How to Create Shared Symbols

Human cognition and behaviour is dominated by symbol use. This paper examines the social learning strategies that give rise to symbolic communication. Experiment 1 contrasts an individual-level account, based on observational learning and cognitive bias, with an inter-individual account, based on social coordinative learning. Participants played a referential communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of recurring meanings to a partner by drawing, but without using their conventional language. Individual-level learning, via observation and cognitive bias, was sufficient to produce communication systems that became increasingly effective, efficient and shared over games. However, breaking a referential precedent eliminated these benefits. The most effective, most efficient and most shared signs arose when participants could directly interact with their partner, indicating that social coordinative learning is important to the creation of shared symbols. Experiment 2 investigated the contribution of two distinct aspects of social interaction: behaviour alignment and concurrent partner feedback. Each played a complementary role in the creation of shared symbols: behaviour alignment primarily drove communication effectiveness, and partner feedback primarily drove the efficiency of the evolved signs. In conclusion, inter-individual social coordinative learning is important to the evolution of effective, efficient and shared symbols.

“Marriage Is Perseverance”: Structural Violence, Culture, and AIDS in Malawi

This article uses contemporary Malawian proverbs about gender as a window on connections between structural violence, culture, and AIDS in Malawi. Malawi's colonial and post-colonial history forms the backdrop for considerations of Malawi's changing sexual landscape. The author argues that Malawi's legacy of structural violence, particularly the colonial introduction of male labour migration and massive gender inequalities, irrevocably altered Malawian gender roles. Any attempt to explain Malawi's high rate of AIDS must therefore consider how structural violence became entwined with cultural norms in the production of a competitive sexual economy based on multiple concurrent partner and transactional sex.

Mother-Infant Interaction and Perceived Infant Temperament

The study sought answers to questions about the relative importance of perceptions of infant temperament and ongoing partner behavior in prediction of child and mother behavior in a standardized home interaction situation. Relationships between infant behavior and rated temperament were also assessed as well as interactive effects of sex and temperament on observed behaviors. A sample of 30 mothers and their 15-month-old infants were studied twice in their homes. Behaviors were classified in different categories (verbal, visual, touch, and motor) and as positive and negative actions. Maternal ratings of temperament in the Toddler Behavior Questionnaire (TBQ) were obtained. Bivariate correlational analyses showed several lawful associations between infant behavior and temperament ratings. An interactive effect of sex and the TBQ dimension of Intensity/Activity was found for child positive behavior. Multivariate analyses suggested the TBQ ratings of Manageability of the infant together with concurrent partner behavior to be the most important predictors of observed mother and infant activity.