Consensus Paper: Situated and Embodied Language Acquisition

Theories of embodied cognition postulate that perceptual, sensorimotor, and affective properties of concepts support language learning and processing. In this paper, we argue that language acquisition, as well as processing, is situated in addition to being embodied. In particular, first, it is the situated nature of initial language development that affords for the developing system to become embodied. Second, the situated nature of language use changes across development and adulthood. We provide evidence from empirical studies for embodied effects of perception, action, and valence as they apply to both embodied cognition and situated cognition across developmental stages. Although the evidence is limited, we urge researchers to consider differentiating embodied cognition within situated context, in order to better understand how these separate mechanisms interact for learning to occur. This delineation also provides further clarity to the study of classroom-based applications and the role of embodied and situated cognition in the study of developmental disorders. We argue that theories of language acquisition need to address for the complex situated context of real-world learning by completing a “circular notion”: observing experimental paradigms in real-world settings and taking these observations to later refine lab-based experiments

Object use in communication of semi-wild chimpanzees

Catherine Hobaiter’s research work is funded under the European Union’s 8th Framework Programme under grant agreement 802719. The research of Marina Davila-Ross is funded by Leakey Foundation Research Grant and Royal Society Research Grant (RG140282).Object interactions play an important role in human communication but the extent to which nonhuman primates incorporate objects in their social interactions remains unknown. To better understand the evolution of object use, this study explored how objects are used in social interactions in semi-wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). We used an observational approach focusing on naturally occurring object actions where we examined their use and tested whether the production of object actions was influenced by the recipients' visual attention as well as by colony membership. The results show that chimpanzees adjusted both the type of object used, and the modality of object actions to match the visual attention of the recipient, as well as colony differences in the use of targeted object actions. These results provide empirical evidence highlighting that chimpanzees use objects in diverse ways to communicate with conspecifics and that their use may be shaped by social factors, contributing to our understanding of the evolution of human nonverbal communication, language, and tool use.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Affective Medicine: a review of Affective Computing efforts in Medical Informatics

Background: Affective computing (AC) is concerned with emotional interactions performed with and through computers. It is defined as “computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions”. AC enables investigation and understanding of the relation between human emotions and health as well as application of assistive and useful technologies in the medical domain. Objectives: 1) To review the general state of the art in AC and its applications in medicine, and 2) to establish synergies between the research communities of AC and medical informatics. Methods: Aspects related to the human affective state as a determinant of the human health are discussed, coupled with an illustration of significant AC research and related literature output. Moreover, affective communication channels are described and their range of application fields is explored through illustrative examples. Results: The presented conferences, European research projects and research publications illustrate the recent increase of interest in the AC area by the medical community. Tele-home healthcare, AmI, ubiquitous monitoring, e-learning and virtual communities with emotionally expressive characters for elderly or impaired people are few areas where the potential of AC has been realized and applications have emerged. Conclusions: A number of gaps can potentially be overcome through the synergy of AC and medical informatics. The application of AC technologies parallels the advancement of the existing state of the art and the introduction of new methods. The amount of work and projects reviewed in this paper witness an ambitious and optimistic synergetic future of the affective medicine field

Auditory communication in domestic dogs: vocal signalling in the extended social environment of a companion animal

Domestic dogs produce a range of vocalisations, including barks, growls, and whimpers, which are shared with other canid species. The source–filter model of vocal production can be used as a theoretical and applied framework to explain how and why the acoustic properties of some vocalisations are constrained by physical characteristics of the caller, whereas others are more dynamic, influenced by transient states such as arousal or motivation. This chapter thus reviews how and why particular call types are produced to transmit specific types of information, and how such information may be perceived by receivers. As domestication is thought to have caused a divergence in the vocal behaviour of dogs as compared to the ancestral wolf, evidence of both dog–human and human–dog communication is considered. Overall, it is clear that domestic dogs have the potential to acoustically broadcast a range of information, which is available to conspecific and human receivers. Moreover, dogs are highly attentive to human speech and are able to extract speaker identity, emotional state, and even some types of semantic information

Seeing touches early in life

Addabbo M, Longhi E, Bolognini N, et al. Seeing touches early in life. PLoS ONE. 2015;10(9): e0134549

Chapter From the Lab to the Real World: Affect Recognition Using Multiple Cues and Modalities

Interdisciplinary concept of dissipative soliton is unfolded in connection with ultrafast fibre lasers. The different mode-locking techniques as well as experimental realizations of dissipative soliton fibre lasers are surveyed briefly with an emphasis on their energy scalability. Basic topics of the dissipative soliton theory are elucidated in connection with concepts of energy scalability and stability. It is shown that the parametric space of dissipative soliton has reduced dimension and comparatively simple structure that simplifies the analysis and optimization of ultrafast fibre lasers. The main destabilization scenarios are described and the limits of energy scalability are connected with impact of optical turbulence and stimulated Raman scattering. The fast and slow dynamics of vector dissipative solitons are exposed

Similarities and differences in the functional architecture of mother-infant communication in rhesus macaque and British mother-infant dyads

Similarly to humans, rhesus macaques engage in mother-infant face-to-face interactions. However, no previous studies have described the naturally occurring structure and development of mother-infant interactions in this population and used a comparative-developmental perspective to directly compare them to the ones reported in humans. Here, we investigate the development of infant communication, and maternal responsiveness in the two groups. We video-recorded mother-infant interactions in both groups in naturalistic settings and analysed them with the same micro-analytic coding scheme. Results show that infant social expressiveness and maternal responsiveness are similarly structured in humans and macaques. Both human and macaque mothers use specific mirroring responses to specific infant social behaviours (modified mirroring to communicative signals, enriched mirroring to affiliative gestures). However, important differences were identified in the development of infant social expressiveness, and in forms of maternal responsiveness, with vocal responses and marking behaviours being predominantly human. Results indicate a common functional architecture of mother-infant communication in humans and monkeys, and contribute to theories concerning the evolution of specific traits of human behaviour