Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures

Aleksandra  Ćwiek; Susanne  Fuchs; Christoph  Draxler; Eva Liina Asu; Dan Dediu; Katri Hiovain; Shigeto Kawahara; Sofia  Koutalidis; Manfred Krifka; Pärtel Lippus; Gary Lupyan; Grace E. Oh; Jing Paul; Caterina Petrone; Rachid Ridouane; Sabine Reiter; Nathalie Schümchen; Ádám Szalontai; Özlem Ünal‑Logacev; Jochen Zeller; Bodo Winter; Marcus Perlman

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4

Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures

Aleksandra Ćwiek, Susanne Fuchs, Christoph Draxler, Eva Liina Asu, Dan Dediu, Katri Hiovain, Shigeto Kawahara, Sofia Koutalidis, Manfred Krifka, Pärtel Lippus, Gary Lupyan, Grace E. Oh, Jing Paul, Caterina Petrone, Rachid Ridouane, Sabine Reiter, Nathalie Schümchen, Ádám Szalontai, Özlem Ünal‑Logacev, Jochen ZellerBodo Winter, Marcus Perlman

Linguistics and Communication

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

197 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Linguistic communication requires speakers to mutually agree on the meanings of words, but how does such a system first get off the ground? One solution is to rely on iconic gestures: visual signs whose form directly resembles or otherwise cues their meaning without any previously established correspondence. However, it is debated whether vocalizations could have played a similar role. We report the first extensive cross-cultural study investigating whether people from diverse linguistic backgrounds can understand novel vocalizations for a range of meanings. In two comprehension experiments, we tested whether vocalizations produced by English speakers could be understood by listeners from 28 languages from 12 language families. Listeners from each language were more accurate than chance at guessing the intended referent of the vocalizations for each of the meanings tested. Our findings challenge the often-cited idea that vocalizations have limited potential for iconic representation, demonstrating that in the absence of words people can use vocalizations to communicate a variety of meanings.

Original language	English
Article number	10108
Number of pages	12
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	11
Issue number	1
Early online date	12 May 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4
Publication status	Published - Dec 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was funded by a grant for the PSIMS project (DFG XPrag.de, FU 791/6-1) for AC and SF; DD was funded by IDEXLYON Fellowship grant 16-IDEX-0005. We would like to thank Mohammad Ali Nazari, Samer Al Moubayed, Anna Ayrapetyan, Carla Bombi Ferrer, Nataliya Bryhadyr, Chiara Celata, Ioana Chitoran, Taehong Cho, Soledad Dominguez, Cornelia Ebert, Mattias Heldner, Mariam Heller, Louis Jesus, Enkeleida Kapia, Soung-U Kim, James Kirby, Jorge Lucero, Konstantina Margiotoudi, Mariam Matiashvili, Feresteh Modaressi, Scott Moisik, Oliver Niebuhr, Catherine Pelachaud, Zacharia Pourtskhvanidze, Pilar Prieto, Vikram Ramanarayanan, Oksana Rasskazova, Daniel Recasens, Amélie Rochet-Capellan, Mariam Rukhadze, Johanna Schelhaas, Vera Schlovin, Frank Seifart, Stavros Skopeteas, people of the SOS children’s village Armenia, Katarzyna Stoltmann, and Martti Vainio for being involved in the translation or distribution of the survey.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General

Access to Document

10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

ĆwiekA2021NovelFinal published version, 2.04 MBLicence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

Cite this

Ćwiek, A., Fuchs, S., Draxler, C., Asu, E. L., Dediu, D., Hiovain, K., Kawahara, S., Koutalidis, S., Krifka, M., Lippus, P., Lupyan, G., Oh, G. E., Paul, J., Petrone, C., Ridouane, R., Reiter, S., Schümchen, N., Szalontai, Á., Ünal‑Logacev, Ö., ... Perlman, M. (2021). Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures. Scientific Reports, 11(1), Article 10108. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4

@article{a4c0c7eb8a3a41e295f7f179e8f3b2cc,

title = "Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures",

abstract = "Linguistic communication requires speakers to mutually agree on the meanings of words, but how does such a system first get off the ground? One solution is to rely on iconic gestures: visual signs whose form directly resembles or otherwise cues their meaning without any previously established correspondence. However, it is debated whether vocalizations could have played a similar role. We report the first extensive cross-cultural study investigating whether people from diverse linguistic backgrounds can understand novel vocalizations for a range of meanings. In two comprehension experiments, we tested whether vocalizations produced by English speakers could be understood by listeners from 28 languages from 12 language families. Listeners from each language were more accurate than chance at guessing the intended referent of the vocalizations for each of the meanings tested. Our findings challenge the often-cited idea that vocalizations have limited potential for iconic representation, demonstrating that in the absence of words people can use vocalizations to communicate a variety of meanings.",

author = "Aleksandra {\'C}wiek and Susanne Fuchs and Christoph Draxler and Asu, {Eva Liina} and Dan Dediu and Katri Hiovain and Shigeto Kawahara and Sofia Koutalidis and Manfred Krifka and P{\"a}rtel Lippus and Gary Lupyan and Oh, {Grace E.} and Jing Paul and Caterina Petrone and Rachid Ridouane and Sabine Reiter and Nathalie Sch{\"u}mchen and {\'A}d{\'a}m Szalontai and {\"O}zlem {\"U}nal‑Logacev and Jochen Zeller and Bodo Winter and Marcus Perlman",

note = "Funding Information: This work was funded by a grant for the PSIMS project (DFG XPrag.de, FU 791/6-1) for AC and SF; DD was funded by IDEXLYON Fellowship grant 16-IDEX-0005. We would like to thank Mohammad Ali Nazari, Samer Al Moubayed, Anna Ayrapetyan, Carla Bombi Ferrer, Nataliya Bryhadyr, Chiara Celata, Ioana Chitoran, Taehong Cho, Soledad Dominguez, Cornelia Ebert, Mattias Heldner, Mariam Heller, Louis Jesus, Enkeleida Kapia, Soung-U Kim, James Kirby, Jorge Lucero, Konstantina Margiotoudi, Mariam Matiashvili, Feresteh Modaressi, Scott Moisik, Oliver Niebuhr, Catherine Pelachaud, Zacharia Pourtskhvanidze, Pilar Prieto, Vikram Ramanarayanan, Oksana Rasskazova, Daniel Recasens, Am{\'e}lie Rochet-Capellan, Mariam Rukhadze, Johanna Schelhaas, Vera Schlovin, Frank Seifart, Stavros Skopeteas, people of the SOS children{\textquoteright}s village Armenia, Katarzyna Stoltmann, and Martti Vainio for being involved in the translation or distribution of the survey. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, The Author(s).",

year = "2021",

month = dec,

doi = "10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4",

language = "English",

volume = "11",

journal = "Scientific Reports",

issn = "2045-2322",

publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",

number = "1",

}

Ćwiek, A, Fuchs, S, Draxler, C, Asu, EL, Dediu, D, Hiovain, K, Kawahara, S, Koutalidis, S, Krifka, M, Lippus, P, Lupyan, G, Oh, GE, Paul, J, Petrone, C, Ridouane, R, Reiter, S, Schümchen, N, Szalontai, Á, Ünal‑Logacev, Ö, Zeller, J, Winter, B & Perlman, M 2021, 'Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures', Scientific Reports, vol. 11, no. 1, 10108. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4

TY - JOUR

T1 - Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures

AU - Ćwiek, Aleksandra

AU - Fuchs, Susanne

AU - Draxler, Christoph

AU - Asu, Eva Liina

AU - Dediu, Dan

AU - Hiovain, Katri

AU - Kawahara, Shigeto

AU - Koutalidis, Sofia

AU - Krifka, Manfred

AU - Lippus, Pärtel

AU - Lupyan, Gary

AU - Oh, Grace E.

AU - Paul, Jing

AU - Petrone, Caterina

AU - Ridouane, Rachid

AU - Reiter, Sabine

AU - Schümchen, Nathalie

AU - Szalontai, Ádám

AU - Ünal‑Logacev, Özlem

AU - Zeller, Jochen

AU - Winter, Bodo

AU - Perlman, Marcus

N1 - Funding Information: This work was funded by a grant for the PSIMS project (DFG XPrag.de, FU 791/6-1) for AC and SF; DD was funded by IDEXLYON Fellowship grant 16-IDEX-0005. We would like to thank Mohammad Ali Nazari, Samer Al Moubayed, Anna Ayrapetyan, Carla Bombi Ferrer, Nataliya Bryhadyr, Chiara Celata, Ioana Chitoran, Taehong Cho, Soledad Dominguez, Cornelia Ebert, Mattias Heldner, Mariam Heller, Louis Jesus, Enkeleida Kapia, Soung-U Kim, James Kirby, Jorge Lucero, Konstantina Margiotoudi, Mariam Matiashvili, Feresteh Modaressi, Scott Moisik, Oliver Niebuhr, Catherine Pelachaud, Zacharia Pourtskhvanidze, Pilar Prieto, Vikram Ramanarayanan, Oksana Rasskazova, Daniel Recasens, Amélie Rochet-Capellan, Mariam Rukhadze, Johanna Schelhaas, Vera Schlovin, Frank Seifart, Stavros Skopeteas, people of the SOS children’s village Armenia, Katarzyna Stoltmann, and Martti Vainio for being involved in the translation or distribution of the survey. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).

PY - 2021/12

Y1 - 2021/12

N2 - Linguistic communication requires speakers to mutually agree on the meanings of words, but how does such a system first get off the ground? One solution is to rely on iconic gestures: visual signs whose form directly resembles or otherwise cues their meaning without any previously established correspondence. However, it is debated whether vocalizations could have played a similar role. We report the first extensive cross-cultural study investigating whether people from diverse linguistic backgrounds can understand novel vocalizations for a range of meanings. In two comprehension experiments, we tested whether vocalizations produced by English speakers could be understood by listeners from 28 languages from 12 language families. Listeners from each language were more accurate than chance at guessing the intended referent of the vocalizations for each of the meanings tested. Our findings challenge the often-cited idea that vocalizations have limited potential for iconic representation, demonstrating that in the absence of words people can use vocalizations to communicate a variety of meanings.

AB - Linguistic communication requires speakers to mutually agree on the meanings of words, but how does such a system first get off the ground? One solution is to rely on iconic gestures: visual signs whose form directly resembles or otherwise cues their meaning without any previously established correspondence. However, it is debated whether vocalizations could have played a similar role. We report the first extensive cross-cultural study investigating whether people from diverse linguistic backgrounds can understand novel vocalizations for a range of meanings. In two comprehension experiments, we tested whether vocalizations produced by English speakers could be understood by listeners from 28 languages from 12 language families. Listeners from each language were more accurate than chance at guessing the intended referent of the vocalizations for each of the meanings tested. Our findings challenge the often-cited idea that vocalizations have limited potential for iconic representation, demonstrating that in the absence of words people can use vocalizations to communicate a variety of meanings.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105819888&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4

DO - 10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4

M3 - Article

C2 - 33980933

SN - 2045-2322

VL - 11

JO - Scientific Reports

JF - Scientific Reports

IS - 1

M1 - 10108

ER -

Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this