Alignment as the Sensorimotor Basis of the Evolution of Conversation

Abstract. Recent considerations on the nature of language recognize conversationas the central unit of analysis. Some approaches give a definition of conversationas parallel with that of cooperative action, with conversational success taking place when individuals converge to achieve a common goal. The present challenge of psycholinguistic is identifying the cognitive mechanisms underlying the process of convergence in conversation. Among these, interactional alignment, i.e. accommodation at many levels in dialogue, has received growing attention. In this paper, I will propose that, when it comes to the evolutionary issue, alignment might be considered a good candidate to account for some early strategiesused by individuals keen to communicate in the absence of a full-fledged code. Thefocus on mechanisms of low-level alignment paves the way for a sensorimotor and protoconversational account of language evolution

Recensione di I. Adornetti, Il farsi e il disfarsi del discorso. Pragmatica del linguaggio e processi cognitivi

Book-revie

How Did Language Evolve? Biological, Psychological, and Linguistic Perspectives

The topic of language origin and evolution has been consideredfor a long time as a difficult question to address scientifically because of poverty of empirical data and limitations in methodology (Müller, 1861). These considerations have led to the well-known edicts by the Société de Linguistique de Paris in 1866 and the Philological Society of Londonin 1872 that forbade all members from presenting speeches on the topic

Comprehending stories in pantomime. A pilot study with typically developing children and its implications for the narrative origin of language

This paper presents a pilot study aimed at investigating the comprehension of pantomimic stories and its possible cognitive underpinnings in typically developing children. A group of twenty-two Italian-speaking children aged between 8.02 and 10.11 years were included in the study. Participants watched short videos in which professional actors performed pantomime narratives; then answered a comprehension question and retold the stories. Analyses revealed positive correlations between the comprehension of pantomimes and age, theory of mind, and working memory. The implications of these results for a narrative model of language origin are discussed against the background of an eco-evo-devo perspective

Pantolang: A synthetic cognitive-semiotic approach to language origins

We present an ongoing international project, From Pantomime to Language (PANTOLANG), aiming to develop a comprehensive, empirically grounded theory of the evolution of human language and the human mind, relying on the new paradigm of cognitive semiotics, which combines methods and concepts from the humanities and the sciences (Zlatev, 2015; Zlatev, et al. 2016)

Defining the Characteristics of Story Production of Autistic Children: A Multilevel Analysis

Several studies suggest that a valuable tool to examine linguistic skills in communication disorders is offered by procedures of narrative discourse assessment. Following this line of research, we present an exploratory study aimed to investigate storytelling abilities of autistic children to better define the characteristics of their story production. Participants included 41 autistic children and 41 children with typical development aged between 7.02 and 11.03 years matched on age, gender, level of formal education, intelligence quotient, working memory, attention skills, theory of mind, and phonological short-term memory. Narrative production was assessed by analysing the language samples obtained through the “Nest Story” description task. A multilevel analysis including micro- and macro-linguistic variables was adopted for narrative assessment. Group differences emerged on both micro- and macro-linguistic dimensions: autistic children produced narratives with more phonological errors and semantic paraphasias (microlinguistic variables) as well as more errors of global coherence and a fewer number of visible events and inferred events (macrolinguistic variables) than the control group.This study shows that even autistic children with adequate cognitive skills display several limitations in their narrative competence and that such weaknesses affect both micro- and macrolinguistic aspects of story production

Time and Narrative: An Investigation of Storytelling Abilities in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study analyzed the relation between mental time travel (MTT) and the ability to produce a storytelling focusing on global coherence, which is one of the most notable characteristics of narrative discourse. As global coherence is strictly tied to the temporal sequence of the events narrated in a story, we hypothesized that the construction of coherent narratives would rely on the ability to mentally navigate in time. To test such a hypothesis, we investigated the relation between one component of MTT—namely, episodic future thinking (EFT)—and narrative production skills by comparing the narratives uttered by 66 children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with those produced by 66 children with typical development. EFT was assessed by administering a task with minimal narrative demands, whereas storytelling production skills were assessed by administering two narrative production tasks that required children to generate future or past episodes with respect to the target stimuli. The results showed that EFT skills were impaired only in a subgroup of children with ASD and that such subgroup performed significantly worse on the narrative production task than ASD participants with high EFT skills and participants with typical development. The practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed

La mente rituale. Dalla nascita del rito all’origine delle istituzioni umane

In this paper we make reference to the debate about the nature, the evolution and the mechanisms underlying social rituals from a naturalistic point of view. Considering current observations coming from the phylogenetic perspective, we explore two prevailing and opposite accounts of the ritual dimension which characterizes social groups: on the one hand, a non-adaptationist approach argues that ritual is essentially “derivative”, that is, represents a dysfunctional by-product of cognitive adaptations arisen for other purposes; by contrast, the adaptationist model claims that ritualistic actions have a specific value for social cooperation and, hence, are part of an evolutive line tied to socially adaptative behaviors. Consistent with the latter account, we examine the specific hypothesis that the development of complex human rituals has been fostered by the emotional components tied to ritualization involved in collective animal practices. To this extent, we argue that emotionallycharged rituals have played a crucial role in the origin and the evolution of social constraints underlying the articulated human institutions

Recensione a I. Adornetti, Il farsi e il disfarsi del discorso. Pragmatica del linguaggio e processi cognitivi

Book-revie