Scientists Find Evidence of a Universal, Non-Verbal Communication System in silent gestures between very young children and adults

Amazing stuff! Getting to the very essence and beginnings of human language?

"... new research hints at a shared, universal non-verbal communication system that comes to life when we gesture without talking. ...

However, when describing the same scenes without speaking, the sequences of the children's hand gestures were remarkably similar. The language-specific differences in gestures had seemingly evaporated.

... also found similarly in earlier work with adults: blind English and Turkish speakers organized their gestures the same as sighted speakers did when they refrained from speaking.

Past studies in German and English-speaking children have also found silent gestures don't necessarily follow the structure of a person's native language, however those studies didn't directly compare different language speakers like this new one did.

... suggest their findings, although tentative, hint at the possibility that we all share some rudimentary non-verbal communication system that gets overridden or altered once we start learning language. ..."

"... all the studies have produced very similar results. In fact, many of the gestures used by participants resemble what are known as “home sign systems,” which are informal sign language systems that are created spontaneously by deaf children, who have not been exposed to a conventional sign language by their hearing parents. ..."

From the abstract:

"Adults display cross-linguistic variability in their speech in how they package and order semantic elements of a motion event. These differences can also be found in speakers’ co-speech gestures (gesturing with speech), but not in their silent gestures (gesturing without speech). Here, we examine when in development children show the differences between co-speech gesture and silent gesture found in adults. We studied speech and gestures produced by 100 children learning English or Turkish (n = 50/language) – equally divided into 5 age-groups: 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, 9–10, and 11–12 years. Children were asked to describe three-dimensional spatial event scenes (e.g., a figure crawling across carpet) first with speech and then without speech using their hands. We focused on physical motion events that elicit, in adults, cross-linguistic differences in co-speech gesture and cross-linguistic similarities in silent gesture. We found the adult pattern even in the youngest children: (1) Language shaped co-speech gesture beginning at age 3 years, showing an early effect of language on thinking for speaking (as measured by gestures that occur during the speech act). (2) Language did not affect silent gesture at any age, highlighting early limits on the effects language has on thinking and revealing a language of gesture that shows similarities across languages."

Scientists Find Evidence of a Universal, Non-Verbal Communication System : ScienceAlert

New Study Suggests Existence of a Universal, Nonverbal Communication System (Georgia State University)

What the development of gesture with and without speech can tell us about the effect of language on thought (open access)

Zoom appears to be an impoverished social communication system relative to in-person face-to-face conversations

Amazing stuff!

Still Zoom e.g. over long distances is better than no visual communication at all. My wife is currently in China so a Zoom conversation with her is much better than e.g. any conventional phone conversation.

"... neuroscientist ... used sophisticated imaging tools to track in real time the brain activity of two people engaged in conversation, she discovered an intricate choreography of neural activity in areas of the brain that govern social interactions. When she performed similar experiments with two people talking on Zoom ... she observed a much different neurological landscape.

Neural signaling during online exchanges was substantially suppressed compared to activity observed in those having face-to-face conversations, researchers found. ...
“Zoom appears to be an impoverished social communication system relative to in-person conditions.” ...

They found that the strength of neural signaling was dramatically reduced on Zoom relative to “in-person” conversations. Increased activity among those participating in face-to-face conversations were associated with increased gaze time and increased pupil diameters, suggestive of increased arousal in the two brains. Increased EEG activity during in-person interactions was characteristic of enhanced face processing ability, researchers said. ..."

From the abstract:

"It has long been understood that the ventral visual stream of the human brain processes features of simulated human faces. Recently, specificity for real and interactive faces has been reported in lateral and dorsal visual streams raising new questions regarding neural coding of interactive faces and lateral and dorsal face processing mechanisms. We compare neural activity during two live interactive face-to-face conditions where facial features and tasks remain constant while the social context (in-person or on-line conditions) are varied. Current models of face processing do not predict differences in these two conditions as features do not vary. However, behavioral eye-tracking measures showed longer visual dwell times on the real face and also increased arousal as indicated by pupil diameters for the real face condition. Consistent with the behavioral findings, signal increases with functional near infrared spectroscopy, fNIRS, were observed in dorsal-parietal regions for the real faces and increased cross-brain synchrony was also found within these dorsal-parietal regions for the real in-person face condition. Simultaneously acquired electroencephalography, EEG, also showed increased theta power in real conditions. These neural and behavioral differences highlight the importance of natural, in-person, paradigms and social context for understanding live and interactive face processing in human."

Zooming in on our brains on Zoom | YaleNews A new study finds that neural signaling during online exchanges is substantially suppressed compared to activity in face-to-face conversations.

Separable Processes for Live “In-Person” and Live “Zoom-like” Faces (open access)

New database offers insight into consequences of language loss

Since ancient times, we have lost numerous languages. Many of them we may never be able to decipher.

Would the world not be much better off if all or most humans spoke at least one common language and used one common alphabet? E.g. imagine Chinese was spoken/written as a second language and not as a first language by over one billion people, but calligraphy, cultural heritage and history e.g. make that very difficult if not impossible.

"... More than half of the world’s approximately 7,000 signed and spoken languages are currently endangered. And without intervention they are likely to become extinct, meaning nobody will speak or sign them any longer. ...
The novel database currently covers 2,467 language varieties spanning 215 different language families and 101 isolated languages from all inhabited continents and geographic areas. It captures 195 language properties — including word order, verbal tense, and whether a language features gendered pronouns — allowing researchers to draw comparisons between and across the languages. ..."

From the abstract:

"While global patterns of human genetic diversity are increasingly well characterized, the diversity of human languages remains less systematically described. Here, we outline the Grambank database. With over 400,000 data points and 2400 languages, Grambank is the largest comparative grammatical database available. The comprehensiveness of Grambank allows us to quantify the relative effects of genealogical inheritance and geographic proximity on the structural diversity of the world’s languages, evaluate constraints on linguistic diversity, and identify the world’s most unusual languages. An analysis of the consequences of language loss reveals that the reduction in diversity will be strikingly uneven across the major linguistic regions of the world. Without sustained efforts to document and revitalize endangered languages, our linguistic window into human history, cognition, and culture will be seriously fragmented."

New database offers insight into consequences of language loss | YaleNews Grambank, a database of 2,467 languages that Yale linguist Claire Bowern helped create, helps researchers better understand the stakes when languages die off.

Grambank reveals the importance of genealogical constraints on linguistic diversity and highlights the impact of language loss (open access)

Fig. 2. Grammatical similarity in the Grambank sample of languages.

The color coding represents the distribution of languages according to the first three principal components (PCs) mapped onto RGB color space

Forest fungi are talking to each other after rainfall

Amazing stuff!

"... for the new study, researchers ... conducted field tests on a type of ectomycorrhizal fungi known as Laccaria bicolor, small tan-colored mushrooms that grow on forest floors. The team attached electrodes to six of the mushrooms in a cluster and measured the electrical signals they passed between each other.
They noticed that the electrical signals fluctuated over time, and seemed to correlate with changes in temperature and moisture. In fact, the signals spiked after rainfall, and were found to be stronger between mushrooms that were closer together.  ..."

"Certain fungi play a critical role in the ecological sustenance of forest trees. Ectomycorrhizal fungi are one such example. Commonly found on pine, oak, and birch trees, ectomycorrhizal fungi form a sheath around the outside of tree roots, and their mycelial body develops into vast underground networks that absorb vital nutrients from the soil and transfer it to the trees.

Scientists have been studying the possibility of electrical signal transfer between mushrooms and across trees via the mycelial networks. It is thought that fungi generate electrical signals in response to external stimuli and use these signals to communicate with each other, coordinating growth and other behavior. It has even been hypothesized that these signals can be used to help transfer nutrients to plants and trees. ...
The researcher correlated this fluctuation with precipitation and temperature, and causality analysis revealed that the post-rain electric potential showed signal transport among mushrooms. This transport was particularly strong between spatially close mushrooms and demonstrated directionality. ..."

From the highlights and abstract:

"Highlights

• Electrical potentials of 6 Laccaria bicolor fruit bodies were measured in the field.

• Electrical potentials were increased after the rain.

• Causality analysis showed electrical signal transport among fruit bodies.

Abstract

We measured extracellular bioelectrical activities of the ectomycorrhizal basidiomycete Laccaria bicolor under field conditions to examine its response to environmental factors. Six fruit bodies of L. bicolor in a cluster, to which electrodes were attached, exhibited less electrical potentials at the beginning, probably due to the lack of precipitation for over a week. However, its electrical potential fluctuated after raining, sometimes over 100 mV. The electrical potential of the fruit bodies and its fluctuation were correlated with precipitation. Causality analysis of electrical potential after the rain showed electrical signal transport among fruit bodies, particularly between spatially close ones, with potential directionality. Our preliminary results bring a call for studies on fungal electrical potentials in a more ecological context under field conditions."

Forest fungi overheard talking to each other after rain showers Whether they’re hacking the brains of bugs or mining for gold, fungi are craftier than we give them credit for. Now researchers in Japan have studied how forest mushrooms communicate with each other, and found that they're mostly chatty when it rains.

How do fungi communicate? Each fungus may “speak” with many other species— and it turns out they have a lot to say.

Mushrooms and their Post-rain, Electrical Conversations

Electrical potentials in the ectomycorrhizal fungus Laccaria bicolor after a rainfall event (no public access)

Mushrooms in the field with an electrode attached to the top and bottom.

NASA's Laser Communications: To the Space Station and Beyond

Recommendable!

Communicating With Aliens

Posted: 1/9/2019

Is it actually a good idea for humans to send out signals into the universe to try to communicate with extraterrestrial life if it exists?

Just read this article: Megawatt laser beacon could communicate with aliens. This is not the first attempt by humans, e.g. Voyager program probes of the 1970s.

On the other hand, scientists only in 2007 discovered strange so called fast radio bursts (FRB) for the first time (see e.g. here).

Would it not be wiser to keep a low profile und only try passively to discover whether aliens are themselves actively communicating with each other or aliens reach out to other aliens?

Perhaps, humanity will find out the hard way that aliens are not humanitarians!