WEBVTT - Pointing, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.680 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.479 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.680 we're back with part two of our talk about the 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:24.520 pointing gesture in humans, maybe in animals, mostly in humans. Robert, 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.480 I have a question, Yes, since we recorded part one, 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.880 have you noticed yourself noticing the way you point at 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.560 things and the way your family points at things? Well, 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.000 you know, maybe a little bit. Actually, you know, we 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:40.800 for one thing, I guess around the house, there's not 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:42.760 a lot. I mean, what am I going to point out? Right? 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.600 I mean, it's it's all a very established environment. We've 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.080 got a few walks here and there and done, you know, 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.239 some stuff outside. But I don't know, I haven't done 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:55.680 much specific pointing. Um maybe a little bit at like 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.360 birds and squirrels and all. But um, yeah, I I 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.320 found that. I want to say that this these episodes 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:06.120 really changed the way I engage in pointing, but it 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.520 I don't think it has. It's really made me. The 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.360 area where it has influenced me more is mode noticing 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:17.399 how much we depend on the idea of pointing in 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.440 our language, and in just our our understanding of the world, 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:23.880 and in our technology, which I'll get to at the 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.160 end of this episode. But you wanted to talk some 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.760 more about animals, right, you didn't get enough animal pointing 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.560 in the last episode. Oh yeah, yeah, we we closed 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:33.600 out the last episode. And if you did not listen 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.600 to the last episode, do go back and listen to it, 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:38.840 because this is definitely a part one and part two 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.880 situation here and not just you know, to treatments on 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.680 a similar topic. So yeah, at the end, we were 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.280 talking a little bit about dogs and about um elephants 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.880 and dolphins. I wanted to point out that cats and 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.800 horses have also been attributed some degree of understanding of 0:01:55.880 --> 0:02:00.520 human pointing, at least in some studies. Um Uh, horses, 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.040 I can, I guess I can understand that one a bit. 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:06.600 With cats, I'm I'm very much on the fence with that. 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:10.560 I'm a little doubtful, but allegedly at least some cats 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.880 are able to pick up on that. Um. Now, on 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.919 the divide between a domestic dog's ability to understand pointing 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:23.560 versus a wild wolf's inability to understand pointing, I ran across, uh, 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.720 some some writings about this from primatologists Friends of All, 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.680 who has been a past guest on the show. Yeah. 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:32.880 We we interviewed him one time a long time ago. 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.920 I think actually Christian and I interviewed him about his 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.600 book called Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.280 Animals Are? In this very book, are we smart enough 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.840 to Know How smart animals are? Um? Uh? Friends of 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:49.040 All says the following about this domestic dog and wolf 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.560 divide quote. Wolves may be poor at following human pointing, 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:55.880 but when it comes to picking up hints from their 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.960 own kind, they beat dogs. The investigators ascribed this con 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.640 trust to attention rather than cognition. They point out that 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.320 wolves watch one another more closely, as they rely on 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:12.480 the pack for survival, whereas dogs rely on us. That 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.320 I think is an excellent point. I mean, so some 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:17.880 people I think have tried to say, like, oh, if 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.720 an animal doesn't understand human pointing gestures, that's like a 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.160 cognitive limitation of the animals because the animals not smart 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.720 enough to get what's going on, which I think is ridiculous, 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.520 Like it doesn't take the ethological point of view into 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:36.280 consideration that animals are adapted to certain kinds of social interactions. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.600 It's not like that that an animal is not smart 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:43.440 if it's not particularly adapted to human gestures. Yeah, yeah, 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.440 so yeah. His main point here is that, you know, 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.920 we have to be very careful about human centric criteria 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.840 in our understanding and evaluation of animal intelligence. The dog 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.480 only seems brighter to some because it is so closely 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:59.080 aligned with our own cognition again via you know, these 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:03.800 thousands of years ers of cohabitation and domestication. Yeah, and 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.080 I think even this came up in the last episode. 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.760 There might even be some evidence to indicate that it's 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.960 not even all they're just in like the dog's inbred instinct. 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.760 A lot of it might be literally just exposure to 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.480 humans within the dog's own lifetime. And and it's interesting 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.719 too if if we think again to what pointing essentially 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:26.039 is for the human animal, like really boil it down 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.200 a means of directing the attention of others to something, 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:31.920 then it's not It's not like there are not other 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:37.040 examples in the wild gaze, body language and vocalization instantly 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.520 come to mind. Multiple species on say the African savannah 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.960 or within a rainforest community, they communicate and or pick 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:48.719 up on queues that direct attention towards, say, a common adversary, 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.040 some sort of a predator creeping into the area. An 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:56.919 animal alarm signal is simply an anti predator adaptation. And likewise, 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.839 especially with some birds, there are also deceptive alarm call 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.400 is that manipulate these systems. So you know, we have 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.240 to consider that. We also have to consider alarm pheromones 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.040 chemical signals that achieve the same ends. And that's something 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:12.640 we we don't only see that in animals. We see 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.320 examples of this in plants. Now that's very interesting, and 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:19.120 I wonder, I don't know, I don't know the answer 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.360 to this. I wonder if you do, if there's any 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:26.120 evidence of pheromonal signaling signaling having directionality to it. So 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.320 not just saying like, hey, there is something to be 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.000 concerned about, but hey, there's something right here to be 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.440 concerned about. Here's where it is. This would be this 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:38.000 would be a fun one to get into. I mean, 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.760 we've been talking about doing a plant communication and even 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.400 planned intelligence episode for a while. I think that's something 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.080 we should get to this year for sure, totally. Now, 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.400 other other examples from the animal world reveal just how 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.520 unnecessary the question is with certain species, uh, consider ants 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.240 for example, which as you social insects, they're capable of 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.960 working together to perform complex tasks and and solve rather 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.599 interesting problems. We've we've talked about this in the show before, 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.560 but despite the trappings of our language, when we consider 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.919 a queen in an in an ant colony, there is 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.400 no single ant commanding the others, there's no ant pointing, 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.479 and yet there is this communication based on pheromones, sounds, 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.280 and touch. That's a very good point, I think, uh, 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.000 I think we can naively fall into the assumption, yeah, 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.760 that the queen is in charge of the ant colony, 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.040 but in fact, there is something in charge of the 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:34.160 ant colony. But it's not a single individual animal. It's 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.640 a distributed kind of intelligence and directionality. It's almost like 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.679 the way that a government might be directed by a constitution, 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.560 but the constitution is in the ants genes. Yeah, So 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.200 like when we compare the human condition to the ant condition, 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:49.840 you know, there's just a lot of stuff that is 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.240 there's not going to be a really a good one 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.040 to one comparison. Though, of course we we end up 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.000 falling back on that, right because a lot of that 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:01.080 is how we innately understand the world without the inside 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:03.640 of science, Like how do we understand the ant? We 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:05.799 try and put ourselves in the mind of the ant, 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.920 within the culture of the ant, and we're going to 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.760 use our own model to judge that by our kind 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.640 of hierarchies, like who's your boss? But the queen is 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.920 not the ant's boss, really, the queen is more like 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.240 the ants. Uh sex organs. Yeah, it's like, uh, you know, 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:25.360 considering the sex organs to be the leader of the 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.080 human organism. So anyway, those are just some additional thoughts 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.960 on the the animal realm of pointing and not pointing. 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:35.720 But most of what we're gonna be talking about in 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.440 this part two is going to relate back to the 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.560 the human condition of pointing at things and what does 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.120 it mean and how it factors into our larger cognitive picture. 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.600 Right now, one of the things we talked about in 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:53.400 the last episode is the idea of pointing as a 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:58.440 as a pretty much universal human communication property is found 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:02.200 in all cultures that arise is very naturally, very young 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.440 in children all over the place, basically, with the only 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.800 major known variations being like certain neurological conditions. But so 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.400 here's an interesting question is, so, if pointing seems to 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.120 arise naturally in children, uh, you know, there are obviously 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:22.000 cultural variations around conventions for pointing and adults. It looks 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.160 like children pretty much everywhere start pointing roughly around the 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.520 same stage and development. Yeah. I think some people say 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.440 what around by by age one? And I think it's 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.120 also been said about nine to fourteen months, so basically 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.560 that window, that's right, Yeah, exactly. So it seems like 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:42.440 this absolutely crucial piece of early communication. And some theorists 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:47.200 have argued that pointing is the first exclusively informative gesture 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:51.680 that most children display. It's like the child's first type 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:57.160 of pure information communication. But the interesting question is how 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.959 does that happen? How does pointing again in the child? 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.240 Where does it come from? And how do we learn 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.320 to do it? So I want to refer to a 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:09.320 study that I was reading by Catholo Madigan, Gregor Cotchell, 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.080 and Brent Strickland, published in the journal Science Advances in 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.480 twenty nineteen called the Origin of Pointing Evidence for the 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.920 touch hypothesis. Uh So, so it's asking this question, where 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:25.400 does pointing come from in development? What developmental process leads 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:29.120 to the pointing gesture. So the authors here claim that 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:34.000 because pointing is so foundational in social communication, quote, determining 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.400 the origin of pointing is therefore essential to our understanding 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:42.040 of human language and uniqueness. And yet up to now 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.520 we have known next to nothing about where it comes from. 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:47.680 Now this doesn't mean nobody has ever thought about the 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.120 issue before this study. There have been a number of 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:54.880 hypotheses that researchers have put out there, uh about you know, 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:59.040 good guesses about where pointing might come from and what 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.280 kinds of process is an infancy lead to it? And 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.560 one of the main ones has been the idea of 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:09.479 the reaching hypothesis. So this hypothesis goes like this, Um, 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.600 what if pointing grows naturally out of a child's reaching 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:16.200 for objects they want. So, imagine a child reaching out 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.920 for something. You know, Uh, the child wants a cookie. 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.120 She wants to reach her hand out and grasp it, 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.839 but it is beyond an arm's length, and then so 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.640 she's reaching out for it, she can't reach it. But then, 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.280 of course the god's interfere a parent steps in and 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:35.840 gives her the things she wants, hands the cookie to her. Now, children, 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.840 it's hypothesized that over time you know, kind of like 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.120 a rat in a skinner box, a child will ritualize 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:46.480 themselves to reach a handout toward a desired object through 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:50.160 operant conditioning. So you know, the way operant conditioning would 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:51.920 work in a skinner box or any kind of lab 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.520 experiment is that like a mouse doesn't need to know 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:58.480 why pressing a button gets it a food pellet, it 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:02.280 just does. And likewise, a child doesn't need to understand 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:06.600 at first why reaching toward an object far away often 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.160 ends up with that object in their hands. It just 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:13.360 works through operant conditioning, and the conditioning takes hold and 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.760 encourages the behavior. But the authors here note that there 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.600 there are several reasons this hypothesis is probably not correct 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.400 for pointing uh or at least this version of the 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.840 hypothesis uh it at least fails to account for the 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.760 major type of pointing in question. So remember the difference 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.240 we talked about in the last episode. I think parents 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.800 will probably be familiar with this, the difference between imperative 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:42.120 pointing and declarative pointing. Remember, imperative is the kind of 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.439 pointing of I want that is usually done with an 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.680 open hand, and it's to get an object that would 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.520 be kind of like what we're just talking about with 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.720 reaching for something you want versus a very different kind 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:58.199 of thing. Declarative pointing also known as informative pointing, which 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.640 is look at that. It's the the explicit attempt to 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.080 direct someone's attention to an object, rather than, you know, 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.680 a request to get the object into your hand. And 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.240 there's plenty of evidence that these two types of pointing 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:17.200 are acquired at different stages of development. Not surprisingly, imperative 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.880 pointing comes first, and the authors here say that the 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:25.080 reaching hypothesis might account for imperative pointing, but not for 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:29.000 what they call a declarative or what they call informative pointing. Quote. 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.840 Since children use imperative points to have things handed to 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:37.120 them rather than simply to direct attention, imperative points are 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.320 produced with an open hand rather than a single index finger, 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:46.040 and they feature significantly less vocalizations and joint attention than 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:50.319 prototypical pointing gestures. Uh and I thought that was interesting too, 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:54.319 like that. Uh that Apparently having like the look at 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.720 that type pointing, the informative pointing is tends to be 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:01.160 accompanied more by vocal as a aations about what you're 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.240 pointing at. Which I would have expected kind of the opposite. 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.880 I would have expected more noises to be made during 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.040 the like give me that reaching I guess, I guess 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.400 they give me that reaching is. I mean, it's just 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.440 more direct, right, it's like that me want you know, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.280 like bring that to me, that to me, um, put 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.320 that in my mouth kind of a thing. Whereas if 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.079 you're gesturing to a bird, it's like, what about that bird? 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.559 What am I looking for? What is my you know, 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:28.440 how are we relating to this? You're saying we should 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:30.360 try and catch it? We should just stare at it? 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:32.560 Is it? Is it? Something good about it? Something bad 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.560 about it? Something it's doing something, you know, intrinsic to 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.040 just what it is. You know, there are a lot 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.360 of additional questions that arise. Yeah, that's right. The pointing 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:45.000 gesture is is far more ambiguous and and could go 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:50.360 in a lot more directions. The imperative pointing is much simpler. Yeah, 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.920 I think you're right. Imperative gesture towards say a cupcake, 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.600 there it is. There's no question what is desired there, no, no, no, 0:13:57.679 --> 0:13:59.679 I want to talk about the color of the frosting, 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:04.400 you know. Yeah, how often does that happen. So yeah, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.320 in the case of the study, we're more curious about 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:10.839 where the later kind of pointing comes from. The informative 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.920 or declarative. Look at that pointing usually with the index 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:18.199 finger instead of the whole hand outstretched. Um So, the 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.960 next hypothesis that they talk about is the imitation hypothesis. 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.280 This one is pretty common sensical. The idea is that 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.760 pointing originates in children imitating the pointing that their parents do. 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:33.680 So you see parents pointing and then children start doing 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:36.120 the same thing. That makes sense. I mean, we assume 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.800 that children learn language by listening to parents and other 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.440 adults talk, and they pick it up that way, So 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.840 why not learn this type of communication by imitating their parents. 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.520 It's very common sensical. But the evidence we have indicates 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:52.920 that this is pretty much totally wrong for declarative pointing. 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:58.120 Um So, if children pointed by imitation of their parents, 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.520 for one thing, you would expect to see more cross 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:07.000 cultural variation in how children pick up pointing. An anthropologists 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.520 do not see this cross cultural variation and how how 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:13.560 children pick up pointing. There are like sort of pointing 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:18.560 cultures and different conventions of pointing among adults in different cultures, 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:20.920 but there doesn't seem to be a lot of variation 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.160 about how pointing starts to happen in young children. That 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.520 makes sense. Yeah, I mean, I guess part of it 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:28.680 comes it's one of these things with childhood development, like 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.720 has it you'd have to carry out like a pointing 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:36.040 free child rearing process as an experiment, And how would 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:37.920 you even begin to do that, How would you have 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.440 the commitment to do that? Yeah, totally. Now you can 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:42.040 look at it the other way, And actually, I will 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.000 look at a study like this in a second. Not 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.320 so not someone trying to create a pointing free environment 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.760 for a child, but trying to train a child with 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:52.360 lots of exposure to pointing to see what that does. Well, 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:54.960 we'll look at that in just a second. But first, 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.440 just to to quote the authors of the study we're 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.680 talking about, uh, you know, first of all, they say, 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.920 the more morphology of early childhood pointing seems pretty much universal. 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.840 It's like the extended index finger point with they say, 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:10.520 with infants in all cultures pointing pretty much the same 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.600 way and around the same time and development. So this 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.520 really makes it seem like it's not based on uh, 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.320 imitating little variations in how adults in your culture point. 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.400 But beyond that, they say, you know, if kids pick 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:27.640 up informative pointing by mimicking their parents in naturalistic contexts, 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.920 you might expect that deliberate attempts to expose young children 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:36.560 to lots of pointing gestures would accelerate their adoption of pointing. 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.640 Right that, like that, they would start to point more 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.600 and earlier if the adults around them do a whole 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:46.240 lot of pointing to train them. And does this happen? Well, 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:47.920 this is what I was just talking about. A study 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:52.040 from twelve actually looked into this. It was by Daniel Matthews, 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:57.680 Tanya Baine, Elena Levin, and Michael Tomasello in Developmental Science 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.320 from and this that he had mothers performed daily training 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.600 with pointing fur their infants, and these would be infants 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.600 of nine, ten or eleven months of age. And then 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.159 this was compared with a control group of infants of 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.879 the same ages who got daily musical training for the 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.080 same amount of time. And the researchers here found that 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.199 quote infants ability to point with the index finger at 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.640 the end of the study was not affected by the training, 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:29.520 but was instead predicted by infants prior ability to follow 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.639 the gaze direction of an adult. And they say that 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:38.360 quote this suggests that prior social cognitive advances, rather than 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:43.200 adults socialization of pointing per se, determine the developmental onset 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.080 of indexical pointing. So there are some variations in in 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.520 the adoption of pointing, but it seems like one of 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.720 the main factors informing that is something about like how 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.960 well a child follows where an adult is looking naturally 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:00.640 and things like that, that not how much pointing they 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.800 see happening around them. Okay, so anyway, that makes it 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.880 look like the imitation of adult pointing is probably not 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.200 the best or main explanation for what's going on with 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.600 the uh with with children picking up pointing gestures on 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.840 their own. So what else could explain it? Well, the 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.439 authors here they present an alternative hypothesis. They say that 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:26.920 declarative or informative pointing originates in the desire to touch things. Well, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.640 it is true that children do love to touch things. 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.760 A lot of energy has to go into reminding them 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.320 not to touch things. You take them to an art museum, 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.119 you take them, uh or even to you know today, 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:41.359 with a lot of I'm sure a number of parents 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.359 are encountering. This is where having to do more and 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.919 more uh teles schooling, more and more screen time to 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.520 help them, you know, hang out with friends and and 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.639 actually get their education. Sometimes they're using their their parents 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:55.760 computers and we have to remind them, oh, you don't 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:58.719 actually have to touch the screen. It's not a touch screen. 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.679 And also and and you could actually hurt the screen 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:05.000 by tapping on it like this. Uh So, yeah, kids 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:08.159 are very tactile for sure, Yes, totally. I mean, and 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.119 the authors here talk about this. They talk about the 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.720 it's a it's especially common in young children to want 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.480 to not just sample something by one sense at a time, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:22.640 but to have multiple coordinated sensory experiences of an object. So, uh, 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.199 one of the main ones is to coordinate visual and 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:29.080 haptic information gathering. You want to look at and touch something, 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.440 and so like the idea of an art museum where 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:36.840 you can't touch the paintings is naturally counterintuitive to young children. Yeah, 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.600 I mean in a sense, you know, they're they're in 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:41.879 kind of a different sense realm, you know. There you 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.119 have to think of them as kind of like little 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.080 alien probes that have landed on another world and they 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.080 need to collect all of this data. So while you know, 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.439 you and I we can go to uh, you know, 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.760 an art museum or a museum full of like ancient artifacts, 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.439 and we're totally fine not touching everything. We we have 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:00.760 a general idea what it would feel if we did, 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:03.639 but you do not necessarily the case with the child 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.640 and uh. And it is wonderful to see so many 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:11.320 museums these days, uh incorporating some sort of touch exhibit 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:14.240 for the younger children so as to you know, understanding 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:16.800 that they must touch something. So here, here is something 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.080 you can touch to get a literally get a feel 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.000 for it. Well, I don't know, maybe I'm about to 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:24.679 reveal something about my own infantile mentality, but I, uh, 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.040 I actively have to resist to the desire to touch 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.680 when I go into museums and I'm looking at sculptures 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:33.399 and stuff. I don't know if other adults are like 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.760 this and they just don't talk about it. Uh, maybe 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.359 this reveals something about me. But like when I, you know, 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:41.680 I was recently last year, I was at the Louver 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:45.000 and I wanted to touch the sculptures. I had to 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.199 like keep reminding myself, like, you can't touch that huh. Now, 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.080 I wonder I wonder where it comes from though, and 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.399 you specifically, because on one hand, there is this what 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.720 we were talking about here, the childlike desire to touch uh, 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:02.560 just the human need for sensory information about something. But 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:04.560 on the other hand, I wonder if it is tied 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.080 at all to uh, something that Christian I did an 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.919 episode about years ago, the call of the void, you know, 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:14.960 the desire to do the thing that is prohibited, such 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:18.800 as touch the mona Lisa or or what have you. Yeah, 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.920 I don't know. I mean I also do experience that sometimes, 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.000 like just like a taboo is presented and you have 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:30.160 that instinct to violated automatically, which you have to resist. Yeah, 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:32.440 maybe a little bit of both, who knows. I will 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.720 say that I feel like my intuitive desire to touch 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:40.520 things tends to be correlated to um to how ancient 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:45.320 and mysterious they are. Yeah. Yeah, I I could definitely 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:47.840 can definitely get that. When you see like a you know, 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:50.480 a piece of art that is thousands of years old, 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:53.919 there is a there is this this feeling that you 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:55.480 know you do want to touch it. There is a 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:59.159 desire to engage with it physically by confessing all this, 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:01.120 I'm not trying to give you other adults out there 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.640 license to go in museums and touch things. Don't touch 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:07.000 the sculptures, folks. Human remains are another one. I think 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:11.159 when when there are actual human remains in a in 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:13.240 some sort of an exhibit, there is this sort of 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.679 you know, maybe slightly ghoulish, you know, feeling like you 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:18.920 want to touch this thing that was once a part 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.600 of a living being. You know, yeah, totally, I want 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.840 to touch the mummy. It's true. I mean, though, I 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:26.719 think that kind of thing makes a lot more sense 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:30.080 for children because when you're when you're a young child, 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.439 you're not just I mean, when when you're a young child, 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.440 coordinating visual and haptic feedback is actually informative. You are 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.000 learning things from that that I think an adult touching 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:44.359 a mummy is probably not really learning. When you're a child, 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:48.640 you're still trying to coordinate your your relationships of what 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:51.600 things look like versus what they feel like, and as 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.120 an adult you don't need to do that as much anymore. 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:59.080 So it's probably less excuse for me. So before anyway, 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:01.960 but back to the STU. Before the experiment, the authors 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:04.320 think that there was already a bit of good reason 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:07.359 for thinking that pointing begins with the touch instinct, and 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:10.800 they give some examples based on previous research. For example, 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:13.840 I thought this was pretty interesting. They say, quote, children 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:18.840 use a prototypical pointing hand shape to explore objects, tactually 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.320 from as early as six months, and as the frequency 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:26.199 of pointing gestures increases from around nine months of age, 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:31.280 the frequency of this kind of exploratory touch decreases, suggesting 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:36.840 that pointing is somehow taking over from touch. Oh you know, 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:39.280 I have to return to the museum for a second here, Joe, 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:43.080 because have you ever had this situation? Hopefully you and 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:45.120 and listeners out there, hopefully none of you have had 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:47.920 this direct experience yourself, But I've seen this happen to 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.840 other people where you'll have a section of the museum, 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:53.639 you have a lot of security there, and someone is 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:59.880 pointing at the artwork and they're reprimanded for it. Uh huh, yes, 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:03.159 like the point too close. Yeah, And I wonder if 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:05.639 part of that is, like again comes down to the 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:08.000 idea that you know, what a what is the line 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:11.480 between pointing at something and touching it or touching it accidentally? 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:14.200 But then also perhaps it gets down to a deeper 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:17.199 connection between pointing and touching. I think that could be 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:20.000 exactly right. I mean, so like it appears there's this 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:24.600 correlation as the as the exploratory touching of objects decreases, 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:28.720 the pointing instinct increases, almost as if you're trading one 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:32.360 for the other. That that's very interesting to me. There 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:35.200 there could be a lot of a lot of information 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:37.199 in that little nugget. I think we should keep that 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:40.000 in mind as we go forward. Um, should we take 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:43.159 a break before we get into the experiments that the 0:24:43.359 --> 0:24:46.760 researchers did here to test this hypothesis. Yeah, we'll take 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:52.760 a quick break, but we'll be right back. Alright, we're back. 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:55.240 Let's get into some experiments. All right. So we've been 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:58.200 talking about the study from twenty nineteen by O. Madigan 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:02.399 at All and they're trying to investigate the origins of 0:25:02.440 --> 0:25:06.280 pointing in young children, and and they're advocating a particular 0:25:06.359 --> 0:25:11.040 hypothesis known as the touch hypothesis, that pointing instincts emerge 0:25:11.280 --> 0:25:16.160 from a child's instinct to reach out and touch things. Uh. 0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:18.919 So they came up with a very interesting group of 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:21.240 experiments to test this. So this is one of those 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:23.560 where if you'd asked me, you know, how would you 0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:26.080 test for the touch hypothesis? I would think, I don't 0:25:26.119 --> 0:25:28.199 know how on earth would you study that? But the 0:25:28.240 --> 0:25:31.080 designs I thought were really cool. So the first one 0:25:31.119 --> 0:25:34.680 is what they called the reference fixing test. So the 0:25:34.720 --> 0:25:37.840 setup goes like this. You have test subjects, and this 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:41.400 included both children and adults. They had children at eighteen months, 0:25:41.880 --> 0:25:45.600 at three years, at six years, and adults and they 0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:49.399 had these different groups point at things. For the older subjects, 0:25:49.440 --> 0:25:53.080 there was a game involving marbles hidden under cups, and 0:25:53.119 --> 0:25:56.040 then the cups were on these shelves and the player 0:25:56.119 --> 0:25:59.439 had to point to cups displayed on the shelf. For 0:25:59.520 --> 0:26:02.000 the eighteen month olds that they played a fun a 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:05.560 little puppet game. So there was a screen and an 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:08.560 experiment er uh sitting in front of the screen, and 0:26:08.640 --> 0:26:11.320 a puppet would appear from behind the screen and get 0:26:11.359 --> 0:26:13.560 introduced to the child. They'd be like, oh, hey, this 0:26:13.640 --> 0:26:16.120 is you know, Pete the puppet, and then the puppet 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:19.600 would disappear and reappear from behind a different part of 0:26:19.640 --> 0:26:22.760 the screen and say hello, And then the experimenter would 0:26:22.760 --> 0:26:25.080 pretend not to see the puppet and ask the child 0:26:25.119 --> 0:26:27.320 to help point out where the puppet went, and then 0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:29.960 thank the child for helping once they did point it out. 0:26:30.520 --> 0:26:33.119 And then so the video recorded all these tests, and 0:26:33.160 --> 0:26:38.120 the experimenters used the video analysis to study the angles 0:26:38.200 --> 0:26:41.160 of the children's fingers when they engaged in this kind 0:26:41.200 --> 0:26:44.199 of pointing. Now, it's commonly assumed. We talked about this 0:26:44.200 --> 0:26:47.040 assumption in the last episode that when you point to 0:26:47.160 --> 0:26:50.800 something with an outstretched index finger. I think a lot 0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:52.840 of people are kind of you kind of imagine an 0:26:53.000 --> 0:26:57.119 arrow or vector extending out from your finger in the 0:26:57.160 --> 0:26:59.920 direction of the target, and the angle of that arrow 0:27:00.200 --> 0:27:04.359 vector is established by the angle of the length of 0:27:04.359 --> 0:27:07.119 your finger. It's as if your finger just kept extending 0:27:07.240 --> 0:27:11.600 straight out wherever it ended up, pointing would hit the target, right. 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:16.879 That's the thing, Longler that we were But if pointing 0:27:16.920 --> 0:27:19.919 comes out of an instinct to touch, there might actually 0:27:19.920 --> 0:27:23.240 be a different model that makes more sense. Uh to 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:26.159 quote the authors here quote. When someone reaches out to 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:29.760 touch something, the angle of her finger is largely irrelevant. 0:27:30.080 --> 0:27:33.560 It could be horizontal or even vertical. What matters is 0:27:33.600 --> 0:27:37.080 that the fingertip can make contact with the object she 0:27:37.119 --> 0:27:40.840 wishes to touch. If pointing originates in touch, then a 0:27:40.960 --> 0:27:43.600 better predictor of reference ought to be what we call 0:27:43.800 --> 0:27:47.680 the touch line, the vector that runs between a person's 0:27:47.760 --> 0:27:51.480 eye and fingertip while pointing. And it turns out this 0:27:51.560 --> 0:27:54.000 is exactly what the researchers found. They found that for 0:27:54.320 --> 0:27:58.639 all age groups, but especially for eighteen month olds, the 0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:02.320 youngest age group, a more accurate vector to the target 0:28:02.520 --> 0:28:05.360 was created by what they call the touch line. So 0:28:05.760 --> 0:28:09.479 instead of a straight line following the exact angle of 0:28:09.520 --> 0:28:13.160 the finger when extended, it was this imaginary line going 0:28:13.280 --> 0:28:18.399 from the pointing person's eyes to their fingertip to the object. 0:28:18.880 --> 0:28:20.840 So like if you actually, like had the finger just 0:28:20.960 --> 0:28:23.320 extend out in a straight line, it would often be 0:28:23.520 --> 0:28:26.960 way off target. Interacted. Yeah, this is a great instinct 0:28:27.480 --> 0:28:30.320 to explore in the in the experiment. Yeah, yeah, I 0:28:30.359 --> 0:28:33.280 find myself experimenting with it right now. Like, what's the 0:28:33.280 --> 0:28:36.639 difference between me pointing at this rack of shoes in 0:28:36.640 --> 0:28:39.640 the closet with me here versus reaching for them? Well, 0:28:39.680 --> 0:28:43.080 I think because of some some illusions of perspective, it 0:28:43.120 --> 0:28:46.320 often feels like what you're doing is you're just creating 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:49.000 a straight vector that extends out along the same angle 0:28:49.000 --> 0:28:51.840 as your finger and goes to the target. But in fact, 0:28:51.880 --> 0:28:55.480 if you take pictures of people when they're pointing, they're 0:28:55.600 --> 0:28:59.440 they're doing something more like creating a line from their 0:28:59.520 --> 0:29:02.680 line of to their fingertip to the object. And actually, 0:29:02.720 --> 0:29:05.480 if you extended the finger vector, it would go way 0:29:05.520 --> 0:29:07.880 off in some other direction, even though it doesn't quite 0:29:07.880 --> 0:29:11.440 feel like that. There's an interesting observation here, they say 0:29:11.480 --> 0:29:14.400 it quote. It may be noted that although the touch 0:29:14.480 --> 0:29:17.360 line is more reliable than the arrow line in all 0:29:17.440 --> 0:29:20.719 age groups, the touch line is the most accurate in 0:29:20.760 --> 0:29:23.640 the six year olds rather than the adults, as one 0:29:23.720 --> 0:29:26.960 might expect. However, we suspect this is simply due to 0:29:27.000 --> 0:29:31.240 the six year olds producing their gestures more carefully, while 0:29:31.320 --> 0:29:34.560 the adults were more casual in their engagement with the task, 0:29:35.280 --> 0:29:37.880 which I think is probably true, right, Like when adults point, 0:29:38.000 --> 0:29:42.160 they don't usually take care to be really accurate in pointing. 0:29:42.200 --> 0:29:46.160 As you become older, pointing becomes more and more uh 0:29:46.200 --> 0:29:50.160 slangy yeah yeah. Like I was thinking, like, how often 0:29:50.160 --> 0:29:54.120 do I actually point with my finger at something? Like 0:29:54.200 --> 0:29:57.800 I'm specifically pointing out, say a scone at a bakery, 0:29:57.800 --> 0:29:59.600 and I'm like, this is the one I want, not 0:29:59.760 --> 0:30:02.560 that one, not that's that one, but this one. Or 0:30:02.600 --> 0:30:06.240 another case would be if I'm trying to point out, 0:30:06.640 --> 0:30:10.480 say a bird in a tree to my son, and 0:30:10.480 --> 0:30:13.120 and I'm not able to do so, uh, you know, 0:30:13.160 --> 0:30:16.360 with the first couple of reference points, I finally will 0:30:16.560 --> 0:30:20.040 will point my finger, you know, sometimes like like lining 0:30:20.080 --> 0:30:23.200 up my finger, you know, uh, around his head, you know, 0:30:23.240 --> 0:30:24.720 so that he can look down the line of my 0:30:24.760 --> 0:30:27.560 finger and see what I'm talking about. But otherwise I'm 0:30:27.680 --> 0:30:29.720 more likely to be like, hey, look at that tree 0:30:29.760 --> 0:30:32.000 over there, and just sort of casually refer, you know, 0:30:32.080 --> 0:30:34.880 maybe even with multiple fingers to the tree, or even 0:30:34.920 --> 0:30:37.320 with an elbow or something. I feel like that's a 0:30:37.320 --> 0:30:40.040 common casual thing, right, like the sort of twisting of 0:30:40.080 --> 0:30:43.680 the arm, the elbow direction and forearm. Huh. I don't know. 0:30:43.800 --> 0:30:46.680 I'm trying to do it myself now, and it feels strange, 0:30:46.720 --> 0:30:49.400 like a chicken arm, like a bock bock box, kind 0:30:49.400 --> 0:30:53.920 of a chicken dancer box. I think sometimes I point 0:30:54.000 --> 0:30:56.080 with an elbow, especially, I think if my hands are 0:30:56.080 --> 0:30:59.040 occupied and I'm standing up and so I see, okay, 0:30:59.560 --> 0:31:01.760 it's like something over there, I'll be like, hey, over there, 0:31:01.800 --> 0:31:04.520 I point with the elbow kind of a shrug elbow 0:31:04.600 --> 0:31:07.760 gesture okay now, or or a nod of the head 0:31:07.800 --> 0:31:11.320 can do something similar. True, if people were videotaping us 0:31:11.400 --> 0:31:16.200 right now, this would be a magical moment. I don't 0:31:16.200 --> 0:31:18.360 know if you're flapping your wings in your closet there, 0:31:18.360 --> 0:31:21.480 I am, um. So there was a second experiment. I 0:31:21.520 --> 0:31:25.760 thought this one was really clever, especially it's since it's 0:31:25.760 --> 0:31:28.040 pretty simple once you actually see it. So it might 0:31:28.040 --> 0:31:30.960 take a minute to picture this correctly, but I'll try 0:31:30.960 --> 0:31:34.240 to do the simple version, the short version. Imagine you're 0:31:34.240 --> 0:31:37.040 sitting somebody across from a box. So you might want 0:31:37.040 --> 0:31:40.640 to imagine like an old BOXYCRT television, right, you know, 0:31:40.880 --> 0:31:43.520 the kind of had depth, and then you have them 0:31:43.600 --> 0:31:46.959 point to targets on this box. Now, you could have 0:31:47.080 --> 0:31:51.200 them point to targets that are all on on a TV. 0:31:51.320 --> 0:31:54.440 What would be the screen side, the side facing the participant, 0:31:54.640 --> 0:31:56.080 and they could be in the middle, they could be 0:31:56.080 --> 0:31:58.040 on the left side, they could be on the right side. 0:31:58.320 --> 0:32:01.200 Or what you could do is have some of the 0:32:01.240 --> 0:32:04.800 targets that they need to point out be rotated around 0:32:04.920 --> 0:32:07.400 to the sides of the box, so they need to 0:32:07.440 --> 0:32:10.120 point at a target that would be in the TV analogy, 0:32:10.160 --> 0:32:13.440 on the side of the TV, not on the screen side. 0:32:15.080 --> 0:32:17.280 So they did this test. They you know, had a 0:32:17.360 --> 0:32:19.560 box where you would have to point to things that 0:32:19.600 --> 0:32:21.520 were on the side of the box, and they tested 0:32:21.560 --> 0:32:24.320 this against a control group where the pointing targets were 0:32:24.320 --> 0:32:26.120 just moved to the left or right, but they all 0:32:26.160 --> 0:32:28.560 stayed on the side of the box facing the participant. 0:32:28.600 --> 0:32:31.040 It was just like a two D surface. And what 0:32:31.160 --> 0:32:34.480 was revealed was that compared to control conditions, when the 0:32:34.520 --> 0:32:37.640 target was on the side of the box, people rotated 0:32:37.680 --> 0:32:42.240 their wrists to point at it, rotating the hand and 0:32:42.320 --> 0:32:45.000 exactly the way that they would need to rotate it 0:32:45.520 --> 0:32:48.400 if they were reaching out to touch the target with 0:32:48.440 --> 0:32:51.320 the pad of their index finger. And when I read this, 0:32:51.440 --> 0:32:53.880 I was like, oh my god, I've never realized, but 0:32:53.920 --> 0:32:57.640 I think I do that when pointing Sometimes that that 0:32:57.880 --> 0:33:01.800 the orientation of the object to and it changes the 0:33:01.840 --> 0:33:04.960 orientation of my hand. And so like if I would 0:33:05.000 --> 0:33:08.960 have to reach around something to point to something on 0:33:09.080 --> 0:33:11.480 you know, on the side of a three dimensional object, 0:33:11.560 --> 0:33:15.200 I sometimes I think rotate my hand as if I 0:33:15.200 --> 0:33:18.760 would be reaching around to touch the thing with my fingers. 0:33:18.840 --> 0:33:21.720 I think this is exactly right, yeah, or it's almost 0:33:21.800 --> 0:33:25.400 like you are preparing to extend your arm mr elastic style, 0:33:25.960 --> 0:33:28.040 you know, like I need to get the correct curvature 0:33:28.040 --> 0:33:30.920 and angle as if my arm is about to, uh, 0:33:30.960 --> 0:33:32.960 you know, lengthen out and then touch the side of 0:33:32.960 --> 0:33:35.840 the box. Yes, yes, yes, And they said that sometimes 0:33:35.840 --> 0:33:40.080 this even resulted in drastic twisting of the wrist. Quote. 0:33:40.080 --> 0:33:43.760 In some observed instances in the study, the right hand 0:33:44.040 --> 0:33:46.719 was used to point at the left side of the 0:33:46.720 --> 0:33:51.240 box or vice versa, and the participants rotated their wrist 0:33:51.320 --> 0:33:55.120 in a strenuous way through a hundred and eighty degrees 0:33:55.440 --> 0:33:58.720 to match the orientation of the surface that they pointed at. 0:33:59.400 --> 0:34:01.960 So so you can imagine this, like some people have 0:34:02.000 --> 0:34:05.720 a dominant pointing hand and instead of changing hands to 0:34:05.920 --> 0:34:08.480 rotate easily to point at the side that they would like, 0:34:08.520 --> 0:34:11.400 twist their arm all the way around to point with 0:34:11.440 --> 0:34:14.719 the hand upside down so that they could use their 0:34:14.760 --> 0:34:17.560 dominant pointing hand to point in a way in which 0:34:17.600 --> 0:34:20.239 their fingertip could in theory touch the thing they were 0:34:20.280 --> 0:34:23.520 pointing at. Yeah. I think it's very revealing. Uh. And 0:34:23.520 --> 0:34:26.480 then finally there was a third experiment that was that 0:34:26.600 --> 0:34:29.520 wasn't about yourself pointing, but it was about judging the 0:34:29.560 --> 0:34:32.240 pointing of others. It was about trying to read pointing 0:34:32.280 --> 0:34:35.040 gestures on pictures of other people. And so they would 0:34:35.080 --> 0:34:38.840 show ambiguous images of pointing gestures which could be interpreted 0:34:38.880 --> 0:34:41.600 as pointing a long and arrow line extending from the 0:34:41.600 --> 0:34:45.000 finger or along a touch line going from the eyes 0:34:45.080 --> 0:34:48.320 to the fingertip to the target. Robert I included in 0:34:48.520 --> 0:34:51.080 an example for you to look at here, and they 0:34:51.120 --> 0:34:54.120 found that quote the eighteen month olds in the three 0:34:54.160 --> 0:34:56.319 year olds were more likely to pick out the cup 0:34:56.360 --> 0:34:59.320 the experiment or was looking at in the touch condition 0:34:59.440 --> 0:35:02.040 than in the arrow condition, whereas the nine year olds 0:35:02.080 --> 0:35:04.879 the opposite was the case. The six year olds did 0:35:04.920 --> 0:35:08.320 not show a clear preference, being a chance in both conditions, 0:35:08.320 --> 0:35:12.000 while the adults were well above chance in both conditions. 0:35:12.040 --> 0:35:15.439 So what they found was that erro interpretations, the idea 0:35:15.480 --> 0:35:17.600 of just like you know, the finger extending out along 0:35:17.640 --> 0:35:21.239 the line, aero interpretations of other people's pointing appear to 0:35:21.400 --> 0:35:27.560 emerge and become stronger later in development, whereas touch interpretations, 0:35:27.600 --> 0:35:30.160 where pointing is the line from your eye to your 0:35:30.200 --> 0:35:34.840 fingertip to the object, those dominate among the younger. So anyway, 0:35:34.960 --> 0:35:37.799 I think these experiments are some pretty compelling evidence that 0:35:37.920 --> 0:35:41.040 that touch, the instinct to reach out and touch things, 0:35:41.480 --> 0:35:45.040 could very well be the basis of the pointing gesture 0:35:45.080 --> 0:35:48.560 as it develops in children. Um and the authors believe, 0:35:48.760 --> 0:35:50.359 of course, the same. They believe all three of their 0:35:50.400 --> 0:35:54.440 tests support the hypothesis, the touch hypothesis. But how exactly 0:35:54.480 --> 0:35:58.160 does this transition from touching to pointing occur? Well, we 0:35:58.200 --> 0:36:00.480 don't know for sure, but they have some thoughts about that. 0:36:00.560 --> 0:36:03.840 So the researchers here think that there could be a 0:36:03.920 --> 0:36:08.560 kind of ritualized operant conditioning at work for informative pointing, 0:36:09.000 --> 0:36:11.920 similar to the kind we thought might be present for 0:36:12.080 --> 0:36:15.839 imperative pointing. But it's just a different process. So so 0:36:15.920 --> 0:36:17.920 we know, of course, we were talking about this earlier. 0:36:18.120 --> 0:36:21.080 When infants are exploring objects in their environment, they often 0:36:21.200 --> 0:36:25.680 coordinate different types of sensory exploration. They coordinate visual and 0:36:25.760 --> 0:36:29.200 haptic information gathering. They look and touch at the same time. 0:36:29.800 --> 0:36:33.719 So it's reasonable to propose that the visual attention of 0:36:33.760 --> 0:36:38.600 adults and parents might also be directed by a child's touch. 0:36:38.680 --> 0:36:40.880 And think about you know, if an adult is attending 0:36:40.880 --> 0:36:44.080 to a child when the infant reaches out to touch 0:36:44.200 --> 0:36:48.480 a toy, the parents also begin to pay attention to 0:36:48.680 --> 0:36:52.080 that particular toy. You know, they're like responding to, Oh, 0:36:52.120 --> 0:36:54.120 this is what you're playing with now, or this is 0:36:54.160 --> 0:36:57.319 what you're looking at now. Uh. And then from this 0:36:57.480 --> 0:37:01.279 the author's right quote, once the child finds that she 0:37:01.320 --> 0:37:04.040 can get an adult to pay attention to something by 0:37:04.080 --> 0:37:07.160 touching it, she may begin to make as if to 0:37:07.160 --> 0:37:11.320 touch things that are slightly further away. Parents recognize which 0:37:11.360 --> 0:37:14.200 object the child is aiming to touch and attend to 0:37:14.320 --> 0:37:18.120 that object. The action, originally designed to allow the infant 0:37:18.160 --> 0:37:21.720 to explore an object with the fingertip, becomes a gesture 0:37:21.800 --> 0:37:25.520 that functions to coordinate the attention of infant an adult 0:37:25.600 --> 0:37:28.839 on an object, and pointing is born. So I think 0:37:28.880 --> 0:37:32.680 that's a very interesting interpretation. Yeah, I find this hypothesis 0:37:32.840 --> 0:37:38.279 very uh, very very convincing. Really, um, yeah, it would 0:37:38.280 --> 0:37:40.080 be interesting to see what kind of further studies are 0:37:40.160 --> 0:37:42.799 are possible here. Well, it makes me think about what 0:37:42.960 --> 0:37:46.120 kinds of implicit cognition are still going on in the 0:37:46.200 --> 0:37:51.200 in the brains of you know, older children and even adults, Like, um, 0:37:51.280 --> 0:37:54.120 when you're pointing at things, is there still some part 0:37:54.160 --> 0:37:58.239 of you that is thinking of pointing as touching, and 0:37:58.280 --> 0:38:00.799 how does that affect the psychology pointing. Like, as we 0:38:00.800 --> 0:38:03.560 were talking about in the last episode, there are definitely 0:38:03.719 --> 0:38:08.879 big taboos about, you know, concerning pointing at People are 0:38:08.920 --> 0:38:13.040 pointing at certain kinds of objects, and typically, you know, 0:38:13.080 --> 0:38:16.080 the kinds of things that there are taboos about pointing 0:38:16.080 --> 0:38:18.759 at are things for which there is supposed to be 0:38:18.840 --> 0:38:22.880 some kind of decorum or respect, Like the inanimate objects 0:38:22.920 --> 0:38:24.880 that in some cultures you're not supposed to point out 0:38:24.920 --> 0:38:27.920 would be in some way sacred or holy objects, maybe 0:38:27.920 --> 0:38:33.240 sacred types of animals, or you know, really religiously significant objects. Whereas, 0:38:33.280 --> 0:38:35.160 of course, you know, there's a reason that you're supposed 0:38:35.200 --> 0:38:37.440 to afford respect to other humans, which is why you 0:38:37.440 --> 0:38:40.759 don't point at them with an extended index finger. It 0:38:40.840 --> 0:38:43.960 could be that there's some kind of taboo about uh 0:38:44.040 --> 0:38:48.160 imagined touching that's going on there. Yeah, you have you 0:38:48.239 --> 0:38:51.120 have truly to point at someone is to in a 0:38:51.200 --> 0:38:54.520 sense lay hands on them. Uh then then yeah, it 0:38:54.560 --> 0:38:56.640 would be a huge taboo against that. It makes me 0:38:56.680 --> 0:38:59.719 think about the um you know, there are a few 0:38:59.719 --> 0:39:04.760 different taboos uh in in Thai culture, concerning shoes and feet. 0:39:05.000 --> 0:39:07.960 And and one that that I remember is um a 0:39:08.000 --> 0:39:14.719 taboo against pointing at especially at individuals with the foot um, 0:39:14.800 --> 0:39:17.960 which which is all the more you know, convincing when 0:39:17.960 --> 0:39:19.719 you when you think about what that means in a 0:39:19.760 --> 0:39:22.120 light of these studies, like to point at somebody with 0:39:22.200 --> 0:39:25.440 your foot is essentially to to to touch them with 0:39:25.520 --> 0:39:28.359 your foot. And and therefore, yeah, you can you can 0:39:28.480 --> 0:39:30.960 very very well see how there could that could be 0:39:31.080 --> 0:39:35.000 interpreted as a highly disrespectful gesture. Yeah, that's very interesting, 0:39:35.000 --> 0:39:37.040 But it also makes me think about when it goes 0:39:37.120 --> 0:39:40.080 the other way, when there are ways of um blunting 0:39:40.360 --> 0:39:44.120 the the negative power or the psychological impact or taboo 0:39:44.160 --> 0:39:47.520 of pointing just by not pointing with the extended index fingers. 0:39:47.560 --> 0:39:50.840 So there's some amount of pointing that seems to that 0:39:50.920 --> 0:39:55.000 seems to be naturally associated with touching, uh, no matter 0:39:55.040 --> 0:39:57.880 what kind of body part you're using. But then maybe 0:39:57.880 --> 0:40:01.080 there's there's more of that salience in it's the extended 0:40:01.120 --> 0:40:04.480 index finger and thus like there's less of a taboo 0:40:04.520 --> 0:40:07.040 of of pointing at people if you just do it 0:40:07.080 --> 0:40:09.440 with your arm or with an open hand, because that 0:40:09.520 --> 0:40:17.160 feels less like the infant exploratory touch impulse, right, um, yeah, absolutely. 0:40:17.160 --> 0:40:19.839 It also brings to mind like the ways we greet 0:40:19.880 --> 0:40:22.680 each other. Uh, you know, handshake is a little bit 0:40:22.719 --> 0:40:25.360 further down down from this, but in terms of indicating, 0:40:25.360 --> 0:40:28.719 we already talked about nodding, and that from there there 0:40:28.800 --> 0:40:31.080 we can we can easily go to the realm of 0:40:31.200 --> 0:40:36.399 various ceremonial forms of bowing and bowing as greeting, uh, 0:40:36.560 --> 0:40:39.120 such as such as is used as in Thai culture. 0:40:39.160 --> 0:40:42.960 In fact um, and that seems like a very yeah. 0:40:43.000 --> 0:40:44.799 I mean, I guess you could you could extrapolated and 0:40:44.800 --> 0:40:46.920 compare it to a head butt, I guess. But for 0:40:46.960 --> 0:40:51.120 the most part, I feel like like bowing, uh, tipping 0:40:51.120 --> 0:40:53.640 your head to someone in a form of greeting. You know, 0:40:53.760 --> 0:40:56.880 it's it's it's largely free of the you know, implicit 0:40:56.960 --> 0:41:01.960 pokiness of the the index finger or a or the kick, uh, 0:41:02.000 --> 0:41:06.160 the implicit kick that comes with gesturing with your your foot, uh, 0:41:06.200 --> 0:41:08.040 that sort of thing. Here's something I just want to 0:41:08.040 --> 0:41:10.759 test your intuitions on. What do you think or the 0:41:11.239 --> 0:41:15.640 differing connotations of acknowledging a person with an upward nod 0:41:15.880 --> 0:41:20.360 versus acknowledging them with a downward nod. I mean, you 0:41:20.400 --> 0:41:23.040 know what I'm talking about. I guess the downward nod 0:41:23.400 --> 0:41:27.200 could be interpreted as being judgmental or being, you know, 0:41:27.239 --> 0:41:30.319 a nod of agreement, whereas the upward nod is more 0:41:31.200 --> 0:41:36.319 just hey, uh, you know hello, So exactly, Yeah, I 0:41:36.320 --> 0:41:39.080 don't know one just one just feels more like a 0:41:39.120 --> 0:41:42.160 commentary on what one is observing, and the other one 0:41:42.200 --> 0:41:47.520 feels a lot more just uh an observation or maybe 0:41:47.560 --> 0:41:49.560 we'll have to come back to that. Yeah, I mean, 0:41:49.560 --> 0:41:51.759 of course, in all of these you know, obviously there's 0:41:51.760 --> 0:41:55.040 there are so many additional cultural layers that that one 0:41:55.040 --> 0:42:00.920 could unravel. Um, So yeah, I'm not sure exactly what 0:42:00.960 --> 0:42:02.719 the answer would be here if we attempt to answer 0:42:02.800 --> 0:42:04.759 this from a global perspective, because you know, what's the 0:42:04.760 --> 0:42:09.360 different So, for instance, within a culture where bowing is 0:42:09.360 --> 0:42:13.960 is a part of of of traditional regular or formal greetings, 0:42:15.120 --> 0:42:18.360 than than nod, is an odd going to have a 0:42:18.480 --> 0:42:20.760 different weight, Is it going to have a different place 0:42:21.280 --> 0:42:24.480 in um, you know, cultural interactions versus a culture that 0:42:24.560 --> 0:42:27.640 does not have bowing as part of its traditions. Well, 0:42:27.680 --> 0:42:29.600 this is very interesting because this kind of brings me 0:42:29.680 --> 0:42:31.480 to the next thing. I wanted to talk about, which 0:42:31.560 --> 0:42:35.920 was one study I was looking at about cultural variation 0:42:36.680 --> 0:42:40.279 among types of pointing that that humans do. Um, So 0:42:40.480 --> 0:42:43.120 we already talked extensively about the fact that, you know, 0:42:43.160 --> 0:42:47.000 studies have found pointing gestures are pretty much universal phenomena 0:42:47.080 --> 0:42:50.759 in human culture. All cultures point, but there are some 0:42:50.840 --> 0:42:55.160 differences in how exactly we point, or how exactly what 0:42:55.320 --> 0:42:58.880 exact types of pointing are most prevalent within a culture. 0:42:59.280 --> 0:43:01.600 You know, we we we talked about how the extended 0:43:01.640 --> 0:43:05.160 index finger seems to be the most common for especially 0:43:05.239 --> 0:43:08.680 certain kinds of pointing, but like, why not the middle finger, 0:43:08.800 --> 0:43:11.080 why not the thumb? You know, any of these things 0:43:11.120 --> 0:43:14.600 of course could function as a pointing gesture, and there 0:43:14.600 --> 0:43:17.160 have been different ideas about this over time. One is 0:43:17.200 --> 0:43:20.880 that maybe it's just that the natural resting posture of 0:43:20.960 --> 0:43:23.480 the hand, with the muscles and tendons and all that, 0:43:23.880 --> 0:43:27.880 tends to make the the extended index finger the easiest 0:43:28.000 --> 0:43:30.120 thing to point with. You can kind of see this 0:43:30.239 --> 0:43:34.319 in just the way human hands, uh sit when they're 0:43:34.440 --> 0:43:37.680 totally relaxed. Often the index finger is kind of raised 0:43:37.719 --> 0:43:40.520 above the other ones. Well, I mean, mainly I just 0:43:40.560 --> 0:43:42.719 come down to the fact that the index finger is 0:43:42.760 --> 0:43:46.280 the more versatile finger. Like if someone is just beginning 0:43:46.320 --> 0:43:50.000 to type and they are hunting and pecking, they're not hunking, 0:43:50.080 --> 0:43:52.480 hunting and pecking with their middle finger. They're not hunting 0:43:52.480 --> 0:43:55.040 and pecking with their pinky or their ring finger. They're 0:43:55.160 --> 0:43:57.640 using their index finger. Like that is the one. If 0:43:57.640 --> 0:44:00.160 you're gonna scrape some paint off of something, you're to 0:44:00.280 --> 0:44:04.160 use your index finger and its fingernail. Like it's it 0:44:04.239 --> 0:44:07.319 seems to be the most versatile of the digits. Yeah, 0:44:07.360 --> 0:44:09.200 and I think so. I mean, it's like it's it 0:44:09.360 --> 0:44:12.920 is the most accurate part of one of the defining 0:44:13.000 --> 0:44:16.360 properties of the human primate, you know, the precision grip 0:44:16.400 --> 0:44:19.319 where the index finger and the thumb come together. The 0:44:19.400 --> 0:44:21.959 index finger is a little more precise than the thumb, 0:44:22.120 --> 0:44:24.000 is right, Yeah, I mean that's why it is the 0:44:24.000 --> 0:44:27.040 trigger finger. Yeah, that is why the thing it is 0:44:27.080 --> 0:44:30.120 the finger that is traditionally sent into the nostril. H 0:44:30.200 --> 0:44:33.880 I mean, it is. It is the the exploratory digit. 0:44:35.080 --> 0:44:36.920 But you ever see people pick their nose with the 0:44:36.960 --> 0:44:40.279 pinky and that's fun. Well, I guess the well that 0:44:40.320 --> 0:44:42.160 does make sense from a certain standpoints is it is 0:44:42.160 --> 0:44:44.759 the smaller of the of the fingers. Yes, uh huh, 0:44:45.200 --> 0:44:49.200 but I don't recall seeing it offhand, but it makes sense, 0:44:49.239 --> 0:44:51.200 Like I'm not going to question that as a as 0:44:51.239 --> 0:44:54.120 a you know, you know taboos aside is being just 0:44:54.160 --> 0:44:58.319 a very sensible choice. But there are different kinds of 0:44:58.360 --> 0:45:02.280 pointing that are more favored by different cultures around the world. 0:45:02.360 --> 0:45:05.759 Like there are some cultures where lip pointing can be 0:45:05.840 --> 0:45:09.279 found in a fairly prominent way, um, there there are 0:45:09.360 --> 0:45:13.719 other cultures where apparently nose pointing not only exists but 0:45:13.920 --> 0:45:16.840 is is pretty popular. If you're trying to imagine it. 0:45:16.920 --> 0:45:19.799 This is kind of a way of pointing by scrunching 0:45:19.880 --> 0:45:25.560 the face and sort of pointing with the scrunch to nose. Um. 0:45:25.600 --> 0:45:28.560 And in fact, I know this is this is mainly 0:45:28.640 --> 0:45:32.360 identified as being popular in uh, for example, specific language 0:45:32.400 --> 0:45:34.840 cultures of Papua New Guinea, which we'll talk about in 0:45:34.840 --> 0:45:37.839 the second. But I feel like I've done something like 0:45:37.880 --> 0:45:41.400 this in my life, the scrunched nose face point. I 0:45:41.440 --> 0:45:45.520 think it has happened. Well, I can't really speak to 0:45:45.560 --> 0:45:48.560 the scrunching of the nose, but certainly we're talking about 0:45:48.800 --> 0:45:52.640 the you know, nodding up or down. And I think 0:45:52.640 --> 0:45:55.399 if we get more specific about our analysis of these, uh, 0:45:55.440 --> 0:45:59.759 these facial head gestures, we might realize that, Okay, am 0:45:59.760 --> 0:46:02.319 I actually is it really my head that is the 0:46:02.320 --> 0:46:06.120 focal point? Or am I in fact um gesturing with 0:46:06.160 --> 0:46:09.160 my chin or my nose or some other you know, 0:46:09.239 --> 0:46:12.440 specific point on my face. Yeah, that's that's a good point. 0:46:12.840 --> 0:46:15.200 So I wanted to talk about a specific study I 0:46:15.239 --> 0:46:18.480 was looking at called the preference for pointing with the 0:46:18.520 --> 0:46:21.560 hand is not Universal. This was published in the journal 0:46:21.560 --> 0:46:25.120 Cognitive Science in eighteen. Uh. The lead author here was 0:46:25.440 --> 0:46:28.040 somebody I referred to in the last episode who I 0:46:28.040 --> 0:46:30.799 had watched a presentation that he gave about a bunch 0:46:30.800 --> 0:46:33.680 of different kinds of pointing gesture research. But so the 0:46:33.920 --> 0:46:37.719 it's by a Kinsey Cooper writer James Slata, and Raphael 0:46:37.800 --> 0:46:40.560 nun Yez. And this study had a basic sort of 0:46:40.640 --> 0:46:44.239 like moving and stacking of objects task where you would 0:46:44.280 --> 0:46:47.680 take people and you would have one person direct another 0:46:47.800 --> 0:46:52.000 person in how to place some objects around in a space, 0:46:52.080 --> 0:46:54.880 like where to put things, where to stack them. And 0:46:54.960 --> 0:46:59.360 they tested this among us participants, but then also among 0:46:59.480 --> 0:47:02.839 the yep know, people of Papua New Guinea and what 0:47:02.880 --> 0:47:06.479 they found was that speakers in both groups UH used 0:47:06.480 --> 0:47:10.000 plenty of pointing, but there were different preferences in what 0:47:10.120 --> 0:47:14.279 types and shapes of pointing the different groups had. They 0:47:14.320 --> 0:47:18.320 say quote. Whereas the US participants exhibited a clear strong 0:47:18.480 --> 0:47:22.160 preference for manual pointing pointing with the finger, the yup 0:47:22.160 --> 0:47:27.080 Know made balanced use of both non manual and manual forms, 0:47:27.080 --> 0:47:30.200 with no significant preference between the two. And Robert, I've 0:47:30.239 --> 0:47:32.120 got a couple of graphs for you to look at here. 0:47:32.760 --> 0:47:35.040 When you see the data represented, it's very clear that 0:47:35.120 --> 0:47:38.279 like US participants do almost all of their pointing with 0:47:38.360 --> 0:47:42.239 the hand. The hand is clearly favored UM depending on 0:47:42.400 --> 0:47:45.279 other conditions. Among the Upno people, it seems, you know, 0:47:45.400 --> 0:47:48.080 maybe half and half or so roughly half is with 0:47:48.160 --> 0:47:51.160 the hand, but then there's this other strong preference for 0:47:51.280 --> 0:47:56.080 especially pointing with the scrunched snow's gesture. And this difference 0:47:56.120 --> 0:47:58.680 is really interesting, and the authors were trying to account 0:47:58.680 --> 0:48:01.319 for why exactly the would be like, what would cause 0:48:01.320 --> 0:48:05.359 the difference between the cultures. One possible explanation that they 0:48:05.400 --> 0:48:07.839 give is that they say quote. Throughout New Guinea there 0:48:07.920 --> 0:48:13.000 is an emphasis on controlling the broadcasting of communication. UH 0:48:13.040 --> 0:48:17.320 and examples they give here would be a tendency toward circumspection, 0:48:18.440 --> 0:48:22.239 whispering uh inggressive speech, which which is a term for 0:48:22.400 --> 0:48:26.880 speaking while inhaling uh and they write quote. Non Manual 0:48:26.920 --> 0:48:29.840 pointing may thus be part of a repertoire of bodily 0:48:29.840 --> 0:48:35.120 techniques that reduce the broadcasting of communicative signals, as indeed 0:48:35.160 --> 0:48:38.919 some yep No consultants have suggested to us another yep 0:48:38.920 --> 0:48:42.400 No cultural model that may bear on gestural behavior is 0:48:42.440 --> 0:48:46.200 the idea of the easy going person or I'm not 0:48:46.280 --> 0:48:48.360 sure how to pronounce this word, but it is spelled 0:48:49.160 --> 0:48:51.800 y a w o r i or a yaw worri, 0:48:52.640 --> 0:48:55.560 and this basically means a person who is not overactive, 0:48:55.600 --> 0:48:58.759 who's not aggressive, but who is calm and contained in 0:48:58.800 --> 0:49:01.600 a sense a kind of cool illness that there is 0:49:01.640 --> 0:49:05.640 a a cultural value to among many people's of New Guinea. 0:49:06.000 --> 0:49:09.680 So it could be that some variations in cultural values 0:49:09.719 --> 0:49:14.440 about what kind of persona and affect it's admirable to project, like, 0:49:14.600 --> 0:49:16.719 you know, the person who is cool and easy going 0:49:16.760 --> 0:49:20.120 in this way, that might influence whether you would point 0:49:20.200 --> 0:49:22.600 with a certain part of your body or another the 0:49:22.640 --> 0:49:26.560 same way. And maybe American culture that certain values about 0:49:26.840 --> 0:49:29.320 how how it looks, you know, how you can look cool, 0:49:29.400 --> 0:49:32.080 would would influence whether you point with your chin or 0:49:32.200 --> 0:49:34.880 point with a finger. Yeah, that's a very good point. 0:49:35.320 --> 0:49:37.960 But then there are also some practical considerations that might 0:49:38.000 --> 0:49:41.600 explain part of this difference. So, for example, you can't 0:49:41.680 --> 0:49:45.400 point with a finger when your hands are occupied. The 0:49:45.440 --> 0:49:49.360 author's right quote. Manual availability could also affect a community's 0:49:49.400 --> 0:49:54.000 pointing preferences on cultural historical time scales in communities where 0:49:54.000 --> 0:49:57.759 the hands are commonly occupied while communicating, so maybe during 0:49:57.800 --> 0:50:01.919 activities like food processing on manual gesturing could become more 0:50:01.920 --> 0:50:04.680 frequent and eventually carry over to times when the hands 0:50:04.680 --> 0:50:07.800 are free. That makes sense. If I'm carrying a weapon 0:50:07.880 --> 0:50:11.000 and I'm hunting, i can't speak with my hands they 0:50:11.000 --> 0:50:13.400 are otherwise engaged, right, And there there could be all 0:50:13.480 --> 0:50:17.400 kinds of tasks where among certain cultures, like you know, 0:50:17.520 --> 0:50:19.920 you would be using your hands while you're pointing at 0:50:20.000 --> 0:50:22.960 something to indicate something to somebody else. If you're you know, 0:50:23.200 --> 0:50:28.040 cooking together, processing or or preparing food together, doing all 0:50:28.120 --> 0:50:30.680 kinds of things. You know. Another thing is that they 0:50:30.680 --> 0:50:34.200 say manual pointing, you know, using the finger to point 0:50:34.560 --> 0:50:38.800 is considered more precise than facial or other non manual pointing, 0:50:38.840 --> 0:50:43.360 but also less effortful. Uh So, in cultures where precision 0:50:43.480 --> 0:50:46.839 pointing is less often required, say if you are not 0:50:47.080 --> 0:50:50.759 often pointing to a small object distant on the horizon, 0:50:51.080 --> 0:50:54.560 or to a small element within a media display or 0:50:54.640 --> 0:50:58.560 something like that, the efficiency of movement may overtake the 0:50:58.560 --> 0:51:02.200 need for precision and pointing. And the author's right quote 0:51:02.320 --> 0:51:05.440 note that if indeed, you Know speakers observe a principle 0:51:05.480 --> 0:51:09.120 of least effort when pointing, the interesting question becomes not 0:51:09.320 --> 0:51:13.200 why you know speakers often avoid manual pointing, but why 0:51:13.320 --> 0:51:17.640 English speakers so often over extend themselves, Like, why why 0:51:17.680 --> 0:51:21.360 do English speakers have this tendency do waste more effort 0:51:21.480 --> 0:51:24.239 using the hand to point something when that amount of 0:51:24.280 --> 0:51:28.360 precision is not necessary? Yeah, Like if you're engaging in 0:51:28.360 --> 0:51:30.759 a great deal of gesticulation while talking, Yeah, a lot 0:51:30.840 --> 0:51:36.280 of it is um perhaps overly boisterous, you know. Yeah, 0:51:36.400 --> 0:51:39.040 And this is of course something that's very important to 0:51:39.080 --> 0:51:42.920 remember whenever you're studying like cultural differences in communication or 0:51:43.000 --> 0:51:45.719 gestures or something like that, to not think of it 0:51:45.760 --> 0:51:48.920 in terms of Okay, here's how my culture does things. 0:51:48.960 --> 0:51:51.720 That this other culture does things a different way. Why 0:51:51.719 --> 0:51:55.440 are they weird? The question is not why are they weird? Right, 0:51:55.480 --> 0:52:00.920 because they're not weird. It's just like, what explains the difference? Yeah, yeah, exactly, 0:52:01.320 --> 0:52:04.239 I mean all of it, all of it's weird, right, Well, 0:52:04.239 --> 0:52:07.680 of course, yeah it is weird, and that everyone's weird. Yeah. 0:52:07.719 --> 0:52:10.279 But then this last explanation that they gave as a 0:52:10.280 --> 0:52:13.399 possible reason here I thought was very interesting. They say 0:52:13.440 --> 0:52:17.879 that precision pointing is less necessary when it's accompanied by 0:52:18.040 --> 0:52:22.880 languages that offer more precision in terms of spatial location 0:52:23.000 --> 0:52:27.719 with words alone. And this is a really interesting possibility. 0:52:27.760 --> 0:52:30.960 It could have to do specifically with the Yepno language. 0:52:31.080 --> 0:52:34.680 They say that the Yepno language quote boasts a highly 0:52:34.719 --> 0:52:41.640 elaborated demonstrative system involving uphill downhill distinctions and a three 0:52:41.680 --> 0:52:47.520 way distance contrast. Such spatially specific demonstratives were used pervasively 0:52:47.600 --> 0:52:50.279 by yep No speakers in our task, whereas U S 0:52:50.280 --> 0:52:54.919 speakers only had the comparatively blunt English demonstratives. Of this 0:52:55.160 --> 0:52:59.319 versus that to work with speakers of languages that habitually 0:52:59.360 --> 0:53:03.879 provide increased spatial precision in their spoken demonstratives, such as 0:53:03.960 --> 0:53:07.239 yup know might have less need for spatial precision in 0:53:07.320 --> 0:53:12.879 the pointing gestures that often accompany those demonstratives. So it 0:53:12.880 --> 0:53:15.200 it may be that it's the fact that the yup 0:53:15.280 --> 0:53:19.480 No language apparently has a richer, more elaborate, and more 0:53:19.560 --> 0:53:24.400 specific lexicon of words and sort of spatial grammar for 0:53:24.520 --> 0:53:28.720 indicating exactly where and what kind of object you're talking about, 0:53:29.040 --> 0:53:32.200 So precision in pointing is less necessary because you can 0:53:32.320 --> 0:53:35.680 point more with words than you can in English. Oh, 0:53:35.760 --> 0:53:38.920 now that is interesting. Uh And and this highlights and 0:53:38.960 --> 0:53:41.759 other things very interesting about different languages, the way that 0:53:42.360 --> 0:53:46.480 space is conceptualized differently in different languages. Yup know is 0:53:46.520 --> 0:53:49.120 an example here where I was looking at some other 0:53:49.480 --> 0:53:53.520 writings about this language that has uh he the study 0:53:53.560 --> 0:53:57.600 mentioned this, this distinction between uphill and downhill. Apparently that's 0:53:57.640 --> 0:54:00.680 just like a common thing for representing all kinds of 0:54:00.680 --> 0:54:03.640 spaces that in English we would not usually think of 0:54:03.680 --> 0:54:07.560 as uphill or downhill. But say, like within a house, 0:54:08.440 --> 0:54:10.840 the door is I don't remember which way it was, 0:54:10.920 --> 0:54:14.120 but like you would just naturally conceptualize the door as 0:54:14.160 --> 0:54:17.600 either uphill or downhill of the rest of the house. 0:54:17.960 --> 0:54:20.600 And there are just lots of other like implicit slope 0:54:20.680 --> 0:54:24.799 associations for describing space that they give them all these 0:54:24.840 --> 0:54:28.040 different ways to sort of specify exactly what region they're 0:54:28.040 --> 0:54:31.640 talking about that are not conventional in English. So it's 0:54:31.640 --> 0:54:35.879 all just a good reminder that that pointing, gesticulation, these 0:54:35.880 --> 0:54:38.319 things do not exist in a vacuum. They exist, of course, 0:54:38.360 --> 0:54:42.440 within a culture, but they also exist alongside language. And 0:54:42.520 --> 0:54:45.960 we have to, you know, consider how spoken language UH 0:54:46.600 --> 0:54:51.520 is involved in cultural tendencies. Right, exactly what you can 0:54:51.600 --> 0:54:54.400 do with language influences what you need what you need 0:54:54.440 --> 0:54:56.799 to accomplish with pointing, and vice versa. What you can 0:54:56.840 --> 0:54:59.720 do with pointing can also influence what kind of words 0:54:59.760 --> 0:55:02.480 you need to use, and so there's definitely a codependent 0:55:02.560 --> 0:55:05.399 kind of feedback system going on there. Right on that note, 0:55:05.400 --> 0:55:07.440 we're going to take one more quick break, but when 0:55:07.480 --> 0:55:13.880 we come back, we're going to discuss technology. Thank alright, 0:55:13.920 --> 0:55:16.560 we're back. So we've been talking about pointing, and now 0:55:16.600 --> 0:55:20.400 we wanted to make the transition to digital technology. Yeah, 0:55:20.400 --> 0:55:25.480 digital because we're talking about digits, right, Um, I do 0:55:25.640 --> 0:55:28.080 I do think it's interesting that we see this emphasis 0:55:28.120 --> 0:55:31.640 on pointing continue on through our technology. So if we 0:55:31.680 --> 0:55:33.920 if we think of the finger is our base system 0:55:34.000 --> 0:55:37.720 for this sort of activity. Then the next obvious place 0:55:38.320 --> 0:55:42.160 is just simple tool use right, a stick or an 0:55:42.160 --> 0:55:44.840 otherwise specialized tool, So I just say a knife or 0:55:44.840 --> 0:55:47.759 even a sword or a spear or something, or for 0:55:47.800 --> 0:55:50.120 a more modern example of something like a chalk piece 0:55:50.160 --> 0:55:52.760 of chalk, or or a marker for a marker board. 0:55:52.960 --> 0:55:55.960 We end up we can use these things as uh 0:55:56.160 --> 0:56:00.520 pointing implements, or we might depend on a specialized pointer, 0:56:00.880 --> 0:56:04.200 say a a stick that we that serves no other 0:56:04.280 --> 0:56:08.200 real purpose except for pointing at things. Yeah, that's funny. 0:56:08.200 --> 0:56:10.080 I hadn't even really thought about that much in this 0:56:10.080 --> 0:56:12.640 episode yet, but that's huge. Yeah, when the teacher points 0:56:12.640 --> 0:56:15.960 with chalk, that sort of becomes a new finger. Yeah, 0:56:16.000 --> 0:56:19.040 and I mean this also brings in a whole host 0:56:19.120 --> 0:56:23.160 of new considerations we talked about. If pointing is touching, 0:56:23.600 --> 0:56:25.560 then what we are pointing with and how we are 0:56:25.600 --> 0:56:28.799 pointing with our fingers that influences the way that the 0:56:28.840 --> 0:56:32.719 point is received. Likewise, how do we receive it when 0:56:32.760 --> 0:56:36.960 someone points at us or at something we created or 0:56:36.960 --> 0:56:41.440 what have you with a stick or a weapon, or 0:56:41.480 --> 0:56:43.640 a piece of chalk or a marker or even a 0:56:43.640 --> 0:56:48.640 specialized pointer. How does that alter our relationship between ourselves 0:56:48.680 --> 0:56:52.839 and others, between ourselves and things in our environment. So 0:56:53.160 --> 0:56:57.359 we've all seen a designated pointer before. Uh. They can 0:56:57.400 --> 0:56:59.520 be simple that, they can be ornate, they can be 0:56:59.560 --> 0:57:03.360 made out of would they might be metallic and telescopic 0:57:03.440 --> 0:57:06.840 in construction. Uh. You know frequently you'll see these used 0:57:07.040 --> 0:57:11.279 during presentations, right when one is presenting material on a blackboard, 0:57:11.600 --> 0:57:14.319 a marker board, or some sort of a map. Yeah, 0:57:14.320 --> 0:57:16.640 it's often in the scene in movies where the masters 0:57:16.680 --> 0:57:19.040 of war looking at a map to you know, talk 0:57:19.080 --> 0:57:21.400 about some kind of battle or advance or something, and 0:57:21.400 --> 0:57:25.080 they've got that telescoping metal pointer. I've never had one 0:57:25.080 --> 0:57:27.040 of those. Would be cool to have one. They always 0:57:27.040 --> 0:57:30.080 look really cool, don't they. But but of course, in 0:57:30.120 --> 0:57:32.760 all this we also get into this gray area of 0:57:32.760 --> 0:57:37.360 of not only ancient pointing, but items of indication. So 0:57:37.520 --> 0:57:41.200 consider the scepter, for example, which traditionally is, you know, 0:57:41.240 --> 0:57:43.280 accept is the thing you hold in your hand that 0:57:43.440 --> 0:57:47.560 may not have any other real world purpose to it. 0:57:47.560 --> 0:57:51.560 It indicates status, it indicates power, and there have been 0:57:51.560 --> 0:57:54.760 connections to traditions as for instance, in some cultures, a 0:57:54.800 --> 0:57:58.880 shepherd's crook is considered to be a possible predecessor to 0:57:59.040 --> 0:58:02.920 the scepter. It's something that indicates status in a in 0:58:03.120 --> 0:58:05.600 you know, in an actual trade, and then that carries 0:58:05.640 --> 0:58:09.120 over into some sort of a a regal role, uh 0:58:09.120 --> 0:58:12.760 In in other cultures, connections have been made between a 0:58:12.960 --> 0:58:16.760 holy scepter and a backscratcher. So here's the thing that 0:58:16.840 --> 0:58:19.080 had a purpose, but now it has become this thing 0:58:19.120 --> 0:58:23.320 that is more about just a signifier of status. This 0:58:23.400 --> 0:58:25.440 thing about the scepter is making me think back to 0:58:25.480 --> 0:58:27.960 that William Blake painting we talked about in the last 0:58:28.000 --> 0:58:30.880 episode where God is judging at him and he's pointing 0:58:30.920 --> 0:58:33.720 at him, and if you look closely it it appears 0:58:33.720 --> 0:58:36.320 he's holding some kind of wander scepter in his hand 0:58:36.360 --> 0:58:41.040 that extends out to Adam's head basically, but it's kind 0:58:41.040 --> 0:58:42.680 of hard for me to see the scepter. It just 0:58:42.720 --> 0:58:45.360 looks like his finger or some kind of ray of 0:58:45.480 --> 0:58:50.000 light is extending out and going straight into Adam's skull. Yeah. Yeah, 0:58:50.200 --> 0:58:53.440 And this we are getting into the idea of the rod, 0:58:53.640 --> 0:58:57.600 the verge, and of course the wand so in addition 0:58:57.640 --> 0:59:00.880 to any magical powers we might attribute to a rod 0:59:01.000 --> 0:59:03.760 or a verrg or wand we're ultimately talking about a 0:59:03.800 --> 0:59:08.200 stick that can be used for reaching, for pointing, for 0:59:08.360 --> 0:59:12.240 drawing in the dust and sand, for directing people about. 0:59:12.800 --> 0:59:14.640 So you know, when you really start to think about 0:59:14.640 --> 0:59:18.200 all those specialized uses for it, it actually sounds pretty 0:59:18.240 --> 0:59:21.120 magical in its own right. Again, this is an object 0:59:21.200 --> 0:59:23.600 that you you point at somebody with it, and you 0:59:23.680 --> 0:59:26.480 instantly command their attention, and then you point across the 0:59:26.560 --> 0:59:29.480 room and you can instantly draw their attention from themselves 0:59:29.480 --> 0:59:33.480 to that. You can use it to create um images 0:59:33.520 --> 0:59:37.640 of the world in the dust, or to inscribe symbolic 0:59:37.800 --> 0:59:40.400 meaning into the dust. Like, this is a pretty magical item. 0:59:40.440 --> 0:59:43.160 You don't even need to have lightning bolts coming out 0:59:43.160 --> 0:59:45.000 of it. Yeah, I mean, we talked in the last 0:59:45.040 --> 0:59:47.640 episode about how pointing is a form of much alike 0:59:47.720 --> 0:59:50.280 language is a form of mind control. We don't often 0:59:50.320 --> 0:59:54.120 appreciate this, but like, uh, there's some studies that show 0:59:54.160 --> 0:59:57.720 that pointing is nearly irresistible. When somebody points, you just 0:59:57.800 --> 1:00:00.800 kind of have to look. It's really hard to resist 1:00:00.800 --> 1:00:04.840 that temptation, and it just captures your mind that way. Yeah, 1:00:04.880 --> 1:00:09.040 And so there's a long tradition of magical items that 1:00:09.120 --> 1:00:12.000 are used in pointed for pointing in both mythology and 1:00:12.080 --> 1:00:15.120 then of course later in fiction. But for an old 1:00:15.160 --> 1:00:18.960 example this consider in the Iliad Homer rights of the 1:00:19.000 --> 1:00:23.000 gods in their magical rods, specifically the rods of Hermes, 1:00:23.040 --> 1:00:28.120 Athena and Searcy. So these are magical items or items 1:00:28.120 --> 1:00:30.880 of focus through which they work their power. Something you 1:00:30.960 --> 1:00:33.600 might point at, say a bunch of sailors, and then 1:00:33.600 --> 1:00:37.760 turn them into pigs with almost Maybe I'm getting too metaphorical, 1:00:37.800 --> 1:00:39.640 but it almost mirrors the way that you can turn 1:00:39.760 --> 1:00:42.600 somebody into a pig by controlling their attention in the 1:00:42.680 --> 1:00:45.240 right way. You know you can. You can really kind 1:00:45.240 --> 1:00:48.080 of alter somebody's nature by making them pay attention to 1:00:48.120 --> 1:00:51.440 what you want them to pay attention to exactly. Uh, 1:00:51.640 --> 1:00:54.280 here's a fun example to Pointers can also be quite 1:00:54.360 --> 1:00:58.120 sacred in addition to or innate, So consider the the 1:00:58.200 --> 1:01:01.880 odd a ceremonial pointer, also known as a torah pointer, 1:01:02.320 --> 1:01:05.640 which in Jewish ritual is a means of following the 1:01:05.680 --> 1:01:09.840 text in a in a parchment torah scroll during a 1:01:09.920 --> 1:01:13.240 reading um. Part part of the practice is simply about 1:01:13.280 --> 1:01:15.800 following lines of texts as you read them, But there's 1:01:15.840 --> 1:01:19.200 also both a supernatural aspect to it and a in 1:01:19.200 --> 1:01:22.280 a mundane aspect. So one idea is this is a 1:01:22.360 --> 1:01:26.000 holy text and we should not besmirch it or corrupt 1:01:26.040 --> 1:01:29.360 it or take away its purity by physically touching it. 1:01:29.840 --> 1:01:35.160 But also, uh, parchments are susceptible to damage via human fingers, 1:01:35.280 --> 1:01:38.480 via via the oil or other substances on human fingers, 1:01:38.760 --> 1:01:41.840 and therefore it makes sense to reduce the amount of 1:01:41.880 --> 1:01:45.560 contact that one has with a valuable text like this. 1:01:46.000 --> 1:01:48.720 And so this is where the torah pointer comes in. 1:01:49.160 --> 1:01:53.280 They're typically made of silver, but sometimes other substances are used. Um. 1:01:53.520 --> 1:01:56.760 And you'll often find this, uh, this, this wand that's 1:01:56.800 --> 1:01:59.680 basically it's a short wand or rod and it is 1:01:59.720 --> 1:02:03.600 off and capped with a small hand, a small human 1:02:03.680 --> 1:02:10.040 hand with an index finger extended. This feels very interesting. 1:02:10.200 --> 1:02:12.760 Something is going on here, yeah, with the wandes and 1:02:12.760 --> 1:02:15.480 and the kind of magical power we imbued to the 1:02:15.480 --> 1:02:19.200 finger pointing, especially within a religion where a text itself 1:02:19.280 --> 1:02:23.360 takes on such a sacred dimension that like, um, I 1:02:23.360 --> 1:02:26.280 wonder if having a little pointing object in this way 1:02:26.680 --> 1:02:31.280 is almost like itself an act of of bowing before 1:02:31.360 --> 1:02:34.720 the text or kind of like showing reverence. Yeah, yeah, 1:02:34.720 --> 1:02:36.360 it's it's it's it makes me want to do a 1:02:36.360 --> 1:02:38.480 deeper dive or or talk to somebody with with more 1:02:38.520 --> 1:02:42.560 experience and um uh, you know judaic custom and um 1:02:42.680 --> 1:02:45.960 inhibriic ritual. But because because I mean the other side 1:02:45.960 --> 1:02:48.480 of it too is of course, when one is traditionally reading, 1:02:49.040 --> 1:02:51.040 many of you out there listening may do this as well. 1:02:51.280 --> 1:02:54.280 You may take your index finger and use it to read. 1:02:54.440 --> 1:02:57.600 You may go line by line with your index finger 1:02:57.800 --> 1:03:00.920 physically touching the paper. Now Here the question I've never 1:03:00.960 --> 1:03:04.680 actually considered. I always just assumed that using of the 1:03:04.680 --> 1:03:08.960 index finger assists in reading comprehension, that people do that 1:03:09.040 --> 1:03:11.760 because it makes it easier to keep your place and 1:03:11.840 --> 1:03:15.200 follow along. I still, I guess assume that's probably true. 1:03:15.240 --> 1:03:18.480 But is that the case? Is it? Is it actually 1:03:18.520 --> 1:03:21.160 practically useful to do that, or is that something that 1:03:21.200 --> 1:03:24.160 we do out of instinct even though it doesn't affect 1:03:24.160 --> 1:03:27.280 how our reading comprehension. I don't know. I've never I've 1:03:27.320 --> 1:03:29.520 never studied it. There may be, may may well be 1:03:29.560 --> 1:03:31.880 studies about it. I main my main experience with it 1:03:31.880 --> 1:03:33.440 it was, I know, a thing that I used to 1:03:33.480 --> 1:03:36.280 do either with my finger or with like a bookmark, 1:03:37.000 --> 1:03:39.120 and I was kind of encouraged not to do that, 1:03:39.280 --> 1:03:41.040 or you know, it's just the idea was presented that 1:03:41.320 --> 1:03:45.960 it's better better to read without those kind of uh aids, 1:03:46.800 --> 1:03:48.400 and then I kind of fell out of it and 1:03:48.600 --> 1:03:50.080 like then got to the point where I didn't need 1:03:50.120 --> 1:03:53.560 it anyway. So yeah, I I I don't do that myself, 1:03:54.360 --> 1:03:56.400 but I don't know. Perhaps that there are people who 1:03:56.480 --> 1:03:58.520 still read by that, they swear by it and do 1:03:58.560 --> 1:04:01.520 that their whole lives. Yeah, that's an interesting question to me. Now, 1:04:01.560 --> 1:04:03.920 maybe we can look for studies about that. Yeah, I mean, 1:04:03.960 --> 1:04:05.840 typography is also going to be a factor in all 1:04:05.880 --> 1:04:08.200 of this, too, right, I mean, depending on how the 1:04:08.240 --> 1:04:10.439 words are laid out, it may be easier to read 1:04:10.480 --> 1:04:14.320 certain text without, um some sort of pointing implement, whereas 1:04:14.360 --> 1:04:18.640 if you're dealing with a traditional uh you know, holy scroll, Uh, 1:04:18.680 --> 1:04:21.680 it may just be easier to to use some sort 1:04:21.680 --> 1:04:24.200 of pointing implement to follow your way through it. That 1:04:24.240 --> 1:04:27.000 makes sense. Now, we've already touched on the laser pointer, 1:04:27.160 --> 1:04:30.440 which continues this tradition into the twentieth century and beyond. 1:04:30.840 --> 1:04:33.960 But we also have to consider as we reach the 1:04:34.040 --> 1:04:38.000 end here. The pointer or cursor on a computer, which 1:04:38.240 --> 1:04:41.720 much like the odd is often presented as a hand 1:04:41.920 --> 1:04:45.880 with an index finger outstretched. Sometimes it's an arrow, of course, 1:04:45.880 --> 1:04:49.080 but other times, or at least in some functions, um 1:04:49.120 --> 1:04:52.600 of the cursor it becomes an index finger. And while 1:04:52.680 --> 1:04:57.040 a computer mouse is obviously not necessary to control a cursor, 1:04:57.120 --> 1:04:59.400 we have other means of controlling it. The mouse is 1:04:59.440 --> 1:05:02.440 an extreme only common interface. And in fact, I was 1:05:02.520 --> 1:05:06.200 reading a two thousand nine Scientific American article by Larry 1:05:06.680 --> 1:05:10.920 Greenmeyer titled the Origin of the Computer Mouse, and the 1:05:11.040 --> 1:05:13.560 author refers to the mouse. He may have been quoting 1:05:13.600 --> 1:05:15.880 someone here, but he refers to the mouse as a 1:05:15.960 --> 1:05:19.360 pointing device. Well, yeah, I think there's some very interesting 1:05:19.400 --> 1:05:23.440 implied psychology going on here with with user design and 1:05:23.440 --> 1:05:26.440 and and the pointing gesture. So when you're pointing on 1:05:26.480 --> 1:05:29.320 a screen, you you might be pointing for the benefit 1:05:29.320 --> 1:05:31.680 of a third party, but you're often not, like you're 1:05:31.680 --> 1:05:34.720 often just by yourself looking at the screen. And yet 1:05:34.800 --> 1:05:37.280 you've got to have this thing to identify where it 1:05:37.320 --> 1:05:40.360 is you want to interact on the screen. And and 1:05:40.400 --> 1:05:42.720 one thing that that seems very interesting to me, is 1:05:42.760 --> 1:05:46.840 that it the pointer, the mouse pointer. In most cases, 1:05:46.880 --> 1:05:50.440 to me, it seems that the the little pointer arrow 1:05:50.560 --> 1:05:54.160 turns into the finger pointing out with the index finger 1:05:54.560 --> 1:05:57.560 when you're ready to click a link on a web page. 1:05:57.840 --> 1:06:01.120 So when you want to go somewhere else, that's when 1:06:01.160 --> 1:06:04.040 you point with the finger. Yeah. When you want to 1:06:04.120 --> 1:06:08.600 essentially push a button, uh, to to activate something, to 1:06:08.600 --> 1:06:11.560 touch something, that's when the finger comes into play. Oh yeah, 1:06:11.960 --> 1:06:14.160 maybe the going somewhere else is not a significant because 1:06:14.200 --> 1:06:16.880 I think it's buttons too, right, it's also like radiotomical 1:06:16.920 --> 1:06:19.960 buttons and things like that. Yeah. And then likewise, sometimes 1:06:20.000 --> 1:06:22.480 you have like the full hand for grabbing things and 1:06:22.560 --> 1:06:26.560 dragging things around, right, right, that's the that's the imperative 1:06:26.600 --> 1:06:30.400 pointing from from infancy. Yeah, give me that. So anyway, 1:06:30.480 --> 1:06:32.040 bring and bring all this up is kind of just 1:06:32.080 --> 1:06:34.600 a consideration of where we've continued to go and just 1:06:34.720 --> 1:06:40.360 how deeply ingrained uh, pointing and touching with the index finger, 1:06:40.800 --> 1:06:42.640 how how all of that is key to not only 1:06:42.640 --> 1:06:44.920 the human experience, but then the human experience as it 1:06:45.080 --> 1:06:47.959 is it continues to take on the form of technology. 1:06:48.280 --> 1:06:50.920 I'd be very interested to see some more studies about 1:06:50.960 --> 1:06:55.520 how how digital representations of control such as the mouse 1:06:55.600 --> 1:06:59.960 pointer are incorporated into extended body schema that we am at. 1:07:00.080 --> 1:07:02.000 And you know, the same way that we incorporate physical 1:07:02.040 --> 1:07:06.560 tools into our imagination of our extended body. Surely there's 1:07:06.600 --> 1:07:08.720 some degree to which we do that with things that 1:07:08.760 --> 1:07:12.280 are not even in physical space, but they're representational tools 1:07:12.320 --> 1:07:15.280 on a screen. Yeah. Yeah, to remind everybody, body schema 1:07:15.360 --> 1:07:19.200 is basically your mental idea of what your body is, 1:07:19.240 --> 1:07:22.760 what its limits are, and when we engage in tool use, 1:07:23.240 --> 1:07:26.520 we update our body schema. So if one you know, 1:07:26.560 --> 1:07:28.520 you might have heard the saying, it's like, okay, this 1:07:28.560 --> 1:07:31.080 tool becomes an extension of my body. The sword becomes 1:07:31.080 --> 1:07:33.400 an extension of my body. That is very much what 1:07:33.520 --> 1:07:36.200 is happening when it when a sword or some other 1:07:36.280 --> 1:07:40.240 kind of tool is incorporated into our body schema. All right, 1:07:40.280 --> 1:07:42.200 well there you have it. Our two part look at 1:07:42.280 --> 1:07:45.320 pointing in our you know, attempts to to unravel some 1:07:45.440 --> 1:07:47.880 of like what it is, where it comes from, how 1:07:47.880 --> 1:07:50.560 it varies from culture to culture, and how it how 1:07:50.600 --> 1:07:53.280 it applies to animals, and how it is or is 1:07:53.320 --> 1:07:56.760 not incorporated in our technology. So obviously we'd love to 1:07:56.760 --> 1:07:59.720 hear from everyone about this topic. Everyone out there has has, 1:08:00.080 --> 1:08:02.760 uh you know, a lot of experience with the world 1:08:02.840 --> 1:08:06.400 of pointing or being pointed at, or digitally gesticulating with 1:08:06.440 --> 1:08:08.960 your hands, trying to point things out to your dog 1:08:09.040 --> 1:08:12.040 or your cat, or your horse, whatever you know, whatever 1:08:12.080 --> 1:08:15.320 animal you have interacted with. We would love to hear 1:08:15.640 --> 1:08:18.960 your experience. We'd love to hear about your details. Um 1:08:19.000 --> 1:08:21.280 in the meantime, well, first of all, we just hope 1:08:21.280 --> 1:08:25.040 everybody's doing well out there. Everybody's being kind to each 1:08:25.080 --> 1:08:28.040 other out there. And if you want to support our show, 1:08:28.439 --> 1:08:30.439 the best thing you can do is uh well, tell 1:08:30.479 --> 1:08:34.440 people about it, but also rate, review and subscribe wherever 1:08:34.680 --> 1:08:37.640 you get this podcast huge things as always to our 1:08:37.680 --> 1:08:40.720 excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like 1:08:40.800 --> 1:08:42.559 to get in touch with us with feedback on this 1:08:42.600 --> 1:08:45.000 episode or any other to suggest a topic for the future, 1:08:45.160 --> 1:08:48.160 just to say hi, you can email us at contact 1:08:48.240 --> 1:08:58.160 at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to 1:08:58.160 --> 1:09:00.680 Blow Your Mind. 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