Pointing

Entering the World of Communication

Open Janea’s website with Internet Explorer

www.stfx.ca/people/jlayes

Declarative Pointing

Sharing attention to simply share experience with others Contrasts with Imperative Pointing, which is

done to obtain objects from others

Expression of shared intentionality, a critical foundation for communication

Unique to humans? So far, apes do not seem to understand

meaning behind human points. Cannot follow gesture to food.

Gestures as First Language

Bates et al., 1979

First noted the referential function of declarative pointing

Reported early onset to pointing

happens prior to first words

Gestures as First Language

Carpenter et al., 1998

Found that pointing develops in concert with other foundations for language, between 9-12 months

Such as Joint Attention

Gestures as First Language

Liszkowski, 2005

Reported that pointing is driven by motive to share interest AND affect

Child is not satisfied if adult doesn’t look to where they point, but also if they don’t express relevant attitude to the event

Pointing: A Truly Communicative Function

Liebal et al., 2007

Babies use shared experience to discern the meaning of the adult pointing gesture

Demonstrates keeping track of who you shared what with in interactions

Meaning of point disambiguated by the common ground you have with the other

Pointing Universal Across Culture ---Callaghan et al., 2010

Objects set up for pointing experiment in Peru You will see the same set up in the Canadian video you score

Lab Exercise Part I: Data Collection

Watch the video and try to tally the number of index-finger points made by both the parent and the child

For the baby, you can count open-hand gestures that are not grasping, or “give me” gestures, as points

You can keep a tally on loose-leaf, and then later on your Exercise Sheet just type in the final number of Points you noted.

Lab Exercise Part II: Data Analysis

Open the Excel file on Janea’s website Test the correlation between frequency of parent points and

frequency of child points. Instructions are on Exercise Sheet.

Remember: Positive Correlation: As one goes up, the other goes up Negative Correlation: As one goes up, the other goes down The closer to either +1 or -1, the stronger the relationship The closer to 0, the weaker the relationship 0 = no predictive relationship found

( See Next Slide for more help with interpreting Correlations)

Correlations