Current Work and Open Problems: A Road-Map for Research into the Emergence of Communication and Language Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, Caroline Lyon, and Angelo Cangelosi 1.1. Introduction This book brings together work on the emergence of communication and language from researchers working in a broad array of scientific paradigms in North America, Europe, Japan and Africa. We hope that its multi-disciplinary approach will encourage cross-fertilization and promote further advances in this active research field. The volume draws on diverse disciplines, including linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, ethology, anthropology, robotics, and computer science. Computational simulations of the emergence of phenomena associated with communication and language play a key role in illuminating some of the most significant issues, and the renewed scientific interest in language emergence has benefited greatly from research in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. The book starts with this road map chapter by the editors, pointing to the ways in which disparate disciplines can inform and stimulate each other. It examines the role of simulations as a novel way to express theories in science, and their contribution to the development of a new approach to the study of the emergence of communication and language. We will also discuss and collect the most promising directions and grand challenge problems for future research. The present volume, is organized into three parts: I. Empirical Investi- tions on Human Language, II. Synthesis and Simulation of Communication and Language in Artificial Systems, and III. Insights from Animal Communication.

The ability to communicate through language is such a fundamental part of human existence that we often take it for granted, rarely considering how sophisticated the process is by which we understand and make ourselves understood. In The Extended Mind, acclaimed author Robert K. Logan examines the origin, emergence, and co-evolution of language, the human mind, and culture. Building on his previous study, The Sixth Language (2000) and making use of emergence theory, Logan seeks to explain how language emerged to deal with the complexity of hominid existence brought about by tool-making, control of fire, social intelligence, coordinated hunting and gathering, and mimetic communication. The resulting emergence of language, he argues, signifies a fundemental change in the functioning of the human mind a shift from percept-based thought to concept-based thought. From the perspective of the Extended Mind model, Logan provides an alternative to and critique of Noam Chomskys approach to the origin of language. He argues that language can be treated as an organism that evolved to be easily acquired, obviating the need for the hard-wiring of Chomskys Language Acquisition Device. In addition Logan shows how, according to this model, culture itself can be treated as an organism that has evolved to be easily attained, revealing the universality of human culture as well as providing an insight as to how altruism might have originated. Bringing timely insights to a fascinating field of inquiry, The Extended Mind will be sure to find a wide readership.

Current Work and Open Problems: A Road-Map for Research into the Emergence of Communication and Language Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, Caroline Lyon, and Angelo Cangelosi 1.1. Introduction This book brings together work on the emergence of communication and language from researchers working in a broad array of scientific paradigms in North America, Europe, Japan and Africa. We hope that its multi-disciplinary approach will encourage cross-fertilization and promote further advances in this active research field. The volume draws on diverse disciplines, including linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, ethology, anthropology, robotics, and computer science. Computational simulations of the emergence of phenomena associated with communication and language play a key role in illuminating some of the most significant issues, and the renewed scientific interest in language emergence has benefited greatly from research in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. The book starts with this road map chapter by the editors, pointing to the ways in which disparate disciplines can inform and stimulate each other. It examines the role of simulations as a novel way to express theories in science, and their contribution to the development of a new approach to the study of the emergence of communication and language. We will also discuss and collect the most promising directions and grand challenge problems for future research. The present volume, is organized into three parts: I. Empirical Investi- tions on Human Language, II. Synthesis and Simulation of Communication and Language in Artificial Systems, and III. Insights from Animal Communication.

A History of Communications advances a theory of media that explains the origins and impact of different forms of communication - speech, writing, print, electronic devices and the Internet - on human history in the long term. New media are 'pulled' into widespread use by broad historical trends and these media, once in widespread use, 'push' social institutions and beliefs in predictable directions. This view allows us to see for the first time what is truly new about the Internet, what is not, and where it is taking us.

"An Introduction to the History of Communication: Evolutions and Revolutions provides a comprehensive overview of how human communication has changed and is changing. Focusing on the evolutions and revolutions of six key changes in the history of communication---becoming human; creating writing; developing print; capturing the image; harnessing electricity; and exploring cybernetics---the author reveals how communication was generated, stored, and shared. This ecological approach provides a comprehensive understanding of the key variables that underlie each of these great evolutions-revolutions in human communication. Designed as an introduction for history of communication classes, the text examines the past, attempting to identify the key dynamics of change in these human, technical, semiotic, social, political, economic, and cultural structures, in order to better understand the present and prepare for possible future developments."--BOOK JACKET.

Through constant exposure to adult input in interaction, children’s language gradually develops into rich linguistic constructions containing multiple cross-modal elements subtly used together for communicative functions. Sensorimotor schemas provide the "grounding" of language in experience and lead to children’s access to the symbolic function. With the emergence of vocal or signed productions, gestures do not disappear but remain functional and diversify in form and function as children become skilled adult multimodal conversationalists. This volume examines the role of gesture over the human lifespan in its complex interaction with speech and sign. Gesture is explored in the different stages before, during, and after language has fully developed and a special focus is placed on the role of gesture in language learning and cognitive development. Specific chapters are devoted to the use of gesture in atypical populations. CONTENTS Contributors Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-Meadow 1 Introduction to Gesture in Language Part I: An Emblematic Gesture: Pointing Kensy Cooperrider and Kate Mesh 2 Pointing in Gesture and Sign Aliyah Morgenstern 3 Early Pointing Gestures Part II: Gesture Before Speech Meredith L. Rowe, Ran Wei, and Virginia C. Salo 4 Early Gesture Predicts Later Language Development Olga Capirci, Maria Cristina Caselli, and Virginia Volterra 5 Interaction Among Modalities and Within Development Part III: Gesture With Speech During Language Learning Eve V. Clark and Barbara F. Kelly 6 Constructing a System of Communication With Gestures and Words Pauline Beaupoil-Hourdel 7 Embodying Language Complexity: Co-Speech Gestures Between Age 3 and 4 Casey Hall, Elizabeth Wakefield, and Susan Goldin-Meadow 8 Gesture Can Facilitate Children’s Learning and Generalization of Verbs Part IV: Gesture After Speech Is Mastered Jean-Marc Colletta 9 On the Codevelopment of Gesture and Monologic Discourse in Children Susan Wagner Cook 10 Understanding How Gestures Are Produced and Perceived Tilbe Göksun, Demet Özer, and Seda AkbIyık 11 Gesture in the Aging Brain Part V: Gesture With More Than One Language Elena Nicoladis and Lisa Smithson 12 Gesture in Bilingual Language Acquisition Marianne Gullberg 13 Bimodal Convergence: How Languages Interact in Multicompetent Language Users’ Speech and Gestures Gale Stam and Marion Tellier 14 Gesture Helps Second and Foreign Language Learning and Teaching Aliyah Morgenstern and Susan Goldin-Meadow Afterword: Gesture as Part of Language or Partner to Language Across the Lifespan Index About the Editors

The Emergence of Symbols: Cognition and Communication in Infancy provides information pertinent to the nature and origin of symbols, the interdependence of language and thought, and the parallels between phylogeny and ontogeny. This book clarifies some of the conceptual and methodological issues involved in the search for prerequisites to language. Organized into seven chapters, this book begins with an overview of the distinction between homology and analogy in the study of linguistic and nonlinguistic developments. This text then explains the conceptual and operational definitions for such controversial terms as intention, convention, and symbolic behavior. Other chapters consider the limits and advantages of the correlational method as applied in the research. This book discusses as well the structure and content of early symbol use, both in language and in play. The final chapter examines the processes that underlie imitation and tool use, as they contribute to the child's analysis of his culture. This book is a valuable resource for neural biologists, psychologists, and social scientists.

This authoritative handbook explores the latest integrated theory for understanding human language, offering the most inclusive text yet published on the rapidly evolving emergentist paradigm. Brings together an international team of contributors, including the most prominent advocates of linguistic emergentism Focuses on the ways in which the learning, processing, and structure of language emerge from a competing set of cognitive, communicative, and biological constraints Examines forces on widely divergent timescales, from instantaneous neurolinguistic processing to historical changes and language evolution Addresses key theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues, making this handbook the most rigorous examination of emergentist linguistic theory ever

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

This book is a comprehensive illustrated account of the technologies and inventions in mass communication that have accelerated the advancement of human culture and society. A History of Communication Technology covers a timeline in the history of mass communication that begins with human prehistory and extends all the way to the current digital age. Using rich, full-color graphics and diagrams, the book details the workings of various mass communication inventions, from paper-making, printing presses, photography, radio, TV, film, and video, to computers, digital devices, and the Internet. Readers are given insightful narratives on the social impact of these technologies, brief historical accounts of the inventors, and sidebars on the related technologies that enabled these inventions. This book is ideal for students in introductory mass communication, visual communication, and history of media courses, offering a highly approachable, graphic-oriented approach to the history of communication technologies.