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11 results on '"Lister, Casey J."'

1. A Cross-Sectional Test of Sign Creation by Children in the Gesture and Vocal Modalities

Author

Lister, Casey J., Burtenshaw, Tiarn, Walker, Bradley, Ohan, Jeneva L., and Fay, Nicolas

Abstract

Naturalistic studies show that children can create language-like communication systems in the absence of conventional language. However, experimental evidence is mixed. We address this discrepancy using an experimental paradigm that simulates naturalistic sign creation. Specifically, we tested if a sample of 6- to 12-year-old children (52 girls and 56 boys drawn from an urban, predominantly white population in Western Australia) can comprehend and create novel gestural and vocal signs. Experiment 1 tested children's ability to comprehend novel signs. Experiment 2 tested children's ability to create novel signs. Results show that children can comprehend and create gestural and vocal signs, that communication is more successful in the gesture modality, and that older children outperform younger children.

Published
2021
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2. Creating a New Communication System: Gesture has the Upper Hand

Author

Lister, Casey J, Fay, Nicolas, Ellison, T Mark, and Ohan, Jeneva

Subjects
Alignment, Gesture, Vocalization, Multimodal, Motivated, Signs, Language Origin, Embodied Cognition
Abstract

How does modality affect our ability to create a newcommunication system? This paper describes twoexperiments that address this question, and extend priorrelated findings by drawing from a significantly moreextensive list of concepts (over 1000) than has been usedpreviously. In Experiment 1, participants communicatedconcepts to a partner using either gestures or non-linguisticvocalizations (sounds that are not words). Experiment 1confirmed that participants who gesture 1) produce morestrongly ‘motivated’ signs that physically resemble theconcepts they represent (i.e., are iconic), 2) are better able tocorrectly guess the meaning of a partner’s signs, and 3) showstronger alignment on a shared inventory of signs. Experiment2 addressed a limitation of Experiment 1 (concurrent feedbackonly in the gesture condition). In Experiment 2 concurrentfeedback was eliminated from the gesture and vocalconditions. Gesture again outperformed vocalization oncommunication effectiveness and sign alignment.

Published
2015

3. Gesture is the primary modality for language creation

Author

Fay, Nicolas, Walker, Bradley, Ellison, T. Mark, Blundell, Zachary, De Kleine, Naomi, Garde, Murray, Lister, Casey J., Goldin-Meadow, Susan, Fay, Nicolas, Walker, Bradley, Ellison, T. Mark, Blundell, Zachary, De Kleine, Naomi, Garde, Murray, Lister, Casey J., and Goldin-Meadow, Susan

Abstract

How language began is one of the oldest questions in science, but theories remain speculative due to a lack of direct evidence. Here, we report two experiments that generate empirical evidence to inform gesture-first and vocal-first theories of language origin; in each, we tested modern humans' ability to communicate a range of meanings (995 distinct words) using either gesture or non-linguistic vocalization. Experiment 1 is a cross-cultural study, with signal Producers sampled from Australia (n = 30, M-age = 32.63, s.d. = 12.42) and Vanuatu (n = 30, M-age = 32.40, s.d. = 11.76). Experiment 2 is a cross-experiential study in which Producers were either sighted (n = 10, M-age = 39.60, s.d. = 11.18) or severely vision-impaired (n = 10, M-age = 39.40, s.d. = 10.37). A group of undergraduate student Interpreters guessed the meaning of the signals created by the Producers (n = 140). Communication success was substantially higher in the gesture modality than the vocal modality (twice as high overall; 61.17% versus 29.04% success). This was true within cultures, across cultures and even for the signals produced by severely vision-impaired participants. The success of gesture is attributed in part to its greater universality (i.e. similarity in form across different Producers). Our results support the hypothesis that gesture is the primary modality for language creation.

Published
2022

9. Creating New Sign Systems from Scratch: Gesture has the Upper Hand

Author

Noelle, DC, Dale, R, Warlaumont, AS, Yoshimi, J, Matlock, T, Jennings, C, Lister, Casey J., Fay, Nicolas, Ellison, Timothy, Ohan, Jeneva, Noelle, DC, Dale, R, Warlaumont, AS, Yoshimi, J, Matlock, T, Jennings, C, Lister, Casey J., Fay, Nicolas, Ellison, Timothy, and Ohan, Jeneva

Abstract

How does modality affect our ability to create a new communication system? This paper describes two experiments that address this question, and extend prior related findings by drawing from a significantly more extensive list of concepts (over 1000) than has been used previously. In Experiment 1, participants communicated concepts to a partner using either gestures or non-linguistic vocalizations (sounds that are not words). Experiment 1 confirmed that participants who gesture 1) produce more strongly 'motivated' signs that physically resemble the concepts they represent (i.e., are iconic), 2) are better able to correctly guess the meaning of a partner's signs, and 3) show stronger alignment on a shared inventory of signs. Experiment 2 addressed a limitation of Experiment 1 (concurrent feedback only in the gesture condition). In Experiment 2 concurrent feedback was eliminated from the gesture and vocal conditions. Gesture again outperformed vocalization on communication effectiveness and sign alignment.

Published
2015

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