Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The present study examines the feasibility of conducting iconic artificial language learning (ALL) experiments in a fieldwork setting. We taught the pictographic language from Shapiro and Steinert-Threlkeld (2023) to speakers of San Martín Peras Mixtec in Oaxaca, Mexico. In a qualitative analysis, we explore whether these speakers display similar word-ordering behaviors to those observed among other populations, while developing insights for future ALL field experiments. We show that iconic ALL offers a promising path forward for including understudied communities in the cognitive sciences.