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Author Spotlight: Deciphering the Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms of Gesture in Communication

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Validating Silent Gesture Lab Studies in a Naturally Emerging Sign Language: How Order is Used to Describe

Molly Flaherty¹, Marieke Schouwstra²

¹Department of Psychology, Davidson College.

Topics in Cognitive Science

|August 27, 2024

Summary

Laboratory studies on language emergence reveal biases in how new languages form. These findings were observed in Nicaraguan Sign Language, suggesting universal patterns in language creation.

Keywords:

Language emergence Nicaraguan Sign Language Sign language Silent gesture

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Area of Science:

Linguistics
Cognitive Science
Psychology

Background:

Language structure evolves through human interaction and transmission over generations.
Laboratory studies simulate language emergence by having participants create and transmit novel communication systems.
The applicability of lab-based findings to natural language creation is often questioned due to participants' existing linguistic knowledge.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether biases observed in laboratory-based language emergence studies are also present in the development of a natural language.
To test the relevance of controlled experimental findings to real-world language birth.
To examine patterns in Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) that mirror lab-generated language structures.

Main Methods:

Utilized a lab-based language emergence paradigm.
Analyzed the structure of newly developing Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL).
Compared word order patterns in NSL with those found in laboratory-created languages.

Main Results:

Signers of Nicaraguan Sign Language exhibit biases in word order conditioning.
Word order in NSL appears to be influenced by the semantic dimensions of intensionality and extensionality.
These linguistic biases are adjusted to meet internal language constraints, mirroring lab findings.

Conclusions:

Biases observed in laboratory language emergence studies are also evident in the natural development of Nicaraguan Sign Language.
This provides evidence that cognitive biases play a role in shaping new languages.
The study supports the ecological validity of lab-based research on language origins.