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Empathy is the ability to perceive and understand others’ emotional states generating a similar mental state in the self. Previous behavioural studies have shown that self-reflection can enhance the empathic process. The present event-related potentials study aims to investigate whether self-reflection, elicited by an introspective self-narrative task, modulates the neuronal response to eye expressions and improves the accuracy of empathic process. The twenty-nine participants included in the final sample were divided into two groups: an introspection group (IG) (n=15), who received an introspective writing task, and a control group (CG) (n=14), who completed a not-introspective writing task. For both groups, the electroencephalographic and behavioural responses to images depicting eye expressions taken from the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Theory of Mind test were recorded pre- (T0) and post- (T1) seven days of writing. The main result showed that only the IG presented a different P300 amplitude in response to eye expressions at T1 compared to T0 on the left centre-frontal montage. No significant results on accuracy at T1 compared to T0 were found. These findings seem to suggest that the introspective writing task modulates attention and implicit evaluation of the socio-emotional stimuli. Results are discussed with reference to the hypothesis that such neuronal modulation is linked to an increase in the embodied simulation process underlying affective empathy.

In the body of research on the relationship between gesture and speech, some models propose they form an integrated system while others attribute gestures a compensatory role in communication. This study addresses the gesture-speech relationship by taking disfluency phenomena as a case study. Since it is part of a project aimed at designing virtual agents to be employed in museums, an analysis was performed on the communicative behavior of tourist guides. Results reveal that gesturing is more frequent during speech than pauses. Moreover, when comparing the types of gestures and types of pauses they co-occur with, non-communicative gestures (idles and manipulators) turn out to be more frequent than communicatively-meaningful gestures, which instead more often co-occur with speech. We discuss these findings as relevant for a theoretical model viewing speech and gesture as an integrated system.

In the body of research on the relationship between gesture and speech, some models propose they form an integrated system while others attribute gestures a compensatory role in communication. This study addresses the gesture-speech relationship by taking disfluency phenomena as a case study. Since it is part of a project aimed at designing virtual agents to be employed in museums, an analysis was performed on the communicative behavior of tourist guides. Results reveal that gesturing is more frequent during speech than pauses. Moreover, when comparing the types of gestures and types of pauses they co-occur with, non-communicative gestures (idles and manipulators) turn out to be more frequent than communicatively-meaningful gestures, which instead more often co-occur with speech. We discuss these findings as relevant for a theoretical model viewing speech and gesture as an integrated system.

This paper relies on the idea that human language evolved to modify/change the beliefs and attitudes of other people, in order to make them act in a certain way. Such an idea is in line with a more general model of animal communication, which sees it as a way to influence others’ behaviors. Although forms of persuasion are present in non-human communication, it is suggested that, in the transition from animal communication to language, humans developed a specific and more powerful way to influence others: the telling of stories. Looking at the cognitive architectures and the expressive systems which allowed our ancestors to cope with the selective pressures of a narrative-based communication, it is proposed that pantomime was the early means of expression of narrative persuasion. From this point of view, pantomime represented a form of protolanguage, providing a platform for the progressive development of modern-day narrative.

This event-related potentials (ERPs) study investigated on-line processes of integration of information relating to characters in narrative comprehension. The final sample included twenty-nine participants who read short third-person stories in which the plausibility of the characters’ actions was manipulated. Stories were administered in three conditions: a character-based congruent condition including a target word that was consistent with the character’s job; a character-based incongruent condition with a target word inconsistent with the character’s job; a character-based neutral condition, narrating the action of a character presented by his/her proper name without information about his/her job. Results comparing the ERPs elicited by the experimental conditions revealed a greater negative amplitude of the N400 in the right temporal regions in response to the character-based incongruent compared to the character-based congruent narratives. This finding shows that implicit background character-based information affects the N400, with readers rapidly using this information to comprehend narratives.

Individuals with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulties in the recollection of past experiences (Episodic Memory). Accumulating evidence suggests that they might have also difficulties in the ability to imagine potential future scenarios (Episodic Future Thinking, EFT) and in narrative generation skills. This investigation aimed to determine 1) whether impairments of EFT can be identified in a large cohort of children with high functioning ASD using a task with minimal narrative demands; and 2) if such impairments are related to the ability to generate a narrative's scenario. 77 children with high-functioning ASD and 77 children with typical development were recruited for the study. The two groups were balanced for age, level of formal education, and IQ. EFT was assessed by administering a task with minimal narrative demands, whereas narrative generation skills were assessed with three tasks requiring children to generate past, middle or future episodes in a narrative discourse. With respect to control participants, a subgroup of children with ASD had impaired EFT skills and also showed significant impairments in the ability to generate adequate narratives. On the contrary, participants with spared EFT had normal performance on the narrative generation task. Interestingly, EFT skills predicted narrative generation abilities in both groups. The results of this study support the hypothesis that EFT may be impaired in some but not all children with ASD and of a relation between difficulties with EFT and impairments in the process of narrative generation. The assessment of EFT should employ tasks that do not require narrative production, as children with impaired EFT may also have reduced narrative skills.

Diversi studi hanno dimostrato che l’analisi della dimensione narrativa può rappresentare un valido strumento per far luce su alcuni aspetti psicologici critici; in questo senso, può essere utile per capire meglio il disturbo da dipendenza. Il presente articolo riporta tra l’altro alcuni tra i dati principali di una ricerca da noi condotta e pubblicata nella rivista Journal of Gambling Issues nel 2021. In tale ricerca abbiamo indagato gli aspetti psicologico-narrativi coinvolti nelle dipendenze, specificamente nel DUS e nel DGA, attraverso un’analisi quali-quantitativa multidimensionale di un’intervista semi-strutturata, che ha invitato due gruppi di soggetti dipendenti in trattamento (DGA e DUS) a raccontare le varie fasi della dipendenza. Le analisi narrative multidimensionali da noi condotte sembrano aver portato alla luce alcuni punti critici su cui focalizzare l’attenzione per la costruzione di un adeguato trattamento dei soggetti con dipendenza. Nello specifico, i risultati suggerirebbero la necessità di lavorare su aspetti dissociati del Sé al fine di: 1) favorire il processo di integrazione di motivazioni e azioni, aumentando la consapevolezza e il senso di autoefficacia, soprattutto con i giocatori d’azzardo; 2) migliorare la coerenza globale nella narrazione del desiderio al fine di diminuire la disregolazione emotiva tipica di questa fase; 3) migliorare la capacità di proiezione del Sé nel tempo. Quest’ultimo punto potrebbe essere particolarmente rilevante in una prospettiva di intervento riabilitativo, soprattutto per quanto riguarda gli strumenti di trattamento legati alla dimensione narrativa. Il rapporto circolare tra regolazione dell’impulsività, autocontrollo, integrità dell’Io, funzioni cognitive e dimensione narrativa trova nel fattore temporale uno dei principali perni comuni.

This study addresses the postulate of non-conventionality of pantomime, inherent in pantomimic scenarios of language origin. Since lack of semiotic conventions does not preclude micro-conventions resulting from cultural differences, pantomimes should be easier to interpret when the actor and recipient share the same culture than between two different cultures. In the study, Italian and Polish amateur “actors” re-enacted transitive events from a matrix of cartoon-like drawings. Randomly selected clips were matched by Polish and Italian participants to the corresponding drawings. We found no difference in the number of correct guesses when the actors and matchers were from the same versus from different cultures. We discuss this result in the context of the core assumptions of pantomimic scenarios of language origin. (Less)

Growing evidence suggests that theory of mind (ToM) and episodic future thinking (EFT) are closely related at both brain and functional level. This study explored the relationship between ToM and EFT in 96 Italian-speaking children with typical development aged between 8 and 10.11 using a behavioral design. ToM was assessed through an emotional facial expression recognition task. EFT was assessed with a task where participants were required to project themselves forward in time by anticipating future states of the self; this resulted in two scores: a nonverbal measure and a verbal explanation measure. Results showed that the participants’ performance on the task assessing ToM correlated with and predicted the nonverbal measure of the EFT task. These findings are discussed in the light of theories suggesting that each of these abilities is governed by a common system devoted to self-projection.

Several studies have shown that the analysis of the narrative dimension may represent a useful instrument to shed light on certain critical psychological aspects; to this extent, it might also be fruitful to understand better the addiction disorder. The present study aimed to investigate the critical psychological-narrative aspects involved in Gambling Disorder (GD). A semi-structured interview, one which invited participants to narrate the various phases of addiction (addiction definition, onset, chronicization, relapse, desire, loss of control, control strategies, treatment, future behaviours with respect to the object of addiction), was administered to two groups of subjects in treatment: thirty with GD and eighteen with Substance Use Disorder (SUD). A quali-quantitative multidimensional analysis of this interview was performed. The dependent variables were psychological aspects (agency, passivity, locus of control, motivation) and narrative variables (global narrative coherence and self-projection into the future). The main findings showed that the GD presented a higher sense of agency, passivity, external locus of control and external motivation compared to SUD. Both groups showed a lower global narrative coherence score during the narration of desire (craving) compared to other phases. Moreover, both groups showed an absent self-projection into the future. The findings could be linked to possible impairment of the integration of the self, emotional dysregulation and low self-control typical in addiction. In conclusion, the present study highlighted the importance of the narrative dimension to detect certain critical points in the addiction condition on which to potentially address the treatment.RésuméPlusieurs études ont montré que l’analyse de la dimension narrative peut apporter un éclairage utile sur certains aspects psychologiques cruciaux; en ce sens, elle peut aussi contribuer à une meilleure compréhension des troubles de dépendance. Notre étude visait à examiner les aspects à la fois psychologiques et narratifs intervenant dans les troubles de dépendance. Nous avons réalisé des entrevues semi-structurées qui invitaient les participants à raconter les différentes phases de la dépendance (définition de la dépendance, début, chronicisation, rechute, désir, perte de maîtrise, stratégie de régulation, traitement, comportements futurs en ce qui a trait à l’objet de la dépendance). Nous avons mené ces entrevues auprès de deux groupes de personnes en traitement : 30 ayant une dépendance au jeu (DJ) et 18 ayant un trouble lié à l’usage d’une substance (TUS), puis nous en avons effectué une analyse multidimensionnelle quali-quantitative. Les variables dépendantes étaient des aspects psychologiques (agentivité, passivité, lieu de contrôle, motivation) et des variables narratives (cohérence narrative globale et projection de soi dans l’avenir). Les principaux résultats ont indiqué que, comparativement au groupe TUS, le groupe DJ présentait une meilleure perception sur les plans de l’agentivité, de la passivité, du lieu de contrôle externe et de la motivation extrinsèque. Par rapport aux autres phases, les deux groupes ont montré une cohérence narrative globale inférieure durant la narration relative au désir (envie irrésistible). En outre, les deux groupes ont montré une absence de projection de soi dans l’avenir. On peut lier ces résultats à l’intégration déficiente du moi, à la dysrégulation émotionnelle et au faible autocontrôle qui caractérisent la dépendance. En conclusion, notre étude souligne l’importance de la dimension narrative pour déceler certains aspects cruciaux de l’état de dépendance susceptibles d’orienter le traitement.

The present study analyzed the comprehension of visual narrative in a group of twelve children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Their performances were compared to a control group of fifteen children with typical development (TD) matched for age, level of formal education, and IQ. Visual narrative comprehension was assessed by administering a task that required children to understand narrative's global coherence by arranging in the correct order the constituent parts of stories presented in pictures. Specifically, the task evaluated children's ability to grasp how single events connected (causally and temporally) each other and how these connections led to the ending of the story. Results showed that children with ASD obtained significantly lower scores than children with TD. These results open to alternative interpretations of narrative impairments often reported in individuals with ASD, which might not be restricted to the linguistic code but stem from a deeper deficit in narrative processing that is independent from the expressive modality.

Aim of the present study was to investigate affective and cognitive processes underlying self-narratives of patients with gambling disorder through a verbal language analysis. A semistructured interview was administered to 30 patients with gambling disorder (GD) (24 males and 6 females; mean age: 46.63±9.08) concerning the various thematic areas of their condition: definition of addiction, onset and maintenance of the addiction, relapses, desire, loss of control, control strategies, and treatment. Word usage in the self-narratives was categorized using James Pennebaker’s Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text-analysis software. Specifically, variables analyzed were emotion-related words, the use of pronoun-related words, and tense-related words. The findings showed a higher percentage of negative emotion-related words in the thematic areas of the definition of addiction, maintenance, and loss of control compared with other areas, which may suggest an emotional dysregulation; a higher percentage of first person singular-related words than other person-related words which decreases in the thematic areas of the desire, relapse, and loss of control, which may suggest dissociative phenomena; lastly, a high percentage of present tense-related words, which suggested a static and rigid representation of one’s dependency condition in GD patients and a difficulty to self-project into the future. Overall, the linguistic analysis revealed critical issues in affective and cognitive processes in specific phases of addiction in GD patients which could help guide treatment.

Impairments in language narrative abilities have been widely observed in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Indeed, both children and adults with ASD show difficulties in generating coherent personal and fictional narratives as well as understanding verbal stories. Cognitive studies have considered these difficulties as not dependent on strictly linguistic impairments but reflecting underlying cognitive deficits that are commonly used to explain the core symptoms of ASD: theory of mind impairment, weak central coherence, executive dysfunction, and a compromised mental time travel. Therefore, it has been hypothesized that the narrative deficits of ASD could extend to expressive media other than verbal language, e.g., the visual medium, whose processing might rely on those deeper cognitive functions. In support of this hypothesis, in the current paper we review the literature on the cognitive underpinnings of verbal and visual narrative in ASD and discuss the main findings of a study recently published on the comprehension of visual narrative in children with ASD, which shows that their difficulties are not restricted to the linguistic code but involve also the visual modality.

Several disciplines contribute to the discussion on the origin of language: computer simulation, cognitive psychology, genetics, paleoanthropology, and comparative studies, as some examples. Some disciplines employ sophisticated analysis techniques resulting in empirical evidence inconceivable until a few years ago. However, the huge volume of data available and the heterogeneity of disciplines have had problematic effects on research: each discipline contributing to the study of language is different from another, so the first difficulty is identification of a point of convergence among extremely heterogeneous empirical results. This paper tries to delineate a new theorethical framework for the study of language orings able to synthesize currentempirical results. This new paradigm is based on the embodied tehories of language and mind.

Preprint. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 [DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2017.01.005] The cooperative character of language is an empirical fact and one of the key tenets in linguistics. However, this cooperative character is what makes it evolutionarily suspect: under normal circumstances sharing honest information with biologically unrelated individuals and without any obvious costs is not an ESS (evolutionarily stable strategy) and is not expected to evolve. Here we approach this problem in the context of prototypical language use (also evolutionarily), that is face-to-face conversation, a multimodal interaction unfolding in real time that involves a complex interplay between embodied agents in spatial proximity. We focus our review on low-level coordinative processes – examples being proxemic alignment or postural mirroring – to a large degree continuous with what is found in non-human primates. We aim at categorisation and terminological clarification of these processes, which in turn helps us evaluate their role in initiating and maintaining cooperatively oriented communicative interaction. We conclude with suggesting ways in which such low-level coordinative processes might have formed an evolutionary basis for cooperation, with focus on the possible role of TFT (tit-for-tat) and TFT-like strategies.

In this paper we propose a narrative account for the origin of language. Such a proposal is based on two assumptions. The first is conceptual and concerns the idea that the distinctive feature of human language (what sets it apart from other forms of animal communication) has to be traced to its inherently narrative character. The second assumption is methodological and connected to the idea that the study of language origin is closely related to the analysis of the cognitive systems at the base of narrative. Research on narrative abilities of subjects with Autism Spectrum Disorder has shown that storytelling requires the capability to link events causally connected to one another, and especially events which are remote from one another on the temporal axis of a story. Based on this research, we hypothesize that an important cognitive device involved in narrative is Mental Time Travel (MTT), that is, the system that allows humans to project themselves into the past and future. We show that such a system is present (to a greater or lesser extent) even in non-human animals. By virtue of this, we argue that MTT is independent of language and that it may be considered a cognitive precursor for the origin of language. Specifically, we propose that MTT allowed our ancestors to develop a form of pantomimic communication that might be considered as the foundation of the narrative origin of language.

Investigating the multimodal communication of Tourist Guides to implement a Virtual Tourist Guide leading tourists in three Italian Charterhouses, the paper focuses on an aspect of the human guide's speech that would be useful to create a very realistic Virtual Guide: linguistic disfluencies. On a corpus of three guided tours in S. Martino Charterhouse (Naples) an analysis is presented of the guides' pauses and their concomitant gestures.

Recent considerations on the nature of language recognize conversation as the central unit of analysis. Some approaches give a definition of conversation as parallel with that of cooperative action, with conversational success taking place when individuals converge to achieve a common goal. The present challenge of psycholinguistic is identifying the cognitive mechanisms underlying the process of convergence in conversation. Among these, interactional alignment, i.e. accommodation at many levels in dialogue, has received growing attention. In this paper, I will propose that, when it comes to the evolutionary issue, alignment might be considered a good candidate to account for some early strategiesused by individuals keen to communicate in the absence of a full-fledged code. Thefocus on mechanisms of low-level alignment paves the way for a sensorimotor and protoconversational account of language evolution.

We present an ongoing international project, From Pantomime to Language (PANTOLANG), aiming to develop a comprehensive, empirically grounded theory of the evolution of human language and the human mind, relying on the new paradigm of cognitive semiotics, which combines methods and concepts from the humanities and the sciences (Zlatev, 2015; Zlatev, et al. 2016).

In this paper, we show how the embodied revolution within cognitive sciences has relevant consequences for the topic of language origins. The empirical findings of the embodied approaches, indeed, allow to elaborate a motor theory of language origins according to which human language originated from the gestural communication of our ancestors. Theories that propose that human language emerged from gesture suggest that an important stage in the evolution of human communication was that of pantomime, i.e. a spontaneous bodily mode of expression in which meaning is conveyed through resemblance. Adhering to this idea, we suggest that pantomime can be considered a platform for the emergence of human communication as it is a primordial mode of expression to tell stories without language. Based on that, we maintain that the possibility to explain the advent of language with reference to pantomime represents a way to support a narrative model of language origins., Lebenswelt. Aesthetics and philosophy of experience., N. 13 (2018)

The topic of language origin and evolution has been considered for a long time as a difficult question to address scientifically because of poverty of empirical data and limitations in methodology (Muller, 1861). These considerations have led to the well-known edicts by the Societe de Linguistique de Paris in 1866 and the Philological Society of London in 1872 that forbade all members from presenting speeches on the topic.

This brief report is a partial replication of the study by Jackson and Atance (J Dev Disabil 14:40-45, 2008) assessing nonverbal Self-based and Mechanical-based future thinking (FT) in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In a first step, these tasks were administered to 30 children with ASD. The two Self-based tasks were then modified as a verbal component could not be completely ruled out. Consequently, 77 children with ASD and 77 children with typical development received the modified Self-based FT tasks and the Mechanical-based FT tasks. We partially replicated the previous findings. Participants with ASD had impaired FT in both kinds of tasks and both groups performed better on tasks assessing Mechanical-based FT than Self-based FT. These results suggest that impairments of FT in ASD are not limited to Self-Projection.

This volume constitutes the first anthology of texts in cognitive semiotics - the new transdisciplinary study of meaning, mind and communication that combines concepts and methods from semiotics, cognitive science and linguistics - from a multitude of established and younger scholars. The chapters deal with the interaction between language and other semiotic resources, the role of consciousness and concepts, the nature of metaphor, the specificity of human evolution and development, the relation between cognitive semiotics and related fields, and other central topics. They are grouped in four sections: (i) Meta-theoretical perspectives, (ii) Semiotic development and evolution, (iii) Meaning across media, modes and modalities, (iv) Language, blends and metaphors. (Less)

Although, as many scholars state, hierarchical social groups arose in order to manage conflicts among individuals (Sapolsky 1999), it is clear that social stratification may be a source for new conflicts. Thus societies can exist only on condition that an equilibrium between conflicting and cooperative factors is maintained. What are the cognitive mechanisms underlying this balance? Among the models facing this issue, some lay a crucial function on emotional devices. Intuitively it may seem that rational argumentation plays the leading role in negotiation but there is an interesting tradition introduced by Darwin (1872) that highlights the importance of emotions in interactional cohesiveness (Gratch et al. 2006). In this article we discuss the reasons why the hypothesis that a main system grounding the rise of societies and the negotiation of conflicts is represented by emotions seems to be persuasive. Specifically, in a phylogenetic perspective we will make reference to a specific phenomenon characterized by emotional elements that has had an adaptive value in terms of cohesion and cooperation among groups: ritual (Alcorta and Sosis 2005; de Waal and Aureli 1996; de Waal and Lanting 1997). However, some scholars point out that such cohesive property is combined with another opposite feature: namely, the emotional nature of ritual can feed conflict by turning the symbols of groups into sacralized values (Ginges et al. 2007). In this sense, the deep emotions that engender group cohesion are also elements advancing out-group hostility (Wilson 2012). In light of these considerations, the analysis of the emotional components tied to collective rituals gives an interesting interpretation of the relationship between conflicts and integration.

Human information processing is managed by a resource-limited system. For this reason, information in utterances must be packed in a way that prevents it from being lost in decoding. A developmental model of information structure units is proposed according to which Topic-Focus articulation has emerged in order to comply with this constraint. The basic function of Topic and Focus is to instruct the addressee to different attitudes: Focus causes controlled, more effortful processing; Topic automatic, less effortful processing. This model accounts for the well-known restriction on the iteration of Foci in sentences – because cognitive resources for multiple Foci are not available – but it also explains at which conditions can the expression of more new ideas in a single utterance happen with overall bearable costs for the speaker and receiver, thus increasing efficiency in communication.