DOI: 10.5061/dryad.vq33n
title: Data from: Iconicity can ground the creation of vocal symbols

description: Studies of gestural communication systems find that they originate from
 spontaneously created iconic gestures. Yet, we know little about how
 people create vocal communication systems, and many have suggested that
 vocalizations do not afford iconicity beyond trivial instances of
 onomatopoeia. It is unknown whether people can generate vocal
 communication systems through a process of iconic creation similar to
 gestural systems. Here, we examine the creation and development of a
 rudimentary vocal symbol system in a laboratory setting. Pairs of
 participants generated novel vocalizations for 18 different meanings in an
 iterative ‘vocal’ charades communication game. The communicators quickly
 converged on stable vocalizations, and naive listeners could correctly
 infer their meanings in subsequent playback experiments. People's
 ability to guess the meanings of these novel vocalizations was predicted
 by how close the vocalization was to an iconic ‘meaning template’ we
 derived from the production data. These results strongly suggest that the
 meaningfulness of these vocalizations derived from iconicity. Our findings
 illuminate a mechanism by which iconicity can ground the creation of vocal
 symbols, analogous to the function of iconicity in gestural communication
 systems.
description: charadesGameAnalysisRR code for analysis of charades game.charadesGameAnalysis.RcharadesGameAnalysisPythonPython code for processing and analysis of the charades game.charadesGameAnalysis.pycharadesGameProcessedDataProcessed data from the charades game. Used for the R analysis.charadesGameProcessed.csvcharadesGameDataData from the charades game. Processed by the corresponding python code.charadesGameOriginal.csvcharadesAnalysisPraatPraat code for measuring charades vocalizations.charades.praatmturkAnalysisRR code for analysis of playback experimentsmturkAnalysis.RmturkAnalysisPythonPython code for analyzing data from the Mturk playback experiments.mturkAnalysis.pydistanceCorrelationsProcessedDataCorrelations between vocalization distance to the iconic and median meaning templates and probability of selecting each meaning.distanceCorrs.csvspeakerNormsProcessedDataNormed means of the five acoustic variables for each vocalizer in the charades game.speakerNorms.csvcharadesMturkIconicDataData from the second playback experiment with more and less iconic stimuli.charadesMturkIconic.csvcharadesMturkDataData from the Mturk playback experiment. The python code uses this to compute various derived variables.charadesMturkOriginal.csvcharadesMeaningAccuracyDataProcessed data from the charades experiment. Contains average accuracy for each meaning. Used to compare to accuracies for each meaning in the playback experiment.charadesAccMeaning.csvmeaningTemplatesDataProcessed data from the charades experiment. Contains median, max, and min values of the acoustic variables for each meaning. Used for calculating iconic and median distance.meaningTemplates.csvwordPropsAnalysisPythonPython code to analyze the pronunciation of the target words for comparison to vocalizations.wordProps.pywordPropsProcessedDataProcessed word properties for comparison to vocalizations.wordPropsProcessed.csvwordPropsDataData containing the acoustic properties of the pronounced target words.wordPropsOriginal.csvsoundPropsAnalysisPraatCode for measuring acoustic properties of target words.soundProps.praat