Motor Simulation and Ostensive Inferential Communication

Abstract

The ostensive-inferential model is a model of communication, an alternative to the code model of communication, based on pragmatic competence: it explains human communication in terms of expression and recognition of informative and communicative intentions, founding comprehension on the distinction be-tween literal meaning and the speaker's meaning. Through informative inten-tions we try to make evident the content of a message to a receiver, or to make evident what we want to communicate to him/her: communicative intentions are used to make evident the very fact that we intend to communicate. One hypothesis is that ostensive-inferential communication is what makes human language possible. Since an extensive literature has highlighted the role of the Theory of Mind in ostensive-inferential communication, this hypothesis fits with the idea that a mechanism for mentalizing underlies human communica-tion. The aim of the present paper is to stress the role of lower-level mecha-nisms, specifically of motor simulation, in the recognition of informative and communicative intentions, in order to outline an embodied account of osten-sive communication. Specifically, the hypothesis is that this process is involved in language acquisition during development, and that it plays a role in the as-sociative learning process involved in language acquisition during childhood. To this aim, in future research it may be useful to test the involvement of motor simulation (specifically, phono-articulatory and semantic) in the recognition of informative and communicative intentions in toddlers. Since some models of language evolution focus on the role of motor simulation, a supplementary goal is to deepen its role in the biological evolution of language, focusing on the spe-cific link between motor simulation and intentions in the framework of osten-sive-inferential model.