present my own work on spatial language and cognition in a Mayan languge and culture, to explain why I believe a concept of culture is important for linguistics. I argue for a core role for cultural explanation in two domains: in analysing the semantics of words embedded in cultural practices which color their meanings (in this case, spatial frames of reference), and in characterizing thematic and functional links across different domains in the social and semiotic life of a particular group of people.

scholarly journals Causal relationships of moral hazard and adverse selection of Ghanaian Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) construction projects

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 439-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
De-Graft Owusu-Manu ◽  
A.S. Kukah ◽  
David John Edwards ◽  
Erika Anneli Pärn ◽  
Hatem El-Gohary ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Hazard ◽  
Adverse Selection ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Public Private Partnership ◽  
Likelihood Method ◽  
Parameter Estimates ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Selection Of

PurposeThe purpose of this paper was to assess the causal relationship(s) between moral hazard and adverse selection of public–private partnership (PPP) construction projects. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to explore the cause and effect relationship between moral hazard and adverse selection problems in PPP construction projects in Ghana. The study produced a framework to predict, estimate and depict the complex causal relationships (i.e. the directionality) between moral hazard and adverse selection.Design/methodology/approachTo test the proposed framework, a quantitative methodology was used, in which, data were collected using research questionnaires that targeted a sample of 280 PPP stakeholders in Ghana. In total, 210 useable questionnaires were retrieved, representing a response rate of 75 per cent.FindingsThe interrelationships between the eight causes and the nine effects of moral hazard and adverse selection were established using the model. The tested framework showed the degree of association and isolation of the unobserved variables on the indicator factors. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate the fit of items to latent constructs. Because the fit of each model was good and the item loadings were adequate, it was assumed that the indicators of the different variables factors were fitting. Furthermore, a diagnostic fit analysis was conducted using the robust maximum likelihood method to test the statistical significance of the parameter estimates.Practical implicationsThis novel research is one of the few studies investigating the causal relationships between moral hazard and adverse selection of PPP construction projects. The research concluded with future studies that seek to validate the model developed in other countries and/or other industries.Originality/valueThe research findings will serve as a guide for construction stakeholders in the PPP sector on the causes and effects of adverse selection and moral hazard and how to mitigate these.

The Chicken or the Egg? Causal Inference in Entrepreneurial Orientation–Performance Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 104225872097636
Author(s):  
Brian S. Anderson ◽  
Jens Schueler ◽  
Matthias Baum ◽  
William J. Wales ◽  
Vishal K. Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Entrepreneurial Orientation ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Nomological Network ◽  
Organizational Research ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Design Considerations ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Performance Research

While entrepreneurial orientation (EO) correlates with many organizational phenomena, we lack convincing evidence of causal relationships within EO’s nomological network. We explore the challenges to establishing causal relationships with a systematic review of EO–performance research. We then use a simulation to illustrate how popular research designs in EO research limit our ability to make causal claims. We conclude by outlining the research design considerations to move from associational to causal EO–performance research. Our message is that while experiments may not be practical or feasible in many areas of organizational research, including EO, scholars can nevertheless move towards causal understanding.

scholarly journals Language as shaped by the environment: linguistic construal in a collaborative spatial task

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Nölle ◽  
Riccardo Fusaroli ◽  
Gregory Mills ◽  
Kristian Tylén
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Spatial Task ◽  
Shared Task ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Linguistic Strategies ◽  
Highly Sensitive ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary ◽  
Identical Task

What causes cultural groups to favour specific conventions over others? Recently, it has been suggested that cross-linguistic variation can be motivated by factors of the wider non-linguistic environment. Large-scale cross-sectional studies have found statistical differences among languages that pattern with environmental variables such as topography or population size. However, these studies are correlational in nature, revealing little about the possible mechanisms driving these cultural evolutionary processes. The present study sets out to experimentally investigate how environmental factors come to shape the emergence of linguistic conventions. To this end, we adapt the classical Maze Game task to test the hypothesis that participants routinize different linguistic strategies to communicate positions in the maze contingent on particular environmental affordances (i.e. structure of the mazes). Our results confirm that subtle environmental motivations drive the emergence of different communicative conventions in an otherwise identical task, suggesting that linguistic adaptations are highly sensitive to factors of the shared task environment. We speculate that these kinds of mechanisms found at a local interactional level, through processes of cultural evolution contribute to the systematic global variation observed among different languages.

scholarly journals Variation in spatial concepts: Different frames of reference on different axes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Pitt ◽  
Alexandra Carstensen ◽  
Edward Gibson ◽  
Steven T. Piantadosi
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Spatial Language ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Spatial Thinking ◽  
Initial Test ◽  
Spatial Concepts ◽  
Spatial Frames Of Reference ◽  
Language And Cognition ◽  
Lateral Axis ◽  
The Way

Spatial language and cognition vary across contexts. In some groups, people tend to use egocentric space (e.g. left, right) to encode the locations of objects, while in other groups, people use allocentric space (e.g. upriver, downriver) to describe the same spatial scene. These different spatial Frames of Reference (FoRs) characterize both the way people talk about spatial relations and the way they think about them, even when they are not using language. These patterns of spatial language and spatial thinking tend to covary, but the root causes of this variation are unclear. Here we propose that this variation in FoR use reflects variation in the spatial discriminability of the relevant spatial continua. In an initial test of this proposal, we compared FoR use across spatial axes that are known to differ in discriminability. In two non-verbal tests, a group of indigenous Bolivians used different FoRs on different spatial axes; on the lateral axis, where egocentric (left-right) discrimination is difficult, their behavior was predominantly allocentric; on the sagittal axis, where egocentric (front-back) discrimination is relatively easy, their behavior was predominantly egocentric. These findings support the spatial discriminability hypothesis, which may explain variation in spatial concepts not only across axes, but also across groups, between individuals, and over development.

Rise and Decline of Languages: A Struggle for Survival

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sai Chandra Mouli Timiri ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Power Level ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Official Language ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Economic Trends ◽  
Selection Of

Shifts in language presence are often predicated on the political and economic power of its users, where power level correlates with the longevity of the language. Further, during language contact, any resistance between the communities may lead to political and social conflict. The dominant language usually prevails, subjugating the weaker speech communities to the point where they adapt in various ways, processes which effect hegemonies. Language contact also motivates bilingualism, which takes effect over years. This paper suggests that, observing colonization through certain Asian countries, and centrally India, phonological influences have become conspicuous. Postcolonial contexts have selected language identities to assert local linguistic and sociocultural identities through specifying phonetic uniqueness. The study notes that economic trends alter this process, as do political factors. The study investigates how the role of English as an official language and lingua franca in India predicates the selection of certain phonetic patterns so as to legitimize identities of language communities. As such, Indian Englishes have developed their own unique varieties of language, through this process.

Case Selection in Small-N Research

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Seawright
Keyword(s):  
Random Selection ◽  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Case Selection ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Small N ◽  
Causal Variable ◽  
Selection Of

Recent methodological work on systematic case selection techniques offers ways of choosing cases for in-depth analysis such that the probability of learning from the cases is enhanced. This research has undermined several long-standing ideas about case selection. In particular, random selection of cases, paired or grouped selection of cases for purposes of controlled comparison, typical cases, and extreme cases on the outcome variable all appear to be much less useful than their reputations have suggested. Instead, it appears that scholars gain the most in terms of making new discoveries about causal relationships when they study extreme cases on the causal variable or deviant cases.

Secondary defences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme D. Ruxton ◽  
William L. Allen ◽  
Thomas N. Sherratt ◽  
Michael P. Speed
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Tree Of Life ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms ◽  
Predator Prey ◽  
Chemical Defences ◽  
Selection Of

In this chapter we consider defences that are usually deployed during, or just before, contact between a prey and its predator: so-called ‘secondary’ defences. Secondary defences are found right across the tree of life and therefore come in very many forms, including: 1.) chemical defences; 2.) mechanical defences; and 3.) behavioural defences. Here we review selected examples that provide useful illustrations of the ecological and evolutionary characteristics associated with secondary defences. We discuss costs of secondary defences, placing emphasis on the consequences of such costs, especially as they relate to forms of social interaction. We show also that the acquisition of secondary defences may modify niche, life history, and habitat range of prey animals and review a well-known and significant study of predator–prey co-evolution of defensive toxins of prey and resistance to those toxins in predators. We include a small selection of examples and ideas from the plant and microbe defence literature where we think a broader perspective is helpful. We begin the chapter by considering the evolutionary mechanisms that favour secondary defence evolution.

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