Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to revisit communication, specifically the trade-offs we make in expressing ourselves.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research about language and communication lately. The more I read the more fascinated I am. The more I read, the more I realize I don’t know. Not only do I not know, but really none of us do.
Our primary means of expression, the mechanics of language that come innately to us as children, are largely a mystery. This, despite the fact that it is fundamental to our existence as humans. The ability to reason, plan, and communicate via language.
I stumbled across the following article in Neuroscience, which described an experiment in language production.
The experiment tested a group of healthy participants, and a group suffering from primary progressive aphasia (PPA). You may recognize that condition, as it was in headlines recently that it is affecting actor Bruce Willis’s career.
The experiment first devised a frequency based method for characterizing syntactic complexity of naturally produced utterances. It then used that method to test the hypothesis that “patients who have difficulty producing complex syntax might choose semantically richer words to make their meaning clear, whereas patients with lexicosemantic deficits may choose more complex syntax”
The participants were asked to describe a picture of a family at a picnic. This is a common assessment used in diagnosing PPA. “Healthy individuals can shift between the use of complex syntactic or complex lexical items, perhaps depending on what is more accessible in the moment or what might facilitate comprehension.”
“The results showed that if a sentence is syntactically complex, it likely incorporates simple words. On the other hand, if a sentence contains more complex words—such as words that are not commonly used—its syntax is more likely to be simple.”
This hypothesis was tested against both the test group (those with PPA) as well as a healthy control group. The results showed a significant correlation (n=79 and n=99) respectively) “suggesting that it may be a general property of the process by which humans turn thoughts into speech.”
There are some “semantically rich” words in there that are really more for neuroscientists and language nerds, so let’s unpack a little bit.
There are two elements of this experiment that struck me as profound. First, any general property by which humans turn thoughts into speech is a significant property. One worth some time to digest. The second, reminded me of teaching, coaching, and parenting.
Teaching and parenting have a great deal of overlap. One of the greatest points of overlap is effective communication. Specifically communication that must be effective over a broad range of topics, ages, and levels of understanding.
Even if you are only teaching one subject, to one grade level, the variety in language comprehension among students can be staggering. As a parent, your effective communication must now span a lifetime, and an endless myriad of topics.
The best teachers, coaches, and parents, are able to effectively communicate their message in a way that is understandable by their ever changing audience. This means seemlesly transitioning between complex syntax and complex lexicon depending on what is more suitable for comprehension.
While this may seem intuitive, and some are certainly more gifted in this areas than others, it is a talent that we admire in the orators and authors we idolize.
Transition between complex syntax and complex lexicon, is a skill that can be developed. It is even fun to do, and has been effectively monetized. Whether they realized their contribution or not, the game developers exploding kittens, capitalized on this very concept with their game poetry for neanderthals.
I bought the game for my wife and I and we played recently during one of our date days. Similar to charades, one person or team will draw a card with a complex lexical term (caveman definition: big word) and then must get their team to guess the word describing it using only one syllable words. If the person uses a word with more than one syllable in their description, they are bopped on the head with the inflatable “NO” caveman club. Must talk like cave man, or else get hit in head.
The rounds are timed and the object is to describe and guess as many big words as possible while speaking like a caveman (simplistic, monosyllabic, but syntactically complex).
As we saw from the experiment, there is an inverse relationship between the complexity of the words used and the syntax. These differing language construction pathways have differing neural pathways. The game forces you to use both interchangeably in rapid succession. Plus you get to hit people with an inflatable club when they screw up.
Being flexible in the way you communicate, being able to engage different neural networks and neural pathways, and finding the best path (semantically or syntactically) to get your point across, is a fascinating phenomenon to study, and one that likely leads to serenity.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.
