Introducing the brain built-in language attention structures (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, July 29, 2024, 21:41 (115 days ago) @ David Turell

New computerized research:

https://phys.org/news/2024-07-words-attention-tools-languages.html

Words like 'this' and 'that' or 'here' and 'there' occur in all languages. In a study published in PNAS, researchers from Yale University and the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics (MPI) in Nijmegen show that such 'demonstrative' words are used to direct listeners' focus of attention and to establish joint attention.

Results from experiments with speakers of 10 different languages and computational modeling reveal that demonstratives are universal tools that link language and social cognition.

All languages have words like 'this' and 'that' to distinguish between referents that are 'near' and 'far.' Languages like English or Hebrew have two of these 'demonstratives.'

Languages like Spanish or Japanese use a three-word system. For instance, in Spanish, 'este' signals something close to the speaker, 'ese' signals something far from the speaker but close to the listener, and 'aquel' signals something far from both.

"The reason why we were interested in demonstratives is because of their connection to social cognition: demonstratives are used to direct the listener's attention to a referent and establish joint attention," says MPI's Paula Rubio-Fernández, senior investigator and co-author of the study.

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Results showed that participants were not only sensitive to the location of the target but also to the listener's attention. As expected, the meaning of demonstratives varied within and across languages. For example, the 'near' demonstrative (such as English 'this one') sometimes had a spatial meaning ('the one close to me').

But it also had a joint attention meaning ('the one we are both looking at') or a 'mentalistic' meaning ('the one over here'), directing the listener's attention towards the speaker. Interestingly, speakers of languages with a three-word system used the medial word (such as Spanish 'ese') to indicate joint attention.

"Our work sheds light on the interface between social cognition and language. We show that representations of interlocutor attention are embedded into one of the most basic word classes that appear across all languages: demonstratives," concludes Rubio-Fernández.

"Our work also shows through Bayesian computational modeling that this form of attention manipulation cannot be explained via pragmatic reasoning external to the linguistic system, suggesting that mentalistic representations are embedded in a universal component of language."

Comment: this shows our brain comes prepared to handle spoken language. All aspects of language are there waiting to be utilized. Gaining one's attention is an obvious aspect of a necessary mechanism. Again, suggesting design.