Title: Complexity in graphic communication systems

Presenter: Helena Miton, PhD, Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow, Santa Fe Institute

Abstract: Visual complexity is a major source of constraints on the symbols and shapes used in visual communication. I will compare data on graphic complexity in two systems of visual communication – writing systems and coats of arms, having different functions and submitted to different evolutionary pressures through the course of their history. Starting with European heraldry (i.e., coats of arms), we can see a different dynamic with regards to optimizing efficiency. In this case study, I examine how the relationship between complexity and frequency evolves through time, by using two samples from different time periods (before and after the invention of printing), and show how the use of iconic motifs influences visual complexity. Then moving onto more recent work on written characters, I will present a large-scale study comparing 133 writing systems. The results of this study suggest that (1) the type of linguistic unit encoded by characters impacts character complexity, (2) there is little evidence of evolutionary change at this scale, and (3) there is asymmetries in complexity within characters themselves, and they relate to reading and writing order.  Finally, I will present a few ongoing projects continuing this line of work, including a citizen science app named Glyph (which can be played at:  https://glyph.shh.mpg.de/.

Bio: Helena is a cognitive anthropologist and cultural evolutionist. Her research explores the interactions between minds and culture, and investigates questions such as how does human cognition makes possible and influences culture. She aims to understand how individuals interact to produce, organize and transmit cultural systems. She studies cultural evolution using data from human and social sciences, with a strong emphasis on cognitive science. She has reviewed cultural transmission experiments in an attempt to bridge back these experiments and the theoretical constructs they aim to test, tested hypotheses on how maladaptative medical practices (e.g., bloodletting) can thrive, and on how complexity evolves in graphic communication systems (e.g., heraldry, writing). 

Helena Miton is a Complexity Postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. She is also a member of the Minds and Traditions research group (Mint) at the Max Planck for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany. Helena received her PhD in Cognitive Science at the Central European University (Budapest, Hungary) in 2019. Prior to that, she earned a M.S in Cognitive Science from the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, and Paris Descartes University, and a B.A. in Sociology from Paris Sorbonne University.

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