Viewpoint Preferences in Signing Children’s Spatial Descriptions

Contains fulltext : 162404.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access) Contains fulltext : 162404.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access)The 40th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 40), 13 november 201

Coordinating Gesture, Word, and Diagram: Explanations for Experts and Novices

abstract: Successful explanations are a symphony of gesture, language, and props. Here, we show how they are orchestrated in an experiment in which students explained complex systems to imagined novices and experts. Visual-spatial communication—diagram and gesture—was key; it represents thought more directly than language. The real or virtual diagrams created from gestures served as the stage for explanations, enriched by language and enlivened by deictic gestures to convey structure and iconic gestures to enact the behavior and functionality of the systems. Explanations to novices packed in more information than explanations to experts, emphasizing the information about action that is difficult for novices, and expressing information in multiple ways, using both virtual models created by gestures and visible ones.This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published as Kang, Seokmin, Tversky, Barbara, & Black, John B. (2015). Coordinating Gesture, Word, and Diagram: Explanations for Experts and Novices. SPATIAL COGNITION AND COMPUTATION, 15(1), 1-26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13875868.2014.958837. Copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/abs/10.1080/13875868.2014.958837#.VRM1-PnF-K

A semantic and language-based representation of an environmental scene

The modeling of a landscape environment is a cognitive activity that requires appropriate spatial representations. The research presented in this paper introduces a structural and semantic categorization of a landscape view based on panoramic photographs that act as a substitute of a given natural environment. Verbal descriptions of a landscape scene provide themodeling input of our approach. This structure-based model identifies the spatial, relational, and semantic constructs that emerge from these descriptions. Concepts in the environment are qualified according to a semantic classification, their proximity and direction to the observer, and the spatial relations that qualify them. The resulting model is represented in a way that constitutes a modeling support for the study of environmental scenes, and a contribution for further research oriented to the mapping of a verbal description onto a geographical information system-based representation

Social and representational cues jointly influence spatial perspective-taking.

We examined how social cues (the conversational partner’s viewpoint) and representational ones (the intrinsic structure of a spatial layout) jointly shape people’s spatial memory representations and their subsequent descriptions. In 24 pairs, Directors studied an array with a symmetrical structure while either knowing their Matcher’s subsequent viewpoint or not. During the subsequent description of the array, the array’s intrinsic structure was aligned with the Director, the Matcher, or neither partner. According to memory tests preceding descriptions, Directors who had studied the array while aligned with its structure were more likely to use its orientation as an organizing direction. Directors who had studied the array while misaligned with its structure used its orientation more frequently as an organizing orientation when knowing that the Matcher would be aligned with it, but used their own viewpoint more frequently as an organizing direction when not knowing the Matcher’s viewpoint. Directors also adapted their descriptions strategically, using more egocentric expressions when aligned with the intrinsic structure and more partner-centered expressions when their Matchers were the ones aligned with the structure, even when this information wasn’t available in advance. These findings suggest that speakers are guided by converging social and representational cues to adapt flexibly the organization of their memories and the perspectives of their descriptions