[alife] Wokshop on evolution of signals, speech and signs

[Bart de Boer]

*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: evolangsignals at ai.vub.ac.be

/Important dates:/

Submission deadline: October 10, 2013

Notificatiuon of acceptance: November 11, 2013

Final version due: December 12, 2013