Week 8 tutorial briefing
Sign language as a window into language origins
For this tutorial please read Motamedi et al. (2019). Pay special attention to the Procedure and Results of Experiment 2. In preparation for the tutorial, also download the video archive associated with this tutorial. It contains four sub-folders, each containing five videos. These videos show gesture sequences from four chains of participants in Experiment 2. Two of the folders contain videos from transmission-only chains, and two of them contain videos from interaction-only chains. Additionally, two of the folders contain videos where the gestures indicate a person (e.g. a priest) and two folders contain gestures indicating a place (e.g. a restaurant). If it’s easier to work with (seeing all the videos and dragging them around), you can also/alternatively download this set of powerpoint slides featuring all the videos.
In the tutorial, using your knowledge from reading the article, complete the tasks below:
- Explore the videos in each of the four folders and see if you can figure out the meanings that the participants are trying to convey.
- Based on your understanding of the results of Motamedi et al. Experiment 2, identify which two folders contain chains from the transmission-only condition and which two contain chains from the interaction-only condition (don’t overthink this one, there is a quite superficial cue you can use!)
- Try to organise the videos in the order you think they were created in the experiment. For the transmission-only condition, which gestures do you think were produced by the first generation vs the last generation in that chain? For the interaction-only condition, which video shows the first set of gestures produced by members of that dyad to convey a meaning, and which video shows the last set of gestures from that dyad. Pay close attention to differences between videos and be ready to motivate why you think they should be in a specific order.
- Recall the experiments Kenny discussed in Lecture 1 and during last week’s lecture. One experiment examined changes in drawings over time when these were used in a repeated game of Pictionary; the other was an iterated learning experiment examining how an initially-random language changed over time as it was learned by participants. What are some similarities and differences between those two experiments and Motamedi et al. Experiment 2 in terms of their starting point and results?
- Bonus questions (if there is time left in the tutorial):
- In the discussion section of this paper, the authors talk about similarities and differences between their experimental results and patterns observed in real signed languages. What were some of these similarities and differences, and how were they exemplified in the videos you looked at today?
- Did you notice any modality-specific strategies that were used by participants in the gesture videos you looked at? Were there any modality specific strategies you were expecting to see that you didn’t?
References
Motamedi, Y., Schouwstra, M., Smith, K., Culbertson, J., & Kirby, S. (2019). Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: from improvised gesture to systematic sign. Cognition, 192, 103964. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.05.001
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