#protolang8 search results

It's a good week for language evolution! Steven Mithen's new book is coming out today. "The Language Puzzle: How We Talked Our Way Out of the Stone Age." Looking forward to reading this one! profilebooks.com/work/the-langu… Below is my thread on Mithen's #protolang8 plenary

The 2nd Prize for the Best #protolang8 Poster Presentation goes to members of our lab @cles_ncu! Vojtech Fiala, @AnnaDoesScience et al: "Human conversational behaviour: Language use in regard to social and non-social topics"

The evolution of human cooperative communication is built on extensive communicative plasticity shared w/ other great apes. Potentially, desire&drive to communicate declaratively (Fitch's "Mitteilungsbedürfnis") rather than ability might separate us from our relatives #protolang8

However, it's still an open question how to really distinguish the creation of new gestures from modifying existing ones, which is a cricual analytical question. Overall outlook: evidence for view that language evolved for the coordination of joint action #protolang8

This is what Marlen is doing in a new project, even extending it to human societies. Looking forward to these results! So far take home message: ape gesture highly plastic - indicating a latent capacity for communicative innovativeness prior to language #protolang8

But to study variation in communicative behaviour we need to integrate studies of individuals, settings, and species #protolang8

This variability points to the plasticity of great ape gesture - but what factors influence it? Marlen and colleagues studied wild and captive orangutans to gain insight into the influence of social organisation & ecology - zoo animals have larger repertoires #protolang8

which framework can we use to understand great ape interactions? research has taken to conversation analysis to adapt communicative parameters such as adjacency pairs, temporal organisation & so forth. Studies found different communcation styles in chimps and bonobos #protolang8

Previous research on the cognitive domain of great ape gestures has mostly focused on intentionality and reference, its ontogeny and flexibility -this actually offers insights into plasticity - ontogenetic variability and behavioural flexibility #protolang8

The starting point is that human face to face communication is fundamentally multimodal, productive, and plastic - some of the cognitive building blocks of these traits might be found in great ape gestures #protolang8

She felt totally lost but at the conference dinner she sat next to the late great Michael Corballis, who encouraged her that non-human animals have a lot to tell us about language evolution. Fast forward to today and at #protolang8 there are a lot more studies on animals!

Marlen says it's a special honour to be invited as a plenary speaker at #protolang8 because #protolang4 in 2015 in Rome was her first interdisciplinary conference she attended at a grad student.

The final plenary of #protolang8! @MarlenFroehlich on plasticity in great ape gesture: From individual- to species-level comparisons

Misheard #protolang8 sentence of the day: "If you listen to Stalin's songs, you will categorize them differently from the way Stalins do" ...after a short moment I realized the person said "starlings"

We're on the home stretch! In the last talk before the final plenary, @zqelizabeth (this time with Edward Ruoyang Shi & Lluis Barceló-Coblij) talks about categorical perception & language evolution #protolang8

Super cool talk by Gabriele Ganau on cognitive skills of dolphins and comparing which of the traits crucial for human language are present in other animals and whether they might've been present in hominins #protolang8

Astudy of 3 species lends some support for the social complexity hypothesis, species w/ most complex social structure shows highest level of repair - but more data needed! #protolang8

Different species have different "social styles" - in despotic social groups relationships & interactions are pretty straightforward & defined by hierarchy. Tolerant groups need to communicate more - more uncertainty of outcomes - more complex com. strategies needed #protolang8

Anne Marijke Schel talks about Social complexity and communicative repair: a comparison across three primate species #protolang8

. @KaylaKolff with a fascinating study of chimpanzee grooming as a case study of non-human animal repair #protolang8

. @KaylaKolff with a fascinating study of chimpanzee grooming as a case study of non-human animal repair #protolang8

The final plenary of #protolang8! @MarlenFroehlich on plasticity in great ape gesture: From individual- to species-level comparisons

It's a good week for language evolution! Steven Mithen's new book is coming out today. "The Language Puzzle: How We Talked Our Way Out of the Stone Age." Looking forward to reading this one! profilebooks.com/work/the-langu… Below is my thread on Mithen's #protolang8 plenary

Super excited about the #protolang8 symposium organised by @rapha_heesen & @MarlenFroehlich: Communicative repair: What is it, how did it evolve, and how can it be studied across species?

It's Darwin day! Could there be a better date to write your abstract for #Protolang8? ✍️ sites.google.com/view/protolang…

Anne Marijke Schel talks about Social complexity and communicative repair: a comparison across three primate species #protolang8

This is what Marlen is doing in a new project, even extending it to human societies. Looking forward to these results! So far take home message: ape gesture highly plastic - indicating a latent capacity for communicative innovativeness prior to language #protolang8

Joana Roselló & @zqelizabeth take a critical perspective on the animal communication literature: Composite behaviour does not equal compositionality #protolang8

Here's the brief summary, I couldn't keep up with the very quick (but fascinating) runthrough of Mithen's proposals for the different stages of language evolution - so really looking forward to reading the book #protolang8

Super cool talk by Gabriele Ganau on cognitive skills of dolphins and comparing which of the traits crucial for human language are present in other animals and whether they might've been present in hominins #protolang8

Attendending and presenting a poster at #Protolang8 @protolang_conf #languageevolution

Mithen gives a critical discussion of archaeological work on the evolution of visual symbolism - often seen as proxies for words, but shaky assumption, and no claims for symbolism pre 40k can be properly verified at the moment #protolang8

But to study variation in communicative behaviour we need to integrate studies of individuals, settings, and species #protolang8

We're on the home stretch! In the last talk before the final plenary, @zqelizabeth (this time with Edward Ruoyang Shi & Lluis Barceló-Coblij) talks about categorical perception & language evolution #protolang8

Courtesy of the lovely @ASafryghin - let me introduce you to the beautifully illustrated and wonderfully expressive ‘Supplement to the Italian dictionary’ for the gesture nerd in us all.. 🤓🫶 Going to come in very handy since #Protolang8 will be in #Rome 😅

Astudy of 3 species lends some support for the social complexity hypothesis, species w/ most complex social structure shows highest level of repair - but more data needed! #protolang8

Why is there no consensus? Because of the sheer complexity of tasks, and the many different disciplines involved. But with recent advances in many fields, maybe there is the possibility of a new synthesis #protolang8

The starting point is that human face to face communication is fundamentally multimodal, productive, and plastic - some of the cognitive building blocks of these traits might be found in great ape gestures #protolang8

Different species have different "social styles" - in despotic social groups relationships & interactions are pretty straightforward & defined by hierarchy. Tolerant groups need to communicate more - more uncertainty of outcomes - more complex com. strategies needed #protolang8

Previous research on the cognitive domain of great ape gestures has mostly focused on intentionality and reference, its ontogeny and flexibility -this actually offers insights into plasticity - ontogenetic variability and behavioural flexibility #protolang8