Daniel Cloud
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231167925
- eISBN:
- 9780231538282
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231167925.003.0005
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This chapter focuses on the chimpanzee's two distinct systems of communication: vocal signals and their use of gestures, like holding up a cupped hand to beg or raising one arm to initiate play. The ...
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This chapter focuses on the chimpanzee's two distinct systems of communication: vocal signals and their use of gestures, like holding up a cupped hand to beg or raising one arm to initiate play. The existence of two systems with very similar functions, two distinct systems of Skyrmsian signals, one innate and the other learned, might be thought of as creating a Darwinian redundancy that would permit the function of one of the two to diverge in an unexpected direction. The second system of signals seems like exactly the sort of thing that evolution might easily have grabbed hold of, in a descendant of the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, and turned into something new, into a more human kind of language. If that's what happened, then understanding the two end points of the process is the best way of understanding the transition, and that makes understanding what chimpanzees do with their gestures rather urgent.Less
This chapter focuses on the chimpanzee's two distinct systems of communication: vocal signals and their use of gestures, like holding up a cupped hand to beg or raising one arm to initiate play. The existence of two systems with very similar functions, two distinct systems of Skyrmsian signals, one innate and the other learned, might be thought of as creating a Darwinian redundancy that would permit the function of one of the two to diverge in an unexpected direction. The second system of signals seems like exactly the sort of thing that evolution might easily have grabbed hold of, in a descendant of the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, and turned into something new, into a more human kind of language. If that's what happened, then understanding the two end points of the process is the best way of understanding the transition, and that makes understanding what chimpanzees do with their gestures rather urgent.
Stephen V. Shepherd and Asif A. Ghazanfar
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262014533
- eISBN:
- 9780262289313
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262014533.003.0009
- Subject:
- Psychology, Vision
This chapter discusses neurophysiological aspects of dynamics, including gaze, attention, and vocal signals during the perception of expressions. A link is established between the perception of ...
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This chapter discusses neurophysiological aspects of dynamics, including gaze, attention, and vocal signals during the perception of expressions. A link is established between the perception of facial dynamics and vocalization after examining behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. The similarity between eye-movement patterns of rhesus monkeys viewing dynamic vocalizing faces and human eye-movement patterns established a relationship between dynamic visual and vocalization behaviors for both monkeys and humans. Mimicry, which takes place at multiple levels of abstraction, plays a role in the perception of speech as it is triggered by the gaze and perception of expression. Dynamic social and nonsocial environmental cues have an impact on the importance of an emotional signal and the neural activity initiated by it.Less
This chapter discusses neurophysiological aspects of dynamics, including gaze, attention, and vocal signals during the perception of expressions. A link is established between the perception of facial dynamics and vocalization after examining behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. The similarity between eye-movement patterns of rhesus monkeys viewing dynamic vocalizing faces and human eye-movement patterns established a relationship between dynamic visual and vocalization behaviors for both monkeys and humans. Mimicry, which takes place at multiple levels of abstraction, plays a role in the perception of speech as it is triggered by the gaze and perception of expression. Dynamic social and nonsocial environmental cues have an impact on the importance of an emotional signal and the neural activity initiated by it.
