Abstract / Description of output
Recent work on emerging sign languages provides evidence for how key properties of linguistic systems are created. Here we use laboratory experiments to investigate the contribution of two specific mechanisms—interaction and transmission—to the emergence of a manual communication system in silent gesturers. We show that the combined effects of these mechanisms, rather than either alone, maintain communicative efficiency, and lead to a gradual increase of regularity and systematic structure. The gestures initially produced by participants are unsystematic and resemble pantomime, but come to develop key language-like properties similar to those documented in newly emerging sign systems.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 103964 |
Journal | Cognition |
Volume | 192 |
Early online date | 11 Jul 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2019 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- silent gesture
- iterated learning
- interaction
- transmisison
- sign language
- language evolution
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Dive into the research topics of 'Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: From improvised gesture to systematic sign'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Datasets
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Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: from improvised gesture to systematic sign (dataset)
Motamedi-mousavi, Y. (Creator), Schouwstra, M. (Creator), Smith, K. (Creator), Culbertson, J. (Creator) & Kirby, S. (Creator), Edinburgh DataShare, 27 Sept 2018
DOI: 10.7488/ds/2447
Dataset
Profiles
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Simon Kirby
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences - Personal Chair of Language Evolution
Person: Academic: Research Active
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Kenny Smith
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences - Personal Chair of Evolutionary Linguistics
Person: Academic: Research Active