INNOVATIONS IN COMMUNICATIONS

Christina Holtzen

fIrST VISUAl COMMUNICATION

35,000 B.C.4,000 B.C.
The first visual communications were shown by cave paintings. They included geometric signs, including dots, squares, intermingled with animals. They were made before the beginning of recorded history. The animals are pictographs elementary pictures or sketches to represent things depicted.
(Chauvet Cave paintings 30,000 BC.)

THe AlpHAbeT

2,800 B.C.
This was a major step forward in human communications. The hundreds of signs and symbols required by hieroglyphics were replaced by 20 or 30 elementary signs.

THe fIrST eNglISH dICTIONAry

1604
Schoolmaster Robert Cawdreys Table Alphabeticall is generally regarded as the first genuine dictionary in English. It contained roughly 2,500 words, each matched with a synonym or brief definition.

JOHANNeS peTer Mller

1848
Mller made contributions in numerous domains of physiology, in particular increasing understanding of the voice, speech and hearing. In 1848, he showed that one of the biological mechanisms essential for human speech.

THe TelepHONe
1875
Alexander Graham Bell discovered he could hear sound over a wire. The sound was that of a twanging clock spring. 1876 Speaking through the instrument to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in the next room, Bell utters these famous first words, Mr. Watsoncome hereI want to see you.

reVISed THeSIS

This thesis presents the hypothesis that the spoken language can sometimes not be the most reliable form of communication. With distortions in sound or the addition of noise, a persons understanding of the message can be altered. Such misunderstanding could cause a person to respond with an inappropriate reaction. Previously, it has been noted that the pitch or frequency of a persons speech can alter a persons perception of the message causing them to misunderstand. Such research could contribute to the finding that a listener may benefit from a different form of communication in order to understand a message.