When is ostensive communication used for joint action?

Joint actions typically require that information relevant for performing a task together is available to the interaction partners. In some situations, such information is perceptually retrievable and salient enough for co-actors to simply use it. In other situations, the relevant information needs to be actively shared among co-actors, e.g., by making it more perceptually salient or indicating it by means of a conventional signal. Here we consider a third case, where the information is not perceptually available and cannot be communicated by conventional means. How do joint action partners coordinate in such situations? We propose that co-actors resort to ostensive communication, that is, they draw attention to the fact that they intend to communicate some specific information. Two experiments tested the proposed role of ostensive communication for joint action. In a non-verbal joint building task, the category membership of different objects was known to only one person in a dyad, who needed to inform the partner which object type to use. In line with our hypothesis, most participants highlighted a particular object category with an ostensive gesture (characterized by containing more submovements than a natural placing movement) to resolve perceptual ambiguity. We conclude that ostensive communication is especially useful for joint action in situations where task-relevant information is not available to all co-actors and where it cannot be perceptually highlighted or conventionally communicated.

Iconic strategies in lexical sensory signs in Finnish Sign Language

Iconic strategies—methods of making iconic forms—have been mostly considered in terms of concrete semantic fields such as actions and objects. In this article, I investigate iconic strategies in lexical sensory signs—signs that semantically relate to the five senses (sight, touch, smell, sound, and taste) and to emotions (e.g., anger)—in Finnish Sign Language. The iconic strategy types I discuss are hand-action, entity, drawing, and locating. I also discuss the indexical strategy type (e.g., finger pointing). To gain as rich and broad a view as possible, the mixed methods in the research consist of three components: intuition based, intersubjective, and statistical analyses. The main findings are (1) that, in order from most preferred to least preferred strategy, the hand-action, the entity, the indexical, and the drawing were found in lexical sensory signs; the locating strategy was not found at all, and (2) that the interpretation of iconic strategies is not always unambiguous and absolute. In conclusion, I reflect on methodological issues, and suggest that the concept of cross-modal iconicity and indexicality should be further studied in sign language linguistics.

Hyperembodiment

The article introduces hyperembodiment as a general feature of artefacts for perception and representation and as a research agenda for cognitive semiotics and cognitive science at large. At the heart of the article, I offer analyses of two different selected examples: Hyperembodiment in a Facetime conversation and in a Snapchat message. These digital productions of appearances of social interactants are analysed with particular attention to their intercorporeal qualities and it is argued that social perception is facilitated which takes the users of visual, interpersonal communication devices beyond the corporeal limits of ordinary ways of being present for each other. Broadening the scope, I then discuss how a general focus on hyperembodiment opens new, productive avenues of inquiry. First, I relate hyperembodiment to the heterogenous field of social presence research and suggest how it may contribute to it. Thereafter I discuss hyperembodiment as a topic of cognitive semiotics.

Pragmaticism as a logical study of consciousness

Pragmaticism states that general rules of action, or habits, are generalizing tendencies that lead us to action in conceivable situations describable in general terms. As a method of ‘putting questions to our minds,’ it assigns meanings to signs in terms of conceivable practical consequences for rational conduct. Questions are experiments on various ways of finding solutions in thoughts. This paper proposes pragmaticism as a logical method to study consciousness. In particular, perceptions of relations of differences create a “temporal contract” between states of minds that give rise to experiences. Peirce’s “dyadic consciousness” is this drafting of a contract between states of mind, anticipating and occasionally furthering beyond the key notions of 4E cognitive science.

Conscious self-control as criterion for reasoning

This paper gives an overview and discusses the details of the connection between Peirce's doctrine of reasoning and his philosophy of consciousness. While marginal in Peirce's semiotics and his conception of the mind, consciousness appears in a central role in the cognitive criterion that reasoning proper be self-controlled. A set of implications of this idea is investigated.

Primitives of Peirce’s concept of consciousness

This collection of articles by noted Peirce scholars stands at the frontiers of the discipline in expressing a primary issue which runs through Peirce’s semiotic, logic, and metaphysics – how his more mature semiotic is inextricably linked with questions of consciousness. As such, Peirce’s concept of consciousness is augmented in the following ways: intelligent agency, temporal contracts in 4E cognition, the privilege of the non-ego and the role of heterocriticism, and the impingement of consciousness upon Peirce’s notion of self-control. In short, it brings together threads of Peirce’s theory of consciousness into a semio-logical model. The contributions address how Peirce’s system of “instinctual” consciousness, awareness, and more reflective forms of consciousness influence the generation of propositions and assertions. Peirce’s ultimate position is showcased – that to serve esthetic ends, quasi-interpreters must argue with/between themselves how to craft courses of action to serve esthetic ends.

Habit-change, heightened consciousness, and agential “crises”: impersonal mechanisms, personal agents, and their complex entanglement

The author begins by highlighting Peirce’s claim that every kind of consciousness is more or less like a cognition. He concludes by making a plea for a cognitive semiotics in which both mechanistic explanations and accounts framed in terms of personal agents are necessary for an adequate account of human cognition. The topics of habit-taking and the form of consciousness associated with this process are what link Peirce’s cognitivist approach to consciousness and an inclusive, non-reductionist vision of cognitive semiotics. Impersonal mechanisms play an integral role in even the most sophisticated forms of human cognition. But the self-critical endeavors of personal agents, especially ones susceptible to “crises” such as doubt, play no less an important role.

Logical and practical advantages of double consciousness

This account augments Peirce's concept of consciousness in two ways: 1) it highlights its double nature and 2) it explores how this two-sided consciousness advances modal logic. Double consciousness facilitates inferencing in that differences between old information and new information are noticed; logical conflicts between the two can then be explored and resolved expeditiously. This often natural but a forced need to consider new facts in light of old ones provides a scaffold for a higher level of consciousness, namely, self and heterocriticism — inciting interpreters to attend to the new facts, to intentionally compare facts and propositions, and to reflect upon the reasons for their comparative efficacy. In his call to double consciousness, Peirce enlivens us to draw deeply from the well of logical and practical affordances — surprising events and sustained interactive platforms. Peirce’s call requires us to utilize consciousness from its very basic level: attention to stimuli, awareness of unexpected facts, mental wrestling of effort and resistance, and finally synthetic consciousness which engenders binding frames of legitimate meanings from reliable genres. In this effort, Peirce informs us that the most reliable inferencing can only be ascertained by weighing ego with non-ego — through an active course of careful synthesis.