Pre-listening Activity: Make sure you know the following
words
adjacent –суміжний, прилеглий, сусідній
Looking for a Sign
(from The Economist, Nov. 2005)
The birth of a new language is such a
rare event that scientists who want to watch it happen generally have to make
due with computer simulations. Bruno Galantucci, a cognitive scientist at Yale University
in America
The two players cannot see or hear each other,
but they are seated at connected computers. In the simplest version of the
game, each player is located. in one of four rooms and the players must find
each other in one move each. These rooms are arranged in a square, and each
pair of adjacent rooms is connected by a doorway. On the floor of each room is
an icon – a circle, a hexagon, a flower – and, prior to the start of the game,
the players have a short time to explore their surroundings. (Sometimes, a
player with good spatial awareness can move quickly through all four rooms and
understand the layout but others do not grasp it at this stage.)
The players know there is another player in
another one of the rooms, and that they must both end up in the same room, but
they can only ever see the room they are in. To help them guide each other to a
rendezvous, they have a device on which they can draw or write symbols that
appear on the other’s screen. But a
device works like a roll of paper that constantly scrolls downward, preventing
them from writing letters, numbers or any other commonly recognizable symbols.
The first thing Dr. Galantucci discovered was
how quickly reliable symbolic systems emerged. Nine out of ten pairs solved the
game in three hours, having agreed on a set of three or four symbols.
The languages were also very different.
Dr.Galantucci had expected that the pairs would build their language on
elements of the icons that that appear on the floors of the rooms. A few did
so, but they used different features of the icons – the numbers of vertices,
say, or some linear abstraction of its shape. Others adopted a numbering system
for the rooms – such as one slanting line for the first room and two for the
second, moving clockwise or anticlockwise through the four rooms.
Having observed winning pairs at play, Dr.
Galantucci says that communication is established as soon as one player decides
to copy the symbols proposed by his co-player, rather than impose his own. At that
point the pair’s chances of finding each other jump. As soon as there is
imitation, he says, there is a common currency.
One strength of Dr. Galantucci’s experiment
that does not exist in the real world, however, is that he is able to interview
his subjects afterwards. What is striking, he says, is that a pair can be
successful even if a symbol represents something quite different in the virtual
world to each player – as long as they agree on what they should do when
confronted by it. In other words, people only need to convey a small amount of
information to communicate effectively, and they can do so while holding
fundamentally different ideas about how their language describes the world.
Listening Comprehension for 10th Form Students Assignments
Task 1. Put
(+) if the statement is true, and (-) if the statement is false.
1.
The computer game is made is made for two players.
2.
Each pair of adjacent rooms is connected by one doorway.
3.
In the simplest version of the game, each player is located in one of
seven rooms.
4.
The players can always see all of the rooms on their computer screens.
5.
The players are allowed to use a device, like a scroll, to communicate
with each other.
6.
The majority of players solved the game in two hours.
7.
The languages the players developed were very different from each other.
8.
Communication is effective only when both players do the same thing when
faced by a symbol.
9.
In order for communication to be effective, both parties must understand
their symbols as representing exactly the same concept or idea.
10. This computer game is revealing some
of the secrets of successful communication.
Task 2. Circle the right answer A, B, C, or D
11. Bruno Galantucci is a ---- scientist at Yale University
in America
A.
rocket B. ecological
C. nuclear D.
cognitive
12. The experiment is based on the
concept that ---- is the mother of invention.
A.
work B. patience C.
necessity D. procrastination
A. one B.
two C. three D.
four
14. The rooms in the game are arranged in the shape of a ....
A. circle B.
square C. rectangle D.
pentagon
15. The phrase “spatial awareness” has to do with the ability to ...
A. recognizes the colour-patterns of
rooms
B. recognizes the speed of objects
in motion
C. recognizes the location of
objects in relation to each other.
D. recognizes the pitch of various
musical sounds.
16. The fact that scrolling device seen on the players’ screens is constantly
moving prevents the players from...
A. drawing pictures of themselves
B. writing funny jokes
C. communicating with Dr. Galantucci
D. writing any commonly recognizable
symbol
17. How mane pairs managed to solve the game in
only three hours?
A. nine out of nine
B. eight out of ten
C. nine out of ten
D. seven out of eight
18. The symbols created by the pairs included the
use of slanting lines to represent the ...
A.
number of the room
B.
size of the room
C.
geometrical shape of the room
D.
density of the room
19. “as soon as there is imitation”, Dr.
Galantucci says< “there is a common currency”. In this quote, the word
“currency” means...
A.
money B. finance
C. understanding D.
winning
20. According to Dr. Galantucci’s experiment, what
amount of information people need to communicate in order to be effective?
A.
small B. moderate
C. large D.
very large
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