Communication underpins the social behaviour of humans, and of our primate relatives, including learning and teaching. While language is unique to our own species, the other primates have complex repertoires of acoustical calls, which they use to convey diverse messages. In the other hand, the study of linguistic laws is usually restricted to written text where we previously have segmented the acoustical signal. Scripture is a technology that implies a transcription of the acoustical waves. However, this segmentation is a current topic of research not well defined in the case of oral corpora.

Actually, how can we compare human language with other communication systems if we do not compare the same kind of signals? How can we approach to the theoretical study of communication systems without falling into anthropocentrism?

In the first seminar, “Investigating communication in our primate relatives: from information content to linguistic laws”, Stuart Semple will describe a range of studies on primate communication that he and his collaborators have conducted. Stuart Semple will talk about work investigating the information content and function of primates’ vocalizations, the role that bystanders can play in shaping the outcome of communicative interactions, and the correlates of primate vocal repertoire size. He will also describe his most recent work, testing whether patterns consistent with linguistic laws - specifically Zipf’s law of abbreviation and Menzerath’s law - are found in the vocal (and gestural) communication of monkeys and apes.

In the second seminar, “Exploring linguistic laws in human voice”, Iván González Torre will talk about a new mathematical method proposed to transform generic acoustic signals into a sequence of symbols describing speech energy fluctuations. With this transformation we can explore linguistic laws such as Zipf’s law, Heap’s law and Brevity law without requiring a transcription of the signals, as usual in computational linguistics, and offering a new approach to the problem of segmentation in the study of communication systems.

PDI interessat en l’estudi de la comunicació i en la lingüística i les seves connexions amb altres sistemes de comunicació animal.

Es realitzaran dues ponències i es farà un petit debat-col·loqui al final de cada una d’elles, on es fomentarà la participació dels assistents.

BÀSICA (lectura prèvia recomanada)

Altmann, E. G., & Gerlach, M. (2016). Statistical laws in linguistics. In Creativity and Universality in Language (pp. 7-26). Springer International Publishing. https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.03296

Gustison, M., Semple, S., Ferrer-i-Cancho, R. & Bergmann, T. (2016). Gelada vocal sequences follow Menzerath’s linguistic law. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 113, E2750-E2758. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1522072113

Torre, I. G., Luque, B., Lacasa, L., Luque, J. & Hernandez-Fernandez, A. (2016). Emergence of linguistic laws in human voice. arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.02736. https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.02736

COMPLEMENTÀRIA

Font-Clos, F., Boleda, G. & Corral, A. (2013). A scaling law beyond Zipf’s law and its relation to heaps’ law. New Journal of Physics, 15(9):093033 https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/15/9/093033

Luque, J., Luque, B. & Lacasa, L. (2015). Scaling and universality in the human voice. Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 12(105):20141344 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2014.1344

Peters, O., Deluca, A., Corral, A., Neelin, J. D., & Holloway, C. E. (2010). Universality of rain event size distributions. Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, 11:P11030 https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-5468/2013/06/p06019

Ferrer-i-Cancho, R., Hernández-Fernández, A., Lusseau, D., Agoramoorthy, G., Hsu, M.J. & Semple, S. (2013) Compression as a universal principle of animal behavior. Cognitive Science 37,1565–1578. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12061

Semple, S., Hsu, M.J. & Agoramoorthy, G. (2010) Efficiency of coding in macaque vocal communication. Biology Letters 6, 469-471. https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2009.1062

Semple, S., Gerald, M. & Suggs, D. (2009). Bystanders affect the outcome of mother-infant interactions in rhesus macaques. Proceedings Royal Society London B 276, 2257-2262. https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2009.0103

McComb, K. & Semple, S. (2005) Coevolution of sociality and vocal communication in primates. Biology Letters 1, 381-385. https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2005.0366

Semple, S., McComb, K., Alberts, S.C. & Altmann, J. (2002). Information content of female copulation calls in yellow baboons. American Journal of Primatology 56, 43-56. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajp.1062

Semple, S. (1998). The function of copulation calls in the Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus). Proceedings Royal Society London B 265, 287-291. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajp.1062

L'ICE expedirà un certificat d'assistència a les persones participants, sempre i quan s'hagin inscrit prèviament pel mitjà establert (electrònicament a través del web) i hagin estat acceptades. El personal docent i investigador de la UPC que participi a l’activitat, uns dies després de la finalització, disposarà de manera automàtica de la informació a DRAC.