Expectation violations signal goals in novel human communication

Communication, often grounded in shared expectations, faces challenges when a Sender and Receiver lack a common linguistic background. Our study explores how people instinctively turn to the fundamental principles of the physical world to overcome such barriers. Specifically, through an experimental game in which Senders convey messages via trajectories, we investigate how they develop novel strategies without relying on common linguistic cues. We build a computational model based on the principle of expectancy violations and a set of common universal priors derived from movement kinetics. The model replicates participant-designed messages with high accuracy and shows how its core variable—surprise—predicts the Receiver’s physiological and neuronal responses in brain areas processing expectation violations. This work highlights the adaptability of human communication, showing how surprise can be a powerful tool in forming new communicative strategies without relying on common language.