Dear bioacousticians,
Please find the call for contributions for this workshop below. We would
very much welcome contributions from people working on animal signals to
this workshop. All contributions will be peer-reviewed on quality and
relevance to the workshop.
Best regards,
Bart de Boer.
==== call follows: =====
*Workshop on evolution of signals, speech and signs*
Conveners: Bart de Boer & Tessa Verhoef
To be held before the *Evolang 2014 *conference in Vienna
http://ai.vub.ac.be/news/workshop-evolution-signals-speech-and-signs
We are looking for contributions that address the evolution of modern
humans’ abilities to produce, perceive and learn the extended range of
(combinatorial) signals that form the physical basis of human
language.Signals in our definition form the physically observable
manifestation of language, and they can exist either in the
articulatory-acoustic modality (speech) or in the gestural-visual
modality (signs) and perhaps in other modalities.
The event is intended to be complementary to the main conference in the
sense that we look for contributions that explicitly focus on future
research. We therefore seek contributions that not only present research
results, but that for example also explore possibilities of interaction
between fields, that pose new research questions or that make an
inventory of areas in which research may be lacking. We welcome
contributions that are based on work presented at the main conference,
but workshop presentations should be extended by explicitly addressing
the issues mentioned above. We do want to stress that workshop
presentations have to be based on concrete work, using solid empirical
or modeling methods, and that purely speculative work will not be accepted.
We welcome contributions on topics such as:
The evolution of physical and physiological adaptations for dealing with
linguistic signals, and especially of fossil evidence for this.
The transition from innate, holistic and continuously varying systems of
signals (such as found in other primates) to acquired, combinatorial and
discrete/categorical systems of signals
The evolution of cognitive adaptations for dealing with acquisition,
production and perception of linguistic signals
The interaction between cultural and biological evolution in the
emergence of linguistic signals
A few examples of specific research questions are: what evidence is
there for evolution of the vocal tract, what primate signals are
comparable to those of humans (gestures, vocalizations, lipsmacks)? What
learning biases do modern humans have for dealing with speech? How does
the emergence of new (signed) languages shed light on the cognitive
adaptations that humans have for dealing with complex communicative
signals? Contributions that combine research questions, that show how
these issues can interact or that take an interdisciplinary approach are
extra welcome.
Contributions should be fully referenced four-page extended abstract in
the Evolang-format (see http://evolangx.univie.ac.at/submission/ ). They
should be sent as pdf files to:
/Important dates:/
Submission deadline: October 10, 2013
Notificatiuon of acceptance: November 11, 2013
Final version due: December 12, 2013
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