Summary: A study reveals that demonstratives like “this” and “that” not only show distance, but also direct attention, linking language to social cognition. The researchers found that the meaning of demonstratives varies across languages and is influenced by the listener’s focus.
This study involved speakers of ten languages and used computational modeling to understand these dynamics. The findings suggest that manipulation of attention is an intrinsic part of language built into demonstrations.
Key facts:
- Demonstratives direct the listener’s attention and vary from language to language.
- The study used ten languages to examine how demonstrations link language to social cognition.
- The findings suggest that the manipulation of attention is a universal component of language.
source: Max Planck Institute
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 example, 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 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,” said MPI’s Paula Rubio-Fernandez, senior researcher and study co-author .
“Engagement of joint attention is a uniquely human ability that links language to social cognition in communication. Because demonstratives are universal, appear early in language evolution, and are acquired early in childhood development, they offer an ideal test of the interdependence between these two basic human capacities.
There is debate as to whether directing the listener’s attention—the “mentalistic” representation—is part of the meaning (semantics) of demonstratives, or whether it arises from general principles of social cognition (pragmatics).
The researchers used computational modeling and experiments with speakers of ten different languages from eight different language groups to investigate this question.
In an online task, participants saw pictures of a “talker” requesting an object from a “listener” who was standing on the other side of a long table. Participants were asked to assume the role of the speaker and choose a demonstrative from their native language to request the object (“Now I need…”).
In the pictures, the listener was either already looking at the desired object or was looking at one of four other objects (closer or farther from the target). If directing attention is part of meaning of demonstrations, all speakers must be sensitive to the listener’s initial attention when selecting a demonstration. However, there must also be differences between languages.
The results showed that participants were sensitive not only to the location of the target, but also to the listener’s attention. As expected, the meaning of demonstratives varies within and across languages. For example, the “near” demonstrative (like the English “that”) sometimes had a spatial meaning (“the one who is near me”).
But it also had a joint attention meaning (“the one we’re both looking at”) or a “mentalistic” meaning (“this one here”), directing the listener’s attention to the speaker. Interestingly, speakers of languages with a three-word system use the medial word (like Spanish “ese”) to indicate joint attention.
“Our work sheds light on the interface between social cognition and language. We show that the representation of interlocutor attention is embedded in one of the most basic classes of words that appear in all languages: demonstratives,” Rubio-Fernández concludes.
“Our work also shows through Bayesian computational modeling that this form of attentional manipulation cannot be explained by pragmatic reasoning external to the language system, suggesting that mentalistic representations are embedded in a universal component of language.”
About this language and social neuroscience research news
Author: Julia von der Fuhr
source: Max Planck Institute
Contact: Julia von der Fuhr – Max Planck Institute
Image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: The findings will be presented in PNAS
