How to Create Shared Symbols

Fay, Nicolas; Walker, Bradley; Swoboda, Nik; Garrod, Simon

doi:10.1111/cogs.12600

Cited by 22 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…In addition to shared history, here, OIRs signaled a potential communication problem, which was resolved by incrementally aligning their shape descriptions over trials. This observation, that OIRs signaled miscommunication and triggered a realignment process, is consistent with the results of an experiment showing that interactive alignment may be the primary means through which interlocutors negotiate mutual understanding (Fay, Walker, Swoboda, & Garrod, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Are People Sensitive to Problems in Communication?

2020

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Recent research indicates that interpersonal communication is noisy, and that people exhibit considerable insensitivity to problems in communication. Using a dyadic referential communication task, the goal of which is accurate information transfer, this study examined the extent to which interlocutors are sensitive to problems in communication and use other‐initiated repairs (OIRs) to address them. Participants were randomly assigned to dyads (N = 88 participants, or 44 dyads) and tried to communicate a series of recurring abstract geometric shapes to a partner across a text–chat interface. Participants alternated between directing (describing shapes) and matching (interpreting shape descriptions) roles across 72 trials of the task. Replicating prior research, over repeated social interactions communication success improved and the shape descriptions became increasingly efficient. In addition, confidence in having successfully communicated the different shapes increased over trials. Importantly, matchers were less confident on trials in which communication was unsuccessful, communication success was lower on trials that contained an OIR compared to those that did not contain an OIR, and OIR trials were associated with lower Director Confidence. This pattern of results demonstrates that (a) interlocutors exhibit (a degree of) sensitivity to problems in communication, (b) they appropriately use OIRs to address problems in communication, and (c) OIRs signal problems in communication.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Are People Sensitive to Problems in Communication?

2020

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“…Whereas overall behavior alignment was comparable across the within‐culture dyads, it was lower for the across‐culture dyads. Given that communication success and behavior alignment are correlated (Fay, Lister, Ellison, & Goldin‐Meadow, ; Fay et al., ; Fusaroli et al., ; Reitter & Moore, ), and that communication success was lower among the across‐culture dyads compared to the within‐culture dyads, this was to be expected.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…During conversation, interlocutors align their communication behavior (Brennan & Clark, ; Pickering & Garrod, ). Doing so not only signals communication success, but also improves communication success (Fay et al., ). Consistent with a general alignment principle, over repeated social interactions dyads from each group increasingly used the same signs to communicate the same experimental items.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Universal Principles of Human Communication: Preliminary Evidence From a Cross‐cultural Communication Game

et al. 2018

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The present study points to several potentially universal principles of human communication. Pairs of participants, sampled from culturally and linguistically distinct societies (Western and Japanese, N = 108: 16 Western-Western, 15 Japanese-Japanese and 23 Western-Japanese dyads), played a dyadic communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of experimenter-specified items to a partner by drawing, but without speaking or using letters or numbers. This paradigm forced participants to create a novel communication system. A range of similar communication behaviors were observed among the within-culture groups (Western-Western and Japanese-Japanese) and the across-culture group (Western-Japanese): They (a) used iconic signs to bootstrap successful communication, (b) addressed breakdowns in communication using other-initiated repairs, (c) simplified their communication behavior over repeated social interactions, and (d) aligned their communication behavior over repeated social interactions. While the across-culture Western-Japanese dyads found the task more challenging, and cultural differences in communication behavior were observed, the same basic findings applied across all groups. Our findings, which rely on two distinct cultural and linguistic groups, offer preliminary evidence for several universal principles of human communication.

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“…Interestingly, overall sign complexity was highest among the Japanese-Japanese dyads and lowest among the Western-Western dyads (with the Western-Japanese dyads in between). Experimentalsemiotic communication games show that interruption is crucial to sign simplification and symbolization (Fay et al, 2018;Garrod et al, 2007). By selecting an item prior to the director completing their drawing, the matcher cuts short the trial, and this reduces sign complexity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The task was administered using a virtual whiteboard tool that recorded all drawing activity (Healey, Swoboda, & King, 2002). This tool has been used in a range of similar studies (Fay et al, , 2018Garrod et al, 2010;Healey, Swoboda, Umata, & King, 2007;Theisen et al, 2010). All communication was done across networked computers.…”

Section: Task and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Universal Principles of Human Communication: Preliminary Evidence from a Cross-Cultural Communication Game

Fay¹,

Walker²,

Swoboda³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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The present study points to several potentially universal principles of human communication. Pairs of participants, sampled from culturally and linguistically distinct societies (Western and Japanese, N=108: 16 Western-Western, 15 Japanese-Japanese and 23 Western-Japanese dyads) played a dyadic communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of experimenter-specified items to a partner by drawing, but without speaking or using letters or numbers. This paradigm forced participants to create a novel communication system. A range of similar communication behaviors were observed among the within-culture groups (Western-Western and Japanese-Japanese) and the across-culture group (Western-Japanese): they (1) used iconic signs to bootstrap successful communication, (2) addressed breakdowns in communication using other-initiated repairs, (3) simplified their communication behaviour over repeated social interactions and (4) aligned their communication behaviour over repeated social interactions. While the acrossculture Western-Japanese dyads found the task more challenging, and cultural differences in communication behaviour were observed, the same basic findings applied across all groups. Our findings, which rely on two distinct cultural and linguistic groups, offer preliminary evidence for several universal principles of human communication.Universal Principles of Human Communication 3

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How to Create Shared Symbols

Cited by 22 publications

References 76 publications

Are People Sensitive to Problems in Communication?

Are People Sensitive to Problems in Communication?

Universal Principles of Human Communication: Preliminary Evidence From a Cross‐cultural Communication Game

Universal Principles of Human Communication: Preliminary Evidence from a Cross-Cultural Communication Game

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