Project description
How gestures shape meaning before words
Do gestures carry meaning? Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the GESTICO project is investigating how spatial properties of gestures (such as their size and direction) convey emotional or numerical meaning. By studying great apes, monkeys, and human infants, researchers aim to trace the origins of gestural communication across species. Using deep learning tools to analyse movement and looking-time experiments with babies, the project explores how gesture and meaning intertwine. GESTICO brings together primatology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. The findings offer fresh insight into the evolutionary roots of communication.
Objective
The GESTICO project will explore the developmental and evolutionary origins of gestural iconicity, by examining the spatial properties of gestures that convey meaning independently of semantic communication. The relevance of different amplitudes and lateralisation of gestures in reference to spatio-numerical and/or emotional magnitudes will be tested in non-human primates (Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Guinea baboons, and Barbary macaques) and preverbal human infants. Observational data from chimpanzees and bonobos will be used to investigate whether the amplitude and laterality of their communicative gestures are meaningful, by testing their correlation with specific social or emotional contexts, and whether they impact the responses of recipients (WP1). Movement analyses, based on newly developed deep learning tools, will be used to enable quantitative measures on gestures. Once the methodology of gesture spatialisation description is established for great apes, similar analyses will be applied to gestures of captive Guinea baboons and Barbary macaques (WP2). Finally, a habituation paradigm measuring looking times will assess the ability of human infants aged 10 to 12 months to spontaneously associate concepts of magnitude (quantities) with metaphorical manual gestures differing in their spatial amplitude (WP3).
Collaboration between the host organisation, the Wild Minds Lab (University of St Andrews), the Eco-Anthropology Lab (French National Museum of Natural History), and the Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center (Paris Cité University) will facilitate an interdisciplinary approach, enabling cross-species comparisons around common concepts. The complementary use of innovative observational and experimental approaches will contribute to a better understanding of the emergence of the form-function link in the gestural communication of catarrhine primates (Afro-Eurasian species, including humans), and the associated cognitive mechanisms.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology mammalogy primatology
- natural sciences biological sciences neurobiology
- humanities history and archaeology history
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
KY16 9AJ ST ANDREWS
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.