Ontogeny of two communicative tools : Distance encoding and multimodality in deictic pointing

Chloe Gonseth (1) , Anne Vilain (1) , Coriandre Emmanuel Vilain (2)

1 GIPSA-PCMD - GIPSA - Perception, Contrôle, Multimodalité et Dynamiques de la parole
2 GIPSA-Services - GIPSA-Services

The aim of this paper is to experimentally study the development of speech/gesture relationship within language. The participants, both adults and children, had to designate a target placed at two different distances. They had to perform a deictic gesture accompanied by a deictic word, or to use either of the two modalities independently. Using one vs two pointing modalities allowed us to specify the interaction between the two systems as a useful cooperation, in terms of communicative efficiency. Furthermore, articulatory cues in the vocal modality and kinematic cues in the gestural modality encode the target's distance, and that in a different way in adults as compared with children. The huge variability found in children indicates that they are learning to control the communicative tools they have.

Domaines: Neurosciences

Chloe Gonseth, Anne Vilain, Coriandre Emmanuel Vilain. Ontogeny of two communicative tools : Distance encoding and multimodality in deictic pointing. Evolang 2012 - 9th International Conference on the Evolution of Language, Mar 2012, Kyoto, Japan. pp.150-157. ⟨hal-00704598⟩