A careful experiment with speakers of three very different languages shows that these signals follow predictable patterns. When the next move requires keeping attention on the ongoing activity, people favor the shortest, simplest sounds that don’t demand extra cognitive effort. When a clear change of phase is needed, they favor more distinct words that announce the switch. This pattern hints at a deep link between how our brains handle multitasking and how languages evolve tools for coordination.
Thinking about these tiny markers opens a window into human potential. If coordination tools are broadly shared across cultures, designers of collaborative robots, classrooms, or workplaces can tune interactions to match those natural rhythms. Follow the full article to explore how such small signals exert big effects on inclusion, learning, and the capacity of groups to adapt together.
Abstract
Goal-directed tasks unfold in hierarchies of larger and smaller sub-tasks, and pursuing them jointly implies that participants must agree on whether they are continuing an ongoing sub-task (horizontal transition) or switching to the next sub-task (vertical transition). Previous research indicates that humans employ short and efficient coordination markers as procedural conventions to distinguish horizontal (e.g., in English, with yeah and uh-huh) and vertical transitions (with okay, all right). However, it remains unclear (1) whether such words serve as potentially universal coordination devices and (2) which properties make some markers more suitable for horizontal versus vertical transition contexts. We hypothesized that horizontal transitions in ongoing sub-tasks are associated with higher dual-tasking interference between verbal coordination and the nonlinguistic task, therefore, constraining the lexicality of coordination markers. In our experimental study, we assessed how speakers of three typologically diverse languages (Swiss French, Vietnamese, and Shipibo-Konibo; N = 232) used coordination markers to navigate a joint LEGO-building task. We found that in each language, coordination markers comprise a system of transition-specific conventions and that participants strategically deployed markers with minimal lexical and acoustic forms (uh-huh, mm) and repetitions in horizontal transitions, while more lexicalized markers (e.g., okay) in vertical transitions. Our findings suggest that (1) coordination markers are potentially universal linguistic devices for navigating joint activities and (2) the forms of coordination markers might be shaped by the constraints of their primary interaction context (here, horizontal and vertical transitions). Our study provides new evidence of how interactional settings might selectively shape language use through the forces of convergent language evolution.
