Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: today I wanted to talk a bit about pointing. I
Speaker 1: think the episodes that we recently did on Medusa really
Speaker 1: got me in the mind to think about the power
Speaker 1: of pointing with a finger, because when we talked about
Speaker 1: Medusa recently, you know, we ended up spending a lot
Speaker 1: of time thinking about like what what a gaze means,
Speaker 1: What it means, you know, to imagine this kind of
Speaker 1: ray emerging from the eyes as you look at someone,
Speaker 1: and the and the mystical power that ancient people seem
Speaker 1: to think that had. But there's a counterpart to that,
Speaker 1: which is the pointing finger or the pointing hand. It
Speaker 1: almost seems like it's the sort of celestial twin of
Speaker 1: the of the powerful gaze. Yeah, and if you if
Speaker 1: you followed us in those Medusa episodes and and followed
Speaker 1: our discussion of of what it is to gaze, it's
Speaker 1: something to be gazed at. To have our you know,
Speaker 1: attention focused in such a way, then I think you
Speaker 1: you have a you're in a better place to then contemplate,
Speaker 1: uh pointing this, uh, this extra layer of complexity with
Speaker 1: human attention. Yeah, I agree. So in fact, I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, if you haven't listened to our Medusa episodes yet,
Speaker 1: you'll probably get more out of this one if you
Speaker 1: go and listen to those first. Though you don't have
Speaker 1: to write, I would recommend it. So yeah, let's get
Speaker 1: right into it. Uh. In the spirit this is actually
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things to do on the show,
Speaker 1: is just to take something that's so familiar it's invisible
Speaker 1: to us and try to figure out again what's strange
Speaker 1: about it that. That's where I want to start with
Speaker 1: pointing um, because I think it's easy to miss how
Speaker 1: weird and versatile and ingenious the pointing gesture is. It's
Speaker 1: one of those miracles of nature that the usually remains
Speaker 1: invisible to us until it fails. I love how the
Speaker 1: brain works like that, like you don't see it until
Speaker 1: it doesn't work, because it almost always works. And one
Speaker 1: of the ways for me that it fails most often
Speaker 1: is when I try to use it with my dog.
Speaker 1: Now there is evidence actually, and we can talk about
Speaker 1: this later in the episode, that sometimes domestic dogs can
Speaker 1: understand pointing gestures, and I was testing it out a
Speaker 1: good bit with my dog Charlie the other day. I
Speaker 1: would say, occasionally he sort of seems to to to
Speaker 1: follow a pointing gesture, but it's very rare. Most of
Speaker 1: the time he definitely does not get it. And when
Speaker 1: I extend my finger to point something out to him,
Speaker 1: Charlie doesn't look in the direction that I'm pointing. He
Speaker 1: looks at my hand because I think most of the time,
Speaker 1: to to him and his dog's brain, there is no
Speaker 1: such thing as pointing. The outstretched hand and finger is
Speaker 1: simply a currently active part of my body I might
Speaker 1: be about to use. Is it to feed him or
Speaker 1: to pet him, you know, activities that interest him, but
Speaker 1: the activity does not seem to indicate anything beyond my body.
Speaker 1: And it's this kind of failure that makes you appreciate
Speaker 1: how strange and amazing pointing actually is. Uh So, probably
Speaker 1: the most basic definition of pointing, I would say, is
Speaker 1: it's a movement of the body in the direction of
Speaker 1: a target that draws the attention of an audience to
Speaker 1: that target. But beyond that, I think it's also interesting
Speaker 1: because pointing projects the reach of the body in imaginary space.
Speaker 1: I can extend my hand and instantly cause you, not
Speaker 1: not just invite you to, but sort of cause you,
Speaker 1: even against your own will, to imagine an invisible geometric
Speaker 1: vector stretching out from my fingertips to the target. And
Speaker 1: isn't that actually so strange? Yeah, it reminds me of Futurama.
Speaker 1: Dr Farnsworth. One of his many inventions is the thing Longler,
Speaker 1: which is this, uh, basically just this super long finger
Speaker 1: that goes on your hand so you can you can
Speaker 1: touch things and point at things from from further away.
Speaker 1: But like, in a sense, pointing is the thing Longler.
Speaker 1: It is the original thing longer. Uh and so you
Speaker 1: know it's it's that's one of the things that makes
Speaker 1: the invention of the thing Longer all the more ridiculous
Speaker 1: and uh and and comedic, because we already do this
Speaker 1: when we point at something, right, Yeah, we do it
Speaker 1: through the imagination and it's there. There's a constant triangulation
Speaker 1: that that goes on when you're engaging in pointing between
Speaker 1: the pointer and the the audience and then the thing
Speaker 1: being pointed at. It's one of the reasons that, in
Speaker 1: a in a weird kind of way, laser pointers, like
Speaker 1: as used in classrooms always felt kind of crass and
Speaker 1: unholy to me. I think I didn't pick up on
Speaker 1: the reasoning at the time, But you know, what is
Speaker 1: it that seems kind of like just gross about using
Speaker 1: a laser pointer to point at ings on a projector chalkboard.
Speaker 1: It's like you're eliminating the triangle now, the indication is
Speaker 1: all just happening at the thing you're looking at. You know.
Speaker 1: I never thought that way about laser pointers. I guess
Speaker 1: I always had they were kind of neat because my
Speaker 1: comparison was always the Terminator films, where he had the
Speaker 1: laser side on a gun. So anytime anytime a teacher
Speaker 1: busted out a laser pointer, I was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's like Terminator, this is awesome. I guess I would
Speaker 1: have gone more to Predator because Predator has got a
Speaker 1: laser pointer two right. Oh yeah, it's got the triple
Speaker 1: laser pointer um, which is also awesome. But but I
Speaker 1: think I think my first exposure to the technology was
Speaker 1: the laser site that the Terminator uses. Oh you know,
Speaker 1: in fact, the Predator takes this elimination of the third
Speaker 1: party in the triangle, uh, to to the ultimate extreme
Speaker 1: because he's got the invisibility cloak on while he projects
Speaker 1: the laser pointer, so you can't even see him. It's
Speaker 1: just the dots. Yeah. Well, here's the subjective mind cirtation.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be taking a few months off to write that,
Speaker 1: but anyway, so I want to come back and think
Speaker 1: about the sort of instinctual grammar of the gesture, of
Speaker 1: how the pointing gesture is applied and how much we
Speaker 1: can communicate with it, often without saying anything at all.
Speaker 1: So maybe the most basic is that you can use pointing,
Speaker 1: of course, to indicate a place you know, you gesture
Speaker 1: and it causes the audience to look there or to
Speaker 1: be suggested to go there. Beyond that, you can indicate
Speaker 1: something that you want right, like imagine a child asking
Speaker 1: for a toy, or imagine, uh, even an adult like
Speaker 1: picking out a food item from behind glass at a
Speaker 1: cafe without any words, just point. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: think this highlights a distinction that comes up when experts
Speaker 1: talk about pointing as an acquired skill in childhood development.
Speaker 1: According to a twelve paper in the journal Cognitive Science
Speaker 1: by Lisztkowski, at all, in every human culture where we've
Speaker 1: ever at this question. With a few neurological exceptions. Human
Speaker 1: infants begin to point at between nine to fourteen months.
Speaker 1: This is often average to say about one year of age,
Speaker 1: but like nine to fourteen months is the average, and
Speaker 1: the authors here called pointing a pre linguistic gestural universal.
Speaker 1: It appears that every culture does it, and children acquire
Speaker 1: it very early, generally before speech. Yeah. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: I've also seen it referred to as like what the
Speaker 1: golden road to language because and having having you know,
Speaker 1: had a child that it couldn't speak yet. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is one of the primary ways the child can of
Speaker 1: course acquire the things it wants. Point at it and
Speaker 1: it will be you know, given unto you, or it
Speaker 1: will be denied you, and you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: emotions will result. But also it's it's key in helping
Speaker 1: them acquire language because then we can point at things
Speaker 1: and let them know what the name is for that,
Speaker 1: what word is associated with that thing. Uh. So it's
Speaker 1: it's very important in both ways, not only their use
Speaker 1: of the point, but their understanding of pointing and others. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this is a fantastic point. Like if oh man,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have so many like pun not in writing
Speaker 1: point like. Then this author makes the point of saying, no,
Speaker 1: they can't do. I know, I was trying to take
Speaker 1: it out of all my notes, but I don't think
Speaker 1: I caught them all, and I'm gonna improvise a few
Speaker 1: horrible ones as we go on, so I apologize in advance. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I think this is a fantastic uh
Speaker 1: uh suggestion you make here about it being the bridge
Speaker 1: to language and uh in serving this mediating role because
Speaker 1: in childhood development there appear to be two very importantly
Speaker 1: different types of pointing, and these are known as imperative
Speaker 1: pointing versus declarative pointing. So to sort those out, imperative
Speaker 1: pointing is usually acquired earlier. It comes first, And to
Speaker 1: quote a two thousand four paper by Lund University philosopher
Speaker 1: Ingar brink Um, she says a quote, imperative pointing involves
Speaker 1: a conception of the other as a self propelling, causal
Speaker 1: agent that one can influence to do something for oneself
Speaker 1: by gesturing. So imperative pointing is typified by the give
Speaker 1: me that pointing. This kind of pointing tends to come
Speaker 1: first where you it's a kind of ritualized retrieving activity.
Speaker 1: You point toward the thing you want to cause the agent,
Speaker 1: generally the adult, to give it to you. But then
Speaker 1: what follows from that is to pick up again from
Speaker 1: from brinks writing a declarative pointing. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: declarative pointing is defined as the pre verbal effort to
Speaker 1: direct the adults attention to some event or object in
Speaker 1: the world. Uh. And this thing I was quoting from
Speaker 1: was published in Cognitive Science Quarterly in two thousand four.
Speaker 1: So whereas the imperative pointing is typified give me that pointing,
Speaker 1: you're trying to affect the adult to do an action
Speaker 1: to bring you something or something like that, the declarative
Speaker 1: pointing comes later and is characterized as look at that pointing.
Speaker 1: It's an explicit attempt to control someone else's attention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think it is key. I noticed a number
Speaker 1: of of authors who are looking at here talking about
Speaker 1: pointing not merely as suggestion but is in but as control,
Speaker 1: as demanding of intention, commanding of intention. And I think
Speaker 1: that's important because we, you know, we're often kind of
Speaker 1: even if we we're thinking about pointing at things with
Speaker 1: our finger, which is will discussed later, is is you know,
Speaker 1: often thought of as being perhaps less than polite. Uh,
Speaker 1: sometimes we're very polite in our analysis of of what
Speaker 1: it is to point. And I do think when we
Speaker 1: when we are engaging in this kind of pointing, there
Speaker 1: is a there is a force behind it, there is
Speaker 1: a demand, there is a control. Like it is, I
Speaker 1: mean when it when as anyone ever pointed at something
Speaker 1: and and and you find yourself not following that finger
Speaker 1: to the to the object that they're referring to, like
Speaker 1: we cannot help it. I think you're exactly correct. And
Speaker 1: the idea that pointing, much like language, once you've acquired
Speaker 1: the ability to understand these gestures or these signs or symbols,
Speaker 1: it becomes not just an invitation to engage in communication
Speaker 1: with someone, but it's it's irresistible. The same way that
Speaker 1: if I say orangutan, you have no choice. But now
Speaker 1: I said that word and an orangutan came into your mind,
Speaker 1: and you didn't have the ability to say no, I
Speaker 1: won't process that word, and I won't think of an orangutan.
Speaker 1: It just happens, whether you want it to or not.
Speaker 1: The same thing appears to be true, or at least
Speaker 1: pretty pretty close to us true with pointing, whereas you know,
Speaker 1: it's just this totally irresistible thing you cannot help but
Speaker 1: imagine when somebody points that vector coming out of their
Speaker 1: hand and have your attention thus lead direct did Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh my goodness, that guy does have two
Speaker 1: thumbs and he loves to party. Granted, that's thumb pointing,
Speaker 1: but but I think a similar effect takes place. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So while index finger pointing, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk more about this as we go on. While index
Speaker 1: finger pointing does appear to be very common around the world,
Speaker 1: there there are tons of different kinds of pointing. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be the index finger. It's whatever you
Speaker 1: part of your body you use to indicate a vector
Speaker 1: to direct somebody's attention. We're gonna look at one study
Speaker 1: about a very interesting type of nose pointing. But just
Speaker 1: to come back to the power of pointing, I think
Speaker 1: one thing that's very interesting is that you can go
Speaker 1: beyond all this that we've already talked about. They'll like,
Speaker 1: you know, look at that, go there, give me that
Speaker 1: kind of pointing. One utility that's extremely versatile is that
Speaker 1: you can also use pointing to slot in concepts to
Speaker 1: build sentences within an implied structure or grammar. So easy
Speaker 1: way of conceptualizing this is think about the different ways
Speaker 1: that pointing can be used. If you're playing charades, you
Speaker 1: can point at something to indicate that that thing you're
Speaker 1: pointing at is the subject of a phrase or that
Speaker 1: is similar to the subject of a phrase. You can
Speaker 1: point at something to suggest that it's state or activity
Speaker 1: or properties fills the role of a verb or an
Speaker 1: adjective in a target phrase. And then you can even
Speaker 1: you can like point at a player to indicate that
Speaker 1: the guests they've just made is correct or on the
Speaker 1: right track. It's an affirmation. So you can essentially you
Speaker 1: can build a grammar, you can build a lexicon, you
Speaker 1: can build whole sentences out of just pointing gestures interacting
Speaker 1: with the world and with other people. Absolutely, Now I
Speaker 1: want to cite one of my main sources in this episode.
Speaker 1: I was looking around for research on on pointing, and
Speaker 1: one thing I found that was very helpful was a
Speaker 1: really interesting presentation given at a conference at u c
Speaker 1: l A by a you see San Diego cognitive scientists
Speaker 1: named Kin's Cooper, writer who has done a lot of
Speaker 1: research on pointing, and he he gave this presentation at
Speaker 1: this conference that I found video of online called fifteen
Speaker 1: ways of looking at a pointing gesture, And so he
Speaker 1: collected a few more examples of ways that pointing can
Speaker 1: work as a kind of communicative work course. He calls
Speaker 1: it uh that that it just has this incredible power
Speaker 1: in in communication. Like he cites a couple of studies
Speaker 1: from two thousand eleven and finding that more than sixty
Speaker 1: percent of all gestures were pointing gestures. And so he
Speaker 1: goes on to to analyze this question of like, well,
Speaker 1: why is pointing so pervasive them? Why is pointing you know,
Speaker 1: sixty percent or more of all the gestures we do?
Speaker 1: Why doesn't we let it take over so much of
Speaker 1: our communication? And I think he makes some very good points.
Speaker 1: One is that pointing is incredibly efficient. It seems to
Speaker 1: cut out a huge amount of excess communication in terms
Speaker 1: of number of words needed or other gestures that would
Speaker 1: be needed to communicate something. Pointing often has the effect
Speaker 1: of cutting right to the chase of whatever it is
Speaker 1: you're trying to communicate. Yeah, and you can you can
Speaker 1: get a taste for this if you've ever been in
Speaker 1: a situation where, uh, you absolutely cannot point at someone
Speaker 1: or something, but you wish to, through just language, bring
Speaker 1: somebody else's attention to it. Um. It can you often
Speaker 1: find that it is as a drawn out process, and
Speaker 1: it can feel maddening. Like if if you're in a
Speaker 1: situation where you want to indicate something and you can't
Speaker 1: point at it, it feels like you're losing your mind. Yeah, Like, say,
Speaker 1: Kevin Bacon just walked into the same um Burger king
Speaker 1: that you're where you're dining, and you know it would
Speaker 1: be wrong to point at Kevin Bacon, but you really
Speaker 1: want your you're dining um accomplix here too, to know
Speaker 1: that Kevin Bacon is here. Like, what can you do?
Speaker 1: You have to say, all right, look, don't freak out
Speaker 1: or anything, but I want you to Okay, look where
Speaker 1: I just looked. Okay, now look over there again. See that?
Speaker 1: Do you see who I'm looking at? It gets yeah,
Speaker 1: it gets tedious fast. Yeah. Um. So another thing that
Speaker 1: Cooper writer says is that pointing is highly flexible. We've
Speaker 1: already explored this and you're talking about the charades example.
Speaker 1: But um, but you know, he points out that it's
Speaker 1: not just to direct somebody's attention to, you know, a
Speaker 1: thing you want them to look at. It can indicate
Speaker 1: things abstract or imagined. Uh that there's one example that
Speaker 1: we can look at when we look at some paintings
Speaker 1: earlier of da Vinci's John the Baptist pointing up to
Speaker 1: Heaven in his paintings. Now that is an Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is an interesting idea. It's like the pointing up um.
Speaker 1: You see this occasionally used in art, in in various
Speaker 1: other gestures. And we we tend not to follow the
Speaker 1: point that, you know, their fingerpoint. We're not looking up
Speaker 1: to see what are they pointing at? Like there's the
Speaker 1: especially if their gaze is also not skyward. And so
Speaker 1: pointing appears to be highly effective, highly efficient, highly versatile
Speaker 1: as communication. It really works. Children pick it up and
Speaker 1: understand it very early early on. Apparently there's evidence that
Speaker 1: they put more weight on pointing based communication than they
Speaker 1: do on words. And as we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: you know, adults are it's almost impossible to ignore pointing.
Speaker 1: When somebody points, you just look and it has this
Speaker 1: like capture over your brain that is somewhat involuntary. But
Speaker 1: there is also a strange way in which pointing takes
Speaker 1: on a kind of mystical or magical power that transcends
Speaker 1: mere informative or imperative indication, where pointing seems to uh
Speaker 1: to suggest things about relationships that that feel like they
Speaker 1: go deep and they carry emotional heft or they carry
Speaker 1: spiritual indication. So I think maybe next week we should
Speaker 1: look at uh strange and mystical pointing and a few paintings.
Speaker 1: All right, but first let's take a quick break than alright,
Speaker 1: we're back, all right, So we were gonna look at
Speaker 1: uh strange mystical kinds of significance that pointing seems to
Speaker 1: have in a lot of great works of art. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, one thing that I was mentioning this presentation
Speaker 1: by Kensey Cooper writer earlier, and one thing he does
Speaker 1: mention in his presentation is the idea of Leonardo da
Speaker 1: Vinci and uh and pointing in his paintings. And so
Speaker 1: I was reading part of a book by Walter Isaacson
Speaker 1: about Da Vinci's life where he's got a chapter that
Speaker 1: deals a lot with like a phase towards the end
Speaker 1: of Leonardo da Vinci's life where it seems like he
Speaker 1: was painting a lot of stuff that had pointing in it.
Speaker 1: One great example is the painting Saint John the Baptist,
Speaker 1: which was painted some time between fifteen thirteen and fifteen sixteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a very interesting um portrait here of John
Speaker 1: the Baptist. For for one thing, it is it's if
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, whatever you're imagining, Uh, for a
Speaker 1: John the Baptist portrait like this is not it like
Speaker 1: you tend to think of Like when I said, think
Speaker 1: of art that had John the Baptist in it, I
Speaker 1: tend to think of like I bearded head that has
Speaker 1: been cut away from John the Baptist body. You know,
Speaker 1: I tend to think that sort of imagery. And this
Speaker 1: is um a very androgynous image of of of a
Speaker 1: more youthful again androgynous figure. Uh. And it's and he's pointing,
Speaker 1: but he and he's pointing up, but he's not pointing
Speaker 1: up in a way like hey, I'm about to go
Speaker 1: fly in the sky, or hey I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: rain up there. There's a kind of a curve to
Speaker 1: his hand, almost as if he is bending space. Like
Speaker 1: he's like he's pointing not into something within our observable
Speaker 1: physical dimensions, but into some hidden dimension. Yeah, it's very
Speaker 1: strange and interesting painting. I mean, one thing beyond what
Speaker 1: you're saying is that the expression on John the Baptist
Speaker 1: face here is undeniably flirty. Yeah, like like it's being
Speaker 1: very suggestively playful with the viewer. Um. And and so
Speaker 1: he's pointing up like this. The pointing is very clearly
Speaker 1: the center of the painting. It's what the eye is
Speaker 1: immediately drawn to, and it's the gesture. And the painting
Speaker 1: is so overt it almost suggests additional obscure meanings beyond
Speaker 1: the direct reference to John the Baptist biblical role. I mean,
Speaker 1: one way of understanding it is very straightforward is John
Speaker 1: the Baptist and the Gospels. As you know, I'm here
Speaker 1: to to prepare the way of the Lord. I'm here
Speaker 1: to you know, turn people's eyes towards God. But I
Speaker 1: don't know, it seems like there must be something else
Speaker 1: going on. The pointing feels like a spell being cast.
Speaker 1: It does, it really does. I definitely recommend everyone check
Speaker 1: this one out to just really understand what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. Um and I do agree there is this
Speaker 1: kind of flirty aspect to Um. The countenance of John
Speaker 1: the Baptist. Here. I've read that this image in particular
Speaker 1: is often brought up as an example of da Vinci's
Speaker 1: homo erotic leanings in his art um though mainly again
Speaker 1: for this soft and and androgynist nature of the betrayal,
Speaker 1: not so much anything with the pointing. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: fantastic painting either way. It's wonderful to look at, and
Speaker 1: so there's tons of pointing all throughout da Vinci. Actually,
Speaker 1: uh so, you know da Vinci's famous fresco The Last
Speaker 1: Supper depicting the final meal between Jesus and his disciples.
Speaker 1: If you actually look at the detail of it, it's
Speaker 1: crammed with pointing. I think at least four or five
Speaker 1: of the disciples are arguably engaging in some kind of
Speaker 1: pointing in this in this work of art. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting painting to touch on because
Speaker 1: we've we've largely discussed pointing is more or less as
Speaker 1: singular though multipurpose gesture. But in this painting we see
Speaker 1: just a lot of general gesticulation, a lot of characters
Speaker 1: clearly talking with their hands. We have this cool way
Speaker 1: as humans of of treating linguistic concepts like physical concepts
Speaker 1: like waves or fluids, you know, like like our words
Speaker 1: or something in the air that can then be like
Speaker 1: fluffed up or or pushed towards the person that is
Speaker 1: going to hear them. Oh, and that comes through in
Speaker 1: another gesture you see in this painting, which is the
Speaker 1: raised hands defensive posture. I don't remember which disciple that is,
Speaker 1: but one of the disciples has the hands up, palms
Speaker 1: out in you know, it's as a gesture we all
Speaker 1: recognize as the like hey, back off gesture, which is
Speaker 1: often used to deflect pointing. You know, if you get
Speaker 1: if you start pointing a finger at somebody, and we're
Speaker 1: about to talk a bit more about taboos and aggressive pointing,
Speaker 1: but you start pointing a finger at somebody, what do
Speaker 1: they often do the hands go up as if to
Speaker 1: like defend from an incoming lance. Absolutely, yeah. But one
Speaker 1: more interesting Da Vinci painting or actually it's not a
Speaker 1: DaVinci painting, the painting by Raphael the School of Athens,
Speaker 1: which in metaphor I think is supposed to depict Da
Speaker 1: Vinci or Da Vinci's likeness in the figure of Plato. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it shows Plato and Aristotle wandering through the
Speaker 1: through the school where all the young philosophers are and uh,
Speaker 1: Plato or da Vinci in the painting is clearly pointing
Speaker 1: these pointing straight up at the sky. A lot of
Speaker 1: times this has taken to indicate something about Plato's philosophy
Speaker 1: actually right, you know, like pointing to the higher realm
Speaker 1: of forms. But it also could be a reference to
Speaker 1: Da Vinci, who loved a pointing finger in his artwork
Speaker 1: and and seem to think a pointing finger had some
Speaker 1: kind of mystical power. Well, there is kind of a
Speaker 1: mystical power, isn't it When when someone is speaking and
Speaker 1: they have an index finger raised, but they are not pointing.
Speaker 1: It's pointing up, but they're not pointing at the sky,
Speaker 1: like their gaze is not also uh skyward. Uh it
Speaker 1: is not. It's it's it's it's ambiguous because it's they're
Speaker 1: not really they're not pointing it themselves. They're not pointing
Speaker 1: at their own brain, like, listen to these these thoughts
Speaker 1: that are pouring out of my melon. Um. They're not
Speaker 1: pointing at anyone individual, But there's just kind of like
Speaker 1: this general um commanding of attention to the words that
Speaker 1: are being spoken, holding the finger pointed up like that
Speaker 1: while you're speaking. In a way, I mean, not always,
Speaker 1: but in a way it can be kind of like
Speaker 1: holding a loaded gun. It's like I'm standing here ready
Speaker 1: to deploy the pointing gesture to command your attention at
Speaker 1: any moment, and you're on edge waiting for that gesture
Speaker 1: to be deployed, but it doesn't get deployed, so instead
Speaker 1: you're just there. You're in suspense and your attention is wrapped. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's interesting. I thought earlier when you're talking about pointing,
Speaker 1: like how the invention of of the gun, particularly the handgun,
Speaker 1: ends up uh, adjusting how we think about these gesticulations.
Speaker 1: Because if you make if you make guns with your hands, uh,
Speaker 1: and you point them at somebody. Depending on how you
Speaker 1: do it, it can be it can be very playful. Uh.
Speaker 1: It can also be you know, it can be it
Speaker 1: can be a threat. It can be a blatant threat
Speaker 1: against your your life. Uh. There, there's so you know,
Speaker 1: so so much that can be said with just the
Speaker 1: pointing of a finger. Yeah, well, the finger gun. I'd
Speaker 1: say the most common uses are one as a threat
Speaker 1: and two as like hey, that guy pew. If you
Speaker 1: add the pe pew that is always well at least
Speaker 1: generally going to make it a more playful gesture. Um uh.
Speaker 1: There's another one I want to turn to briefly in
Speaker 1: terms of paintings that involve pointing, and that's a couple
Speaker 1: of things by William Blake. So one that I found
Speaker 1: that I thought was amazing is that I was totally
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with it before. But it was painted in sevent
Speaker 1: and it's called God Judging Adam. Or actually I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a painting. It's an etching printed on paper
Speaker 1: from a copper plate, but of course it's William Blake,
Speaker 1: William Blake with all his wonderful, weird alternative theology, and
Speaker 1: the painting depicts God on a fiery throne extending a hand,
Speaker 1: and I think the hand is holding a scepter that's
Speaker 1: that's pointing toward Adam's head while Adam is sort of
Speaker 1: hunched over with his hair hanging all over the place.
Speaker 1: It looks like he doesn't even have arms, but I
Speaker 1: think they're just being obscured by his hair in the painting,
Speaker 1: and there's this like flaming horse behind him. Uh So, Uh,
Speaker 1: I know. God, I think is supposed to be holding
Speaker 1: a scepter in this painting, but instead, to me, it
Speaker 1: just looks like God is pointing with his finger outstretched
Speaker 1: and there's this pure vector of gray power emanating from
Speaker 1: his extended finger into Adam's head. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: see the Farnsworth fing longler in this particular image. That's
Speaker 1: what it looks like God has. But also, old man
Speaker 1: God in this painting, I feel like he is. It
Speaker 1: looks like he is enthroned on the chariot um of Helios.
Speaker 1: It looks like he is on a solar chariot. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Also I think the God in this painting blurs over
Speaker 1: into I don't remember all the details of Blake's idiosyncratic theology,
Speaker 1: but he had this figure of what's it called urism
Speaker 1: or something that is clearly overlapping with what God is
Speaker 1: depicted as here. But yeah, I see the fing Longler thing.
Speaker 1: Now the next image that you have picked out, this
Speaker 1: one is probably going to be the associated image for
Speaker 1: this particular episode if you follow like our Instagram feed.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so this next one is uh one that
Speaker 1: that I was aware of again because a Cooper writer
Speaker 1: used this in his presentation. I thought this was so interesting.
Speaker 1: It's another William Blake painting. This one is called Job
Speaker 1: Rebuked by his Friends. It's from eighty five and Blake
Speaker 1: here is illustrating a scene in the Bible. It's from
Speaker 1: the Book of Job, chapter twelve, verse four, where it's
Speaker 1: uh where you know the poetry says, I am as
Speaker 1: one mocked of his neighbor, who calleth upon God, and
Speaker 1: he answer with him, the just upright man is laughed
Speaker 1: to scorn. So Job is their suffering. So very very
Speaker 1: simple recap of the Book of Job is that Job
Speaker 1: is a righteous man who who fears God, and he's
Speaker 1: very blessed. He's you know, rich, and things are going
Speaker 1: great for him. And the devil says to God, you know,
Speaker 1: why don't you take away everything good he has and
Speaker 1: make his life miserable and then you'll see that he's
Speaker 1: not really your end after all? Job will curse you then,
Speaker 1: so God, So God allows the devil to do that
Speaker 1: to Job. You know, everything is he's lost everything, all
Speaker 1: his children die, all his crops are destroyed and everything.
Speaker 1: And then his friends are here condemning him. That you know,
Speaker 1: the scorn here seems to be coming from job insisting
Speaker 1: that he's actually innocent and he has not sinned, and
Speaker 1: his friends are saying, you know, that's ridiculous. Of course
Speaker 1: you you must have done something wicked since you're being
Speaker 1: punished like this, um. And they're all pointing at him
Speaker 1: with both hands. They're pointing at him while he's there suffering,
Speaker 1: and the pointing seems to be a manifestation of this,
Speaker 1: uh this, you know, kind of supernatural implied guilt and
Speaker 1: malice from God above. Now that's interesting, the pointing with
Speaker 1: both hands, because that's not something I feel like we
Speaker 1: see at least in our our modern pointing culture, unless
Speaker 1: you're talking about the double thumb self referential pointing. But
Speaker 1: in terms of double index fingers, I I don't think
Speaker 1: I have or see that, And when I'm doing I'm
Speaker 1: doing it right now at the laptop as we record this,
Speaker 1: and it feels weird, it feels unnatural. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of cases where I would point with both hands.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would make more sense if I just
Speaker 1: went full pew pew blasters with my fingers like that
Speaker 1: at least feels more in keeping with the way we
Speaker 1: use pointing. Today. But if I'm making like straight up
Speaker 1: look at you fingers, it's it feels strange. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: so shown in this image, I mean there's clear significance
Speaker 1: that pointing has this um dangerous aggressive power to it
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, often we're just pointing at things
Speaker 1: in a way that feels very neutral and and you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't have a lot of emotional valance. But this clearly
Speaker 1: illustrates that pointing can be threatening, can feel dangerous, can
Speaker 1: even feel terrifying, and it well, obviously what just came
Speaker 1: to my mind is is you know that famous image
Speaker 1: from Invasion to the Body Snatchers, where you know, the
Speaker 1: creatures they discover there's somebody who's still human and they
Speaker 1: point and scream um. But but it makes me think
Speaker 1: about how in many cultures, including in modern American culture,
Speaker 1: to varying degrees, there are various taboos around pointing, especially
Speaker 1: at people, but also in various cases, sometimes at certain
Speaker 1: kinds of objects. This has been documented in numerous studies. Uh,
Speaker 1: pointing taboos are not the same everywhere, they're not universal,
Speaker 1: but they are a but there are various kinds of
Speaker 1: pointing taboos found all over the world, and their culturally
Speaker 1: variable in their features and levels of emphasis. So just
Speaker 1: one example of a study about one way pointing taboos
Speaker 1: manifest in a particular culture. I was looking at a
Speaker 1: study published in two thousand one by Sataro Kita and
Speaker 1: James A. Seg B in the journal Gesture called pointing
Speaker 1: Left in Ghana, how a taboo on the use of
Speaker 1: the left hand influences gestural practice And so basically there's
Speaker 1: previously documented evidence that pointing with the left hand was
Speaker 1: considered a taboo among many people in Ghana, and the
Speaker 1: researchers here studied this by going to Ghana and asking
Speaker 1: people on the street in Ghana for directions to somewhere,
Speaker 1: and then documenting what kinds of gestures they used while
Speaker 1: they were giving directions. And so there were several interesting
Speaker 1: findings here. One they observed and apparently common politeness convention,
Speaker 1: that when you know people were being were helping out
Speaker 1: a stranger with directions, they would often place the left
Speaker 1: hand on the lower back as if to hide it uh.
Speaker 1: And then second, as a they say quote as a
Speaker 1: consequence of left hand suppression. Right handed pointing may involve
Speaker 1: an anatomically straining position when indicating a leftward direction across
Speaker 1: the body. So, like they documented these cases where people
Speaker 1: would point with the right hand instead of the left,
Speaker 1: even though positioning of the hand the direction indicated was awkward. Right,
Speaker 1: they have to like point across their own body or something.
Speaker 1: And then finally they observed that quote, pointing is sometimes
Speaker 1: performed with both hands together. This picking up on uh,
Speaker 1: this which does not violate the taboo uh. And I've
Speaker 1: I've definitely seen this kind of gesture in an American context.
Speaker 1: Where as far as I know, there's not a generalized
Speaker 1: taboo against left hand pointing, but there's some other unspoken
Speaker 1: rule of politeness or taboo avoidance that sometimes demands, you know,
Speaker 1: different kinds of pointing. In one way, I think we
Speaker 1: sometimes adapt to that as putting the fingers together in
Speaker 1: the you know, the hands, not pointing with both fingers separately,
Speaker 1: but you know, like weaving the fingers together and pointing
Speaker 1: like that. I've seen that happen in business meetings. But
Speaker 1: the authors here they say, quote, despite the taboo, left
Speaker 1: handed pointing is not suppressed fully. Left handed pointing gestures
Speaker 1: occur in association with the verbalization of the concept left,
Speaker 1: suggesting the embodied nature of the concept. In addition, it
Speaker 1: is noteworthy that there is a class of left handed
Speaker 1: gestures which are so reduced in form that Ghanaians do
Speaker 1: not consider them as pointing for the purpose of the taboo.
Speaker 1: But that's just one example. It's one particular type of
Speaker 1: pointing in a particular culture. There are also these extremely
Speaker 1: broad trends found in many cultures, such as an apparent
Speaker 1: taboo against pointing at human beings with an extended index finger. Yes.
Speaker 1: And this can be of course trying with children because
Speaker 1: because as we we mentioned earlier, like pointing at things
Speaker 1: and people is a key way that they interact with
Speaker 1: the world early on. And so I think we probably
Speaker 1: all have examples from our childhood or you know that
Speaker 1: the childhoods of others where a child points at somebody
Speaker 1: h to ask, you know, a literally a pointed question
Speaker 1: about them, or to you know, to to point them
Speaker 1: out in a way that is inappropriate. Uh, certainly if
Speaker 1: they were an adult. Totally. Yeah, it's it's a thing
Speaker 1: that has to be properly socialized into children, just like
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that it's polite to say or
Speaker 1: not say. Um. And so again this next citation I
Speaker 1: became aware of because it was in Cooper Writer's presentation.
Speaker 1: I thought this was really interesting. So there's a study
Speaker 1: by Finland at All in twenty nineteen which found that
Speaker 1: UM in groups of people from Western cultures, when pointing
Speaker 1: to present people, so as so pointing to the self
Speaker 1: or other persons present in a in a communicating group,
Speaker 1: the whole hand was preferred instead of the standard index finger.
Speaker 1: So these are cultures where pointing with the index finger
Speaker 1: is common, But if you're talking about somebody who's here,
Speaker 1: you point with your whole hand instead of the extended
Speaker 1: index finger. Yeah, your open hand what I think of
Speaker 1: as a behold gesture. Yeah, that's a good way of
Speaker 1: putting it. Uh. So you know, I think if you
Speaker 1: live in the United States or many other countries, you
Speaker 1: can very likely notice this tendency yourself. Like I would say,
Speaker 1: I recognize it. I normally use a finger to point
Speaker 1: at an object or maybe even to point at a
Speaker 1: person who is not within the conversation or you know,
Speaker 1: like a person on a screen on the TV or something.
Speaker 1: But I would use a whole hand with an open
Speaker 1: palm to point to myself for two people in a
Speaker 1: group that I was talking to Pointing with an index
Speaker 1: finger in this context would feel I can feel it
Speaker 1: just imagining it. It would feel aggressive unless done maybe
Speaker 1: in the context of a joke or something. It's got
Speaker 1: it's some kind of mild taboo, and it feels kind
Speaker 1: of threatening and aggressive or transgressive. Yeah, yeah, it certainly does,
Speaker 1: you know. And one thing that comes to mind and
Speaker 1: all this too, is you, Okay, we're talking about gesturing,
Speaker 1: pointing at someone with the open hand, uh, gesturing with
Speaker 1: the index finger. But there's so many other possibilities you
Speaker 1: just do not see. For instance, I've never seen anyone
Speaker 1: point at someone with a closed fist, you know, unless
Speaker 1: they are brandishing a fist at somebody, you know, either
Speaker 1: out of legitimate rage or mocking lee, you know, pretending
Speaker 1: to be angry. But that's still a very different gesture
Speaker 1: that you're not, like, like pointing at somebody with the fist. Uh. Yeah. Actually,
Speaker 1: this is funny because I didn't go into depth in this,
Speaker 1: so I don't have the notes here, but I do
Speaker 1: remember reading and one of the things I was looking
Speaker 1: at that some cultures do use fist pointing for certain
Speaker 1: kinds of pointing in certain scenarios. Interesting Okay, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: so this would be an example where it just comes
Speaker 1: down to cultural differences. Though I do wonder, like, certainly
Speaker 1: we have this ingrained understanding that the closed fist is
Speaker 1: violence or possession, like they're they're sort of intrinsic qualities
Speaker 1: to that uh positioning of the hand. So I wonder
Speaker 1: you know how that plays into their use of very
Speaker 1: picular forms of gesticulation. Yeah, well, I mean, I guess it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's very interesting that like, obviously, if
Speaker 1: you were going to physically attack someone, a fist is
Speaker 1: more dangerous than a single index finger extended. It's like,
Speaker 1: a single index finger extended is not a real attack position, right,
Speaker 1: you know, if you were going to poke somebody like
Speaker 1: or I mean it could be, but like that, that's
Speaker 1: not how you would really hurt somebody bad a fist,
Speaker 1: right to go for the two fingers to do a
Speaker 1: proper stooge style attack, right, Um, And yet I can
Speaker 1: see how the extended finger somehow is symbolically more threatening
Speaker 1: even though it's not physically actually more threatening, because you
Speaker 1: can at least imagine from the extended finger, there's almost
Speaker 1: like an imagined projection of a sharp point as if
Speaker 1: one has a kind of imaginary lance or stick or weapon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could see that interpretation. Another way to potentially look
Speaker 1: at it is if if you're if you're putting a
Speaker 1: fist at me, that's you're treating me like a you're
Speaker 1: treating me more like an enemy. That is, actually you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to actually have to combat. But if it's
Speaker 1: a finger, it's all if you feel it feels far
Speaker 1: more objectifying, like I'm not even a physical entity with
Speaker 1: which you would actually that would actually respond to you,
Speaker 1: Like I'm something on a shelf that you can just
Speaker 1: sort of poke around with your index finger. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: it's but it's so interesting, like why do we have
Speaker 1: that convention, Like I can't see there's anything inherently, you know,
Speaker 1: like a threatening or objectifying about pointing at somebody with
Speaker 1: an index finger. But it feels obviously wrong and and
Speaker 1: and it's just our our intuitions are run through with it. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know. One example, interesting example is like, uh, gestures
Speaker 1: used by politicians like Cooper Wright drew my attention to
Speaker 1: the idea of the you know, the Bill Clinton thumb press.
Speaker 1: If you've seen Bill Clinton gives speeches, he does this
Speaker 1: thing where he has kind of a closed hand with
Speaker 1: a thumb protruding over the top of his curled fingers
Speaker 1: while he talks UM. And apparently this was a suggestion,
Speaker 1: you know, an intentional change in his gestures because when
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, he had advisors who told him that his
Speaker 1: natural tendency to point while talking was perceived by some
Speaker 1: people as aggressive or threatening, so he substituted the kind
Speaker 1: of like like closed fist thumb thing to to blunt
Speaker 1: that potential aggressiveness. Okay, interesting, Yeah, if you if you
Speaker 1: do just an image search for thumb Bill Clinton, um,
Speaker 1: you'll see, of course a lot of examples have been
Speaker 1: given a thumbs up, but you just also see some
Speaker 1: examples of him clearly speaking while gesticulating with his thumb.
Speaker 1: And then also some images, some new but but at
Speaker 1: least some older where he's clearly talking while pointing. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you can pick up on exactly what you're talking about here.
Speaker 1: But again, I mean, it's an it's so interesting that like,
Speaker 1: I agree with you, like the there's no inherent reason
Speaker 1: I can think of why the pointing finger would be
Speaker 1: more threatening than the fist with the um, like the
Speaker 1: fist with the thumb could hurt you more in reality,
Speaker 1: So like there's got to be some like deep symbolic
Speaker 1: association we have with the pointing finger that makes that
Speaker 1: feel like the more dangerous gesture. Yeah. I keep coming
Speaker 1: back to this, this connection between pointing and poking. You know, uh,
Speaker 1: this objectification via poking. Um, I mean pointing is a
Speaker 1: way to instantly draw communal attention to something. It is
Speaker 1: an expedited method of demanding attention be paid, that the
Speaker 1: person UH pointed at be considered or even objectified, and
Speaker 1: the finger point at least within our current culture, it
Speaker 1: does seem particularly objectifying. Uh. While while an open hand
Speaker 1: is much more like consider this, behold this even, but
Speaker 1: the pointing finger is more look at that, look at
Speaker 1: it right now, look at what is going on here,
Speaker 1: and judge it well. I would also say, um, there
Speaker 1: is a way in which so you can you can
Speaker 1: imagine different gestures being given directly to viewer. Like, so
Speaker 1: somebody's looking at you and they're indicating you with a gesture,
Speaker 1: if they indicate you with an open hand versus indicate
Speaker 1: you with a pointed finger, I would say, at least
Speaker 1: intuitively to me, being indicated with a pointing finger is
Speaker 1: more un ignorably involving, like it's just like I can't
Speaker 1: get out of this. I am drawn in now, Like
Speaker 1: whatever this person is doing, I cannot ignore it, right,
Speaker 1: And I think a great example of this can be found,
Speaker 1: uh in a in countless propaganda posters. Probably the two
Speaker 1: most famous, especially to uh like American listeners, will be
Speaker 1: the the Uncle Sam I want you for the U. S. Army,
Speaker 1: where Uncle Sam is staring right at you, pointing right
Speaker 1: at you and saying, Nope, you're the one you're joining up.
Speaker 1: It's the the extent, it's in the index finger, the
Speaker 1: extended index finger is almost like you can't get out
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah. Another big one is the famous someone talked, uh, sister,
Speaker 1: where there's a serviceman uh, you know, clearly about to
Speaker 1: drown in the water, pointing up from the from a
Speaker 1: dark ocean, accusing us, you know, you loose lips sink
Speaker 1: ships kind of a thing. But even outside of those,
Speaker 1: if you just do a few image searches for propaganda
Speaker 1: posters and pointing, you'll find numerous examples uh or at
Speaker 1: least a lot of European and uh you know, Russian
Speaker 1: examples where there is clearly an authority figure or a soldier,
Speaker 1: and they're pointing right at you. Uh, and there is
Speaker 1: some sort of a demand or an accusation being made,
Speaker 1: and it's clearly a call to action. It makes me
Speaker 1: think of the end of my favorite English translation of
Speaker 1: the Rainer Maria Rilka poem, the Archaic Torso of Apollo,
Speaker 1: where the poem begins just as a description of the
Speaker 1: sculpture of Apollo from classical Greece, but then it ends
Speaker 1: with the idea that the sculpture is so powerful in
Speaker 1: its features that suddenly it has it has captured your
Speaker 1: mind and you can't ignore it, and it has implications.
Speaker 1: The way that's realized in the poem is suddenly talking
Speaker 1: about the features of the statue turns into the phrase
Speaker 1: from here there is no place that does not see you.
Speaker 1: You must change your life. M interesting and that that
Speaker 1: kind of brings to mind not only pointing, but the
Speaker 1: the stare of the gorgon that we talked about in
Speaker 1: the Medusa episodes totally. And that's the Stephen Mitchell translation
Speaker 1: of that poem. By the way. All right, on that note,
Speaker 1: we're going to take one more break, but when we
Speaker 1: come back we will continue our discussion of finger pointing,
Speaker 1: and we will venture back into the world of non
Speaker 1: human animals. All right, we're back, Okay. So we started
Speaker 1: off by talking about one of the early examples I
Speaker 1: used here was was my dog Charlie. How I think
Speaker 1: maybe occasionally he gets a flicker of the idea of pointing.
Speaker 1: If I pointed something, he might look in the direction
Speaker 1: that I'm pointing, but it seems exceedingly brief and rare
Speaker 1: in his perception. And mostly when I point at something,
Speaker 1: for Charlie, he looks at my hand. It's as if
Speaker 1: my hand is doing something, not as if my hand
Speaker 1: is indicating something beyond itself. And it makes me wonder
Speaker 1: in general, do any hu do any animals beyond humans
Speaker 1: understand that extension of the body as the direction of attention? Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a fascinating subject because I mean, certainly, just
Speaker 1: just like your your example with your dog, my cat Mochi,
Speaker 1: she universally does not get pointing. She has no idea
Speaker 1: what pointing is about. Like, but but she does understand gays. Uh,
Speaker 1: just as your dog understands gays. Just as so many animals,
Speaker 1: as we discussed in our last episode, understand what gays
Speaker 1: means a stare is attention, and it has ramifications, uh
Speaker 1: in terms of how animals interact with one another. But
Speaker 1: but but but when we were actually getting into um,
Speaker 1: pointing the finger. I mean, this is a level of
Speaker 1: of often thought of, as you know, human complexity, beyond
Speaker 1: merely looking at something. When I look at my cat
Speaker 1: and point at say some catnapp or some food, I'm
Speaker 1: using two different attention focusing mechanisms in unison rather than
Speaker 1: just one. Now, um, you know, it's not just to
Speaker 1: say look at what you uh as you want, but
Speaker 1: rather look at the one you want to look at
Speaker 1: the thing you're also pointing at, you know, like it's
Speaker 1: just it's just this extra level of complexity. It's it's
Speaker 1: also a very social gesture, which is something to keep
Speaker 1: in mind when we're considering other animals. In the words
Speaker 1: of David A. Levin's, William D. Hopkins and Kim A. Bard,
Speaker 1: it serves to quote rapidly established topics for mutual contemplation,
Speaker 1: which I think is a wonderful um way of summing
Speaker 1: it up. This is from their two thousand and five
Speaker 1: paper Understanding the Point of Chimpanzee pointing, and this was
Speaker 1: published in current directions in psychological science, and for starters,
Speaker 1: they refer to what we talked about earlier. Children begin
Speaker 1: to point at events and objects in their environment by
Speaker 1: age one or thereabouts. Uh. They also say that it
Speaker 1: is often considered key in the acquisition of language. Pointing
Speaker 1: allows us to indicate something in the world to a
Speaker 1: child and express its linguistic name. And while we often
Speaker 1: think of pointing as a thing done in lieu of words,
Speaker 1: it functions in a different way. And I think they
Speaker 1: sum this up nicely. Quote points do not stand for
Speaker 1: or represent the objects indicated in the way that words do.
Speaker 1: The standing for relation is termed by linguists reference in
Speaker 1: verbal reference, words that represent particular entities are not iconic.
Speaker 1: The relationship between the physical features of the word dog
Speaker 1: and actual dogs is arbitrary. In contrast with pointing, the
Speaker 1: relationship between the signal and the thing is indicated is
Speaker 1: not arbitrary. A point specific meaning is determined in a
Speaker 1: large part by spatial locations of the pointer, the thing indicated,
Speaker 1: and the communicative partner. An act of pointing thus creates
Speaker 1: a referential triangle that incorporates distant objects into the relationship
Speaker 1: between a signaler and the recipient of the gesture. So
Speaker 1: this brings us back to our consideration of non human animals.
Speaker 1: What other animals understand pointing like this, and basically the
Speaker 1: answer is is almost none of them. Uh. Even the
Speaker 1: great apes are closest evolutionary relatives are said to generally
Speaker 1: fail to understand pointing by humans. However, according to Levin's
Speaker 1: at all uh, who had cited earlier, it's incorrect to
Speaker 1: state that apes never point, though previously many experts considered
Speaker 1: apes to be incapable of pointing or understanding pointing. But
Speaker 1: in in these really the work of these researchers, they
Speaker 1: found that chimpanzees in captivity commonly point to unreachable food UH.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that with their index fingers, but far more often
Speaker 1: with all fingers extended, and you can think of this
Speaker 1: as as whole hand pointing. The researchers also sometimes refer
Speaker 1: to it as reaching, but the authors argue that these
Speaker 1: are actually clearly communicative signals because the chimps will not
Speaker 1: reach for the unreachable food if there is nobody around
Speaker 1: to see them do it. That's very interesting, So it
Speaker 1: requires the presence of an audience for the for the
Speaker 1: pointing to happen. But I do wonder there is that
Speaker 1: that kind of pointing. So and so a chimpanzee points
Speaker 1: to a piece of food that it wants that maybe
Speaker 1: a human could get for it. Is that kind of pointing? Actually,
Speaker 1: with the division we talked about earlier, imperative versus declarative,
Speaker 1: is that actually declarative or is that imperative pointing? Is
Speaker 1: that like a ritualized gesture that the ape has maybe
Speaker 1: just like learned through conditioning, can can maybe get it
Speaker 1: the food. Yeah, it does raise a lot of questions. Apparently,
Speaker 1: I've seen it described as being something that spontaneously occurs
Speaker 1: in captive chimpanzees. Meanwhile, there are at least there seems
Speaker 1: to be very few accounts of wild apes engaging in pointing.
Speaker 1: In fact, the authors of this study identify only a
Speaker 1: single incident, a leged incident in which a benobo was
Speaker 1: observed to point twice at human observers in hiding, and
Speaker 1: this was back in But ultimately they consider chimpanzee pointing
Speaker 1: as follows quote. The fact that chimpanzees and captivity frequently point,
Speaker 1: but those in the wild almost never do, is not
Speaker 1: merely a trivial consequence of raising chimpanzees and bizarre captive environments. Rather,
Speaker 1: it suggests that pointing by humans is written neither in
Speaker 1: our genes nor in our anatomy, but in the functional
Speaker 1: characteristics of our social and physical environments. The harder argument
Speaker 1: to make is that pointing emerges in similar circumstances into
Speaker 1: very closely related species with similar body plans and hand anatomies,
Speaker 1: yet derives from completely unrelated psychological processes, as suggested by
Speaker 1: Provenelli at All two thousand three. When chimpanzees in captivity
Speaker 1: point to unreachable food, the overt meaning is obvious. It
Speaker 1: would be unfortunate if we failed to grasp the implicit
Speaker 1: meaning of this gesture. Pointing is not uniquely specified by
Speaker 1: the human genome. Now. It should be noted, however, that
Speaker 1: other researchers are less sure what this is ultimately all about.
Speaker 1: Recent articles, including context sensitive adjustment of pointing in great
Speaker 1: APPEs from have discussed that this pointing by great apes
Speaker 1: may may may, It might be associated, be an associated
Speaker 1: response to a certain set of clues food is out
Speaker 1: of reach, human is nearby, or it could be communicative
Speaker 1: communicative signal which can be adjusted to relevant aspects of
Speaker 1: the spatial social context. So that's what I was asking
Speaker 1: about a minute ago, Like is it a real like
Speaker 1: attempt to control attention or is it like a conditioned,
Speaker 1: ritualized jure. Yeah, so you know, it seems like they're
Speaker 1: there's still some some unanswered questions here. Um, but great
Speaker 1: apes can under certain the right circumstances spontaneously take up
Speaker 1: pointing or at least, you know, the gesturing in a
Speaker 1: way that we can consider pointing. Uh. That that much
Speaker 1: seems to be accepted. Now with other animals, there are
Speaker 1: some some interesting and occasionally I think surprising answers. So
Speaker 1: first of all, there is the domestic dog. Now you've
Speaker 1: you've already shared that with the With your dog, you
Speaker 1: don't see a lot of you don't see much in
Speaker 1: the way of an understanding regarding pointing malashes. But mostly no. Now,
Speaker 1: your dog, though, is not a It is not a
Speaker 1: pointer dog. It's not a gun dog or a retriever dog. Okay,
Speaker 1: because this is where you do see more examples of
Speaker 1: dogs that understand pointing and even engage in a form
Speaker 1: of pointing themselves. And of course this is adapted over
Speaker 1: the course of millennia, because that's how long we've spent
Speaker 1: with dogs. They are, first of all, their social animals,
Speaker 1: and we domesticated them and estimated twelve thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: And uh and through that time we've not only have
Speaker 1: you know, we encouraged this, we've selectively bred them to
Speaker 1: follow pointing and to themselves point at spotted prey. Now,
Speaker 1: I think our next example might first of all, it
Speaker 1: might surprise some people, but I think also the discussion
Speaker 1: around it might further illuminate, uh, you know, our understanding
Speaker 1: of of of animals and pointing and why some animals
Speaker 1: are better able to understand it. Uh. And these examples
Speaker 1: concerned the elephant. So according to Professor Richard Byrne from
Speaker 1: the University of St. Andrew's in Scotland in a two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen study, not only do elephants pick up on
Speaker 1: the basics of of human pointing, they don't actually need
Speaker 1: to be taught anything. They simply figure it out on
Speaker 1: their own, like they pretty much pick it up immediately.
Speaker 1: And elephants that had spent a lot of time around
Speaker 1: humans where no like, they didn't have a particular edge
Speaker 1: over wild elephants because wild elephants also figured it out
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Uh Burn pointed out that elephants, like humans,
Speaker 1: live in an elaborate, complex social network, one in which support, empathy,
Speaker 1: and help for others are critical for survival. Another wrinkle
Speaker 1: on all this is that elephants regularly make trunk gestures themselves,
Speaker 1: though it is unknown of these truly serve as points
Speaker 1: in elephants society, but they maybe it's kind of an
Speaker 1: open question. The next logical creature to consider is, of course,
Speaker 1: the dolphin, and so I looked into this a little
Speaker 1: bit and according to the Dolphin Communication Project one, dolphins
Speaker 1: are able to understand pointing without being explicitly trained. They
Speaker 1: can understand the pointing gesture even if they don't see
Speaker 1: the arm move. The form of the point by itself
Speaker 1: is enough information, not the motion. Dolphins can understand a
Speaker 1: variety of pointing forms, including pointing st eight out to
Speaker 1: the side and across the opposite side of the body,
Speaker 1: and dolphins understand how to use the pointing gesture the
Speaker 1: very first time they are tested. That's very interesting. That
Speaker 1: makes me wonder about now. Obviously, I would think that
Speaker 1: the an animal's ability to adapt to and understand pointing
Speaker 1: gestures probably has something to do with its you know
Speaker 1: that the nature of its natural environment. And I wonder
Speaker 1: if pointing would have increased salience in a water environment
Speaker 1: where where the directionality of movement is less constrained. Right,
Speaker 1: Like on the surface of the Earth, it's often hard
Speaker 1: to actually move up and down through space without certain conditions,
Speaker 1: like you know, something you can climb, or a whole
Speaker 1: you can go down, So movement directions are actually somewhat
Speaker 1: more tightly constrained. But in the water column you just
Speaker 1: go up down wherever. And I wonder how that affects
Speaker 1: and animals conceptualization of space and understanding of like the
Speaker 1: geometry of movement and at tension in that space. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's extra interesting potentially with dolphins as well, right,
Speaker 1: because their primary means of gesticulating is going to be
Speaker 1: with their nose, and the nose, like where you point
Speaker 1: your nose is also the direction in which you will
Speaker 1: probably be moving. Uh. Yes, so many additional considerations have
Speaker 1: to be taken. I'd love to to follow up on
Speaker 1: this with a dolphin researcher at some point. We've been
Speaker 1: talking about, uh, reaching out to a dolphin researcher for
Speaker 1: a while, because you know, obviously we've we've done episodes
Speaker 1: that have touched on dolphin dolphin research in the past.
Speaker 1: They're amazing um biology and uh, the nature of their minds.
Speaker 1: But it would be, it would be I think they
Speaker 1: would make for a great interview. All right, Well, looks
Speaker 1: like we're gonna have to call it there for part
Speaker 1: one of our journey through the Land of the Pointing Finger.
Speaker 1: But I am so excited to come back and and
Speaker 1: look at this for a part two. That's right, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a lot more to discuss here, you know,
Speaker 1: just in terms of the complexity of human ulture, and
Speaker 1: we may get into some more animal examples as well.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you would like to check out
Speaker 1: other episodes of stuff to blow your mind, including those
Speaker 1: recent episodes about the Medusa, past episodes about dolphins, uh,
Speaker 1: you name it, you can find us wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts and wherever that happens to be. Make sure
Speaker 1: you help us out. Make sure you help us out.
Speaker 1: I'm pointing at you. Rate, review, and subscribe huge things
Speaker 1: as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, just to say hi. You
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
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