Complex Adaptive Systems and the Origins of Adaptive Structure

What Experiments Can Tell Us

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3172811
AutoresHannah Cornish (University of Edinburgh), Monica Tamariz (0000-0003-4688-1774, University of Edinburgh), Simon Kirby (0000-0002-6496-1340, University of Edinburgh, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen59
Números1
Páginas187-205
Fecha de publicación2009-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLanguage Learning (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0023-8333 • E-ISSN: 1467-9922
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9922.2009.00540.x
OpenAlexW2084355019
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas37

Language is a product of both biological and cultural evolution. Clues to the origins of key structural properties of language can be found in the process of cultural transmission between learners. Recent experiments have shown that iterated learning by human participants in the laboratory transforms an initially unstructured artificial language into one containing regularities that make the system more learnable and stable over time. Here, we explore the process of iterated learning in more detail by demonstrating exactly how one type of structure-compositionality-emerges over the course of these experiments. We introduce a method to precisely quantify the increasing ability of a language to systematically encode associations between individual components of meanings and signals over time and we examine how the system as a whole evolves to avoid ambiguity in these associations and generate adaptive structure

Ambiguity · Cognitive science · Constructed language · Language acquisition · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Principle of compositionality · Process (computing) · Artificial Intelligence · Cognitive Science and Education Research · Computer Science · Language and cultural evolution · Psychology