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Bootstrapping

The term "bootstrap" originated in the 19th century as a metaphor for self-improvement or achieving something independently, without external assistance. This concept extends to statistical bootstrapping, a self-contained method for estimating population parameters through resampling, even though it can be computationally intensive. Developed by the American statistician Dr. Bradley Efron in 1979, bootstrapping provides a robust way to perform inference when the original sample size is small or...
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How to bootstrap a human communication system.

Nicolas Fay1, Michael Arbib, Simon Garrod

  • 1School of Psychology, University of Western Australia.

Cognitive Science
|June 15, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Gesture is a more effective and efficient method for bootstrapping communication systems than vocalization. This study shows gesture

Keywords:
Bootstrapping communicationGestureIconsLanguage evolutionLanguage originSignsSymbolsVocalization

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Linguistics
  • Evolutionary Psychology

Background:

  • Human communication systems are complex and rely on language.
  • The origins of language and early communication remain debated.
  • Motivated signs, linked by resemblance or association, may aid early communication.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how human communication systems can emerge without conventional language.
  • To compare the effectiveness of non-linguistic vocalization and gesture in bootstrapping communication.
  • To determine the role of motivated signs in establishing novel communication.

Main Methods:

  • An experimental study involving participants communicating items without using existing language.
  • Three communication conditions: non-linguistic vocalization, gesture, and combined vocalization/gesture.
  • Communication success and efficiency (time) were measured.

Main Results:

  • Gesture was more effective and efficient than non-linguistic vocalization for communication.
  • Performance varied across item categories (emotion, object, action).
  • Combining gesture and vocalization did not enhance communication over gesture alone.

Conclusions:

  • Gesture is a superior modality for bootstrapping a communication system in the absence of language.
  • Gesture's effectiveness is attributed to its suitability for producing motivated signs.
  • This provides experimental evidence supporting the role of gesture in early human communication.