Richard Moore

Prospective Genomic Characterization of the German Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O104:H4 Outbreak by Rapid Next Generation Sequencing Technology

An ongoing outbreak of exceptionally virulent Shiga toxin (Stx)-producing Escherichia coli O104:H4 centered in Germany, has caused over 830 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and 46 deaths since May 2011. Serotype O104:H4, which has not been detected in animals, has rarely been associated with HUS in the past. To prospectively elucidate the unique characteristics of this strain in the early stages of this outbreak, we applied whole genome sequencing on the Life Technologies Ion Torrent PGM™ sequencer and Optical Mapping to characterize one outbreak isolate (LB226692) and a historic O104:H4 HUS isolate from 2001 (01-09591). Reference guided draft assemblies of both strains were completed with the newly introduced PGM™ within 62 hours. The HUS-associated strains both carried genes typically found in two types of pathogenic E. coli, enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC) and enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC). Phylogenetic analyses of 1,144 core E. coli genes indicate that the HUS-causing O104:H4 strains and the previously published sequence of the EAEC strain 55989 show a close relationship but are only distantly related to common EHEC serotypes. Though closely related, the outbreak strain differs from the 2001 strain in plasmid content and fimbrial genes. We propose a model in which EAEC 55989 and EHEC O104:H4 strains evolved from a common EHEC O104:H4 progenitor, and suggest that by stepwise gain and loss of chromosomal and plasmid-encoded virulence factors, a highly pathogenic hybrid of EAEC and EHEC emerged as the current outbreak clone. In conclusion, rapid next-generation technologies facilitated prospective whole genome characterization in the early stages of an outbreak.

Meaning and ostension in great ape gestural communication

It is sometimes argued that while human gestures are produced ostensively and intentionally, great ape gestures are produced only intentionally. If true, this would make the psychological mechanisms underlying the different species’ communication fundamentally different, and ascriptions of meaning to chimpanzee gestures would be inappropriate. While the existence of different underlying mechanisms cannot be ruled out, in fact claims about difference are driven less by empirical data than by contested assumptions about the nature of ostensive communication. On some accounts, there are no reasons to doubt that great ape gestural communication is ostensive. If these accounts are correct, attributions of meaning to chimpanzee gestures would be justified.

Exorcising Grice's ghost: an empirical approach to studying intentional communication in animals

Languages intentional nature has been highlighted as a crucial feature distinguishing it from other communication systems. Specifically, language is often thought to depend on highly structured intentional action and mutual mindreading by a communicator and recipient. Whilst similar abilities in animals can shed light on the evolution of intentionality, they remain challenging to detect unambiguously. We revisit animal intentional communication and suggest that progress in identifying analogous capacities has been complicated by (i) the assumption that intentional (that is, voluntary) production of communicative acts requires mental‐state attribution, and (ii) variation in approaches investigating communication across sensory modalities. To move forward, we argue that a framework fusing research across modalities and species is required. We structure intentional communication into a series of requirements, each of which can be operationalised, investigated empirically, and must be met for purposive, intentionally communicative acts to be demonstrated. Our unified approach helps elucidate the distribution of animal intentional communication and subsequently serves to clarify what is meant by attributions of intentional communication in animals and humans.

Ape Gestures: Interpreting Chimpanzee and Bonobo Minds

Improving methods for studying primate interaction are providing new insights into the relationship between gesture and meaning in chimpanzee and bonobo communication.

Production and Comprehension of Gestures between Orang-Utans (Pongo pygmaeus) in a Referential Communication Game.

Orang-utans played a communication game in two studies testing their ability to produce and comprehend requestive pointing. While the ‘communicator’ could see but not obtain hidden food, the ‘donor’ could release the food to the communicator, but could not see its location for herself. They could coordinate successfully if the communicator pointed to the food, and if the donor comprehended his communicative goal and responded pro-socially. In Study 1, one orang-utan pointed regularly and accurately for peers. However, they responded only rarely. In Study 2, a human experimenter played the communicator’s role in three conditions, testing the apes’ comprehension of points of different heights and different degrees of ostension. There was no effect of condition. However, across conditions one donor performed well individually, and as a group orang-utans’ comprehension performance tended towards significance. We explain this on the grounds that comprehension required inferences that they found difficult – but not impossible. The finding has valuable implications for our thinking about the development of pointing in phylogeny.

Convergent minds: ostension, inference and Grice's third clause

A prevailing view is that while human communication has an ‘ostensive-inferential’ or ‘Gricean’ intentional structure, animal communication does not. This would make the psychological states that support human and animal forms of communication fundamentally different. Against this view, I argue that there are grounds to expect ostensive communication in non-human clades. This is because it is sufficient for ostensive communication that one intentionally addresses ones utterance to ones intended interlocutor—something that is both a functional pre-requisite of successful communication and cognitively undemanding. Furthermore, while ostension is an important feature of intentional communication, the inferences required in Gricean communication may be minimal: ostension and inference may come apart. The grounds for holding that animal communication could not be Gricean are therefore weak. I finish by defending the idea that a ‘minimally Gricean’ model of communication is a valuable tool for characterizing the communicative interactions of many animal species.

Pragmatics-First Approaches to the Evolution of Language

Many prominent researchers have adopted a pragmatics-first approach to linguistic communication. Their hope is to show that an account of how we use and understand language can be built upon a foundation of nonverbal communication. This approach aims to shed new light on both the evolution of language in phylogeny (e.g., Moore, 2016, 2017a; Scott-Phillips, 2014, 2015, 2017; Tomasello, 2008), and children’s development of language in ontogeny (e.g., Bloom, 2000; Tomasello, 1999, 2008). Seemingly in this tradition, Andrea Scarantino (this issue) proposes a systematic account of how language might develop on the back of what he calls the theory of affective pragmatics (TAP). The proposed theory is “a general framework for the study of what emotional expressions ‘do’ from a communicative point of view” (p. 171). Scarantino’s account has two goals. The first is to “foster progress in the experimental study of emotional expressions by providing a new taxonomy of the communicative moves emotional expressions make available” (p. 165). The second stated goal is to set the stage for a better understanding of language evolution, by showing that even at the nonverbal level, the content of an utterance can be separated from its force and expressed through affective embodied behaviors. As a result, many language-like abilities are available to nonverbal creatures. The theory is pragmatic because, in a way that Scarantino (this issue) identifies as analogous to the study of pragmatics in linguistics, it is a study of what “what emotional expressions mean in a context” (p. 165), and the implications of this for linguistic communication. In particular, Scarantino argues that illocutionary acts like using language to make assertions or give orders characteristically have nonverbal correlates that can serve as a foundation for language. It is the second goal of TAP with which I concern myself here. In particular, I want to push the question of how exactly Scarantino’s theory can inform work in language evolution—by relating the article’s claims to an argumentative framework put forward by myself and others. I start by raising what I think is a serious objection to the view that Scarantino develops—by way of characterizing a key difference between his account and other pragmatics-first approaches to language evolution. At the heart of these approaches lie two subtly but crucially different uses of the words “meaning,” “communication,” and “pragmatics.” I argue that although pragmatics-first approaches are the right ones to adopt in language evolution research, Scarantino’s pragmaticsfirst approach is built on the wrong sort of pragmatic phenomena to make progress on the issues that others have identified as crucial. Although it therefore avoids some objections to standard versions of the pragmatics-first approach, it cannot explain language origins in the ways that these approaches promise to do. Nonetheless, I argue that although Scarantino’s approach cannot supersede other varieties of pragmatics-first approach, it can complement them in important ways. Consequently his account is very valuable. However, its true value may lie in an area slightly different from the one envisaged by Scarantino, and so its contribution needs to be elaborated in a way that is more nuanced than Scarantino’s writing makes clear.

Human ostensive signals do not enhance gaze following in chimpanzees, but do enhance object-oriented attention

The previous studies have shown that human infants and domestic dogs follow the gaze of a human agent only when the agent has addressed them ostensively—e.g., by making eye contact, or calling their name. This evidence is interpreted as showing that they expect ostensive signals to precede referential information. The present study tested chimpanzees, one of the closest relatives to humans, in a series of eye-tracking experiments using an experimental design adapted from these previous studies. In the ostension conditions, a human actor made eye contact, called the participant’s name, and then looked at one of two objects. In the control conditions, a salient cue, which differed in each experiment (a colorful object, the actor’s nodding, or an eating action), attracted participants’ attention to the actor’s face, and then the actor looked at the object. Overall, chimpanzees followed the actor’s gaze to the cued object in both ostension and control conditions, and the ostensive signals did not enhance gaze following more than the control attention-getters. However, the ostensive signals enhanced subsequent attention to both target and distractor objects (but not to the actor’s face) more strongly than the control attention-getters—especially in the chimpanzees who had a close relationship with human caregivers. We interpret this as showing that chimpanzees have a simple form of communicative expectations on the basis of ostensive signals, but unlike human infants and dogs, they do not subsequently use the experimenter’s gaze to infer the intended referent. These results may reflect a limitation of non-domesticated species for interpreting humans’ ostensive signals in inter-species communication.

Cognitive mechanisms matter - but they do not explain the absence of teaching in chimpanzees

Klines functional categories for the evolution of teaching blur some valuable distinctions. Moreover, her account provides no answer to the question of why direct active teaching seems to be a uniquely human phenomenon.