Our proposal
Using a method pioneered by Helena Miton, we measure compression in individual items by reducing all images to vectors etc.... Thus the file size of .png is blah.
Compression of t
Our proposal dispenses with measures of iconicity-to-abstraction, focusing only markers of compression over multiple generations.
We propose an analysis of field data from a real-world setting that will either provide the first validation of graphic-based semiotic transmission experiments. Or if not, our study will reveal that these experiments have less explanatory power than their authors have presumed.
Structure of the study
Our study has two parts. For the first part, our expectation is that the transmission-driven compression effects that have been discovered in semiotic experiments (REFs), will be reflected in commensurate changes to the Vai script over its history. This is ascertained by vectorising all samples and deriving complexity via file size, but also by hand-coding the changes to the script across relevant parameters, most importantly the addition or subtraction of graphic features.
In the second part of our study we will bring the Vai script into the laboratory. A few experiments are proposed with varying conditions. In one of these we ask participants to simply learn and then write out individual high-frequency Vai symbols with the output becoming the input for the next generation. In an alternative version we ask them to learn and reproduce whole words to test whether compositional effects of linear writing come into play. A variant experiment starts participants at different points in the history of the script. One group is trained on high-frequency characters as they were attested in 1834 and another group on the same set of characters as recorded in 1981. The prediction being that the 1981 characters will be less susceptible to change as they’ve already gone through the transmission bottleneck several times (when compared with the original 1834 script)
Predictions
For both parts of the study, our predictions are the same:
1. High-frequency characters within the Vai character set (historical and experimental) will become more compressed over successive generations in both the graphic form of individual items as well as in the relationships between items.
This will be indicated by the following:
Characters will become more self-similar. In other words, these items will come to be be generated from the same set of rules, resulting in typographic stereotypes (as for example, ‘stems’ in the Roman script ‘bowls’ and ‘lunettes’ in the Arabic script etc)
Graphemes will start off distinctive (and complex) and lose their complexity
Within character shapes, any repetitious forms, eg, a series of identical dots, waves, lines, will become abbreviated. In other words, standard repetitions will come to be inferred.
2. The Vai character set will exhibit greater speed of change in earlier generations than in later generations. In other words, there is a half-life for script change.
There will be greater levels of redundancy in earlier generations, measured by grapheme inventory size, presence/absence of allographic variation
Diachronic analysis of historical Vai script
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Results
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Experiments using high-frequency Vai characters
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Results
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Discussion
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Conclusion
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PK notes (ignore, I will tidy up!)
Item-system trade-offs
-relationship between items in a set
-standardisation pressure, systematicity
-rule to generate the whole system there are consistent patterns making it more compressible
1 . Ask James to read Rovenchak article and make sense of 55 most frequent characters
2. Ask Helena what her meausre of compression is, and thus what needs to happen next wrt vectorisation etc.
We expect compression etc, because when something is repeatedly transmitted you tend to amplify biases towards compression. The principle of least effort for single items, but contrasted with system wide compression.
If nothing is found, not all cultural items will change when they go through a transmission chain. This would speak to the trade off between set and the item. `permancy = resistance to change? clay impressions.
Egyptian standardised, vai more language like. We remove the common sources of inertia, there is no institutional pressure, and yet maybe we still see this resistance to becoming more compressed. If it doesn't change we can't say it's beduse of institutional pressure (unless we don't know what the institutions are)
Is the system already close to optimally compressed when it is first gneerated, eg, from semasiography? We should find that early versus late items in both dataset and experiments, are equally reproducible.