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| This is evidenced by the results published in the journal PLoS One, which demonstrate for the first time with massive data that more than 50% of the times we use a temporary expression it is associated with a gesture | These are the conclusions reached by researchers from the University of Murcia (UMU), in collaboration with the universities of Navarra and Tübingen (Germany).
The data show for the first time that there is a systematic relationship between the use of time expressions and associated gestures.Researchers from the University of Murcia (UMU), in collaboration with the universities of Navarra and Tübingen (Germany), demonstrate for the first time that there is a systematic relationship between the use of temporal expressions and their associated gestures.These results will allow extrapolating the mechanisms of human communication to the development and improvement of computer systems that, like Alexa or Siri virtual assistants, can establish a conversation with humans and understand gestures or certain expressions."It is one of the great challenges of artificial intelligence right now: teaching a program to understand what a person says and does, to pay attention to their intentions and give them a natural response," explains UMU researcher Cristóbal Pagán, who stresses that understanding the bases of human communication is the first step to develop efficient interfaces that facilitate the human-machine relationship.The results, recently published in the high-impact magazine PLoS ONE, show that more than half of the times we repeat expressions to refer to time, such as 'before', 'in the near future' or 'later' are accompanied by certain gestures in a systematic way.
Specifically, in 69% of the occasions these phrases appear accompanied by a gesture, and in more than 50% of the cases this gesture is closely related to the message: for example, marking an imaginary timeline with the hands when saying 'from beginning to end'.For the first time, an article with massive data on very specific expressions is published.
Videos with speakers saying these phrases were extracted from thousands of hours of television, coming from current programs (debates, news or interviews) of the main North American networks.
This broad sample of diverse communicative contexts allows us to know what people think when they communicate, that is, if they unconsciously feel the need to provide more information.These movements, in addition, vary according to the type of expression that is used and how predictable it is in the conversation.
Thus, the less frequently in the language the phrase is being said, the more likely it is that, unconsciously, the gesture will be performed in order for the message to arrive correctly.“Gesture and language have a more systematic relationship than we thought.
It is to be hoped that other modalities, such as intonation or gaze, will also have an interdependent relationship ”, highlights the UMU expert.Language efficiencyThis study allows an approach to understand the bases of human communication in a multimodal sense.
In a normal conversation between several people, speech comes into play with its nuances of intonation, rhythm or regional accent.
But also, face to face, looks, gestures and even clothing intervene.From the relationship of all these elements with language, in this case with temporal expressions, cognitive patterns can be extracted and how a communicative system that tends towards efficiency is learned, which is essential to understand the human mind.Although all the data has been taken from television programs in the United States, the essence of the results can be extrapolated to other countries.
The rate of gestures is expected to vary in the temporal expressions of other languages, but they will continue to be high and will increase for less frequent phrases, that is, they will be guided by communicative efficiency.International consortiumParticipating researchers from the three universities are part of the global Red Hen Lab, which brings together experts from around the world in language, computing and artificial intelligence.
Together they face the challenges of studying human communication.The Red Hen Lab builds large digital resources to do research with Big Data.
"Until now, to obtain results on the relationship between speech and gesture, you had to enter the laboratory and promote people to gesticulate when saying specific expressions." Now a natural observation is proposed, that is, studying communication through all channels in real contexts.To do this, the University of California at Los Angeles has created a digital library with hundreds of thousands of hours of television programs in 17 languages ??from around the world.
A huge audiovisual archive that will allow studying the language - gesture relationship, as well as that of other forms of communication.
The main recording node in Spain (the equipment that processes most news programs in Spanish) is located at the UMU.
Source: Universidad de Murcia
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