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- Volume 11, Issue, 2010
Interaction Studies - Volume 11, Issue 1, 2010
Volume 11, Issue 1, 2010
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Systematicity and arbitrariness in novel communication systems
Author(s): Carrie Ann Theisen, Jon Oberlander and Simon Kirbypp.: 14–32 (19)More LessArbitrariness and systematicity are two of language’s most fascinating properties. Although both are characterizations of the mappings between signals and meanings, their emergence and evolution in communication systems has generally been explored independently. We present an experiment in which both arbitrariness and systematicity are probed. Participants invent signs from scratch to refer to a set of items that share salient semantic features. Through interaction, the systematic re-use of arbitrary signal elements emerges.
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Can iterated learning explain the emergence of graphical symbols?
Author(s): Simon Garrod, Nicolas Fay, Shane Rogers, Bradley Walker and Nik Swobodapp.: 33–50 (18)More LessThis paper contrasts two influential theoretical accounts of language change and evolution – Iterated Learning and Social Coordination. The contrast is based on an experiment that compares drawings produced with Garrod et al’s (2007) ‘pictionary’ task with those produced in an Iterated Learning version of the same task. The main finding is that Iterated Learning does not lead to the systematic simplification and increased symbolicity of graphical signs produced in the standard interactive version of the task. A second finding is that Iterated Learning leads to less conceptual and structural alignment between participants than observed for those in the interactive condition. The paper concludes with a comparison of the two accounts in relation to how each promotes signs that are effi cient, systematic and learnable.
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Exploring the cognitive infrastructure of communication
pp.: 51–77 (27)More LessHuman communication is often thought about in terms of transmitted messages in a conventional code like a language. But communication requires a specialized interactive intelligence. Senders have to be able to perform recipient design, while receivers need to be able to do intention recognition, knowing that recipient design has taken place. To study this interactive intelligence in the lab, we developed a new task that taps directly into the underlying abilities to communicate in the absence of a conventional code. We show that subjects are remarkably successful communicators under these conditions, especially when senders get feedback from receivers. Signaling is accomplished by the manner in which an instrumental action is performed, such that instrumentally dysfunctional components of an action are used to convey communicative intentions. The findings have important implications for the nature of the human communicative infrastructure, and the task opens up a line of experimentation on human communication.
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The evolution of communication: Humans may be exceptional
Author(s): Thomas C. Scott-Phillipspp.: 78–99 (22)More LessCommunication is a fundamentally interactive phenomenon. Evolutionary biology recognises this fact in its definition of communication, in which signals are those actions that cause reactions, and where both action and reaction are designed for that reason. Where only one or the other is designed then the behaviours are classed as either cues or coercion. Since mutually dependent behaviours are unlikely to emerge simultaneously, the symmetry inherent in these definitions gives rise to a prediction that communication will only emerge if cues or coercive behaviours do so first. They will then be co-opted for communication. A range of case studies, from animal signalling, evolutionary robotics, comparative psychology, and evolutionary linguistics are used to test this prediction. The first three are found to be supportive. However in the Embodied Communication Game, a recent experimental approach to the emergence of communication between adult humans, communication emerges even when cues or coerced behaviours are not possible. This suggests that humans are exceptional in this regard. It is argued that the reason for this is the degree to which we are able and compelled to read and interpret the behaviour of others in intentional terms.
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The effects of rapidity of fading on communication systems
Author(s): Bruno Galantucci, Christian Kroos and Theo Rhodespp.: 100–111 (12)More LessAlthough rapidity of fading has been long identified as one of the crucial design features of language, little is known about its effects on the design of communication systems. To investigate such effects, we performed an experiment in which pairs of participants developed novel communication systems using media that had different degrees of rapidity of fading. The results of the experiment suggest that rapidity of fading does not affect the pace with which communication systems emerge or the communicative effi cacy of the emerged systems. However, rapidity of fading seems to affect the design of these systems. In particular, communication systems implemented in the more rapidly fading medium exhibited a higher degree of combinatorial reuse of their forms than systems implemented in the medium that faded more slowly. These results suggest that the design of language might be constrained by subtle relations the presence of which can be ascertained only through direct experimental manipulation. Human communication systems crafted today in the laboratory can provide new insights into the design of natural languages.
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Investigating how cultural transmission leads to the appearance of design without a designer in human communication systems
Author(s): Hannah Cornishpp.: 112–137 (26)More LessRecent work on the emergence and evolution of human communication has focused on getting novel systems to evolve from scratch in the laboratory. Many of these studies have adopted an interactive construction approach, whereby pairs of participants repeatedly interact with one another to gradually develop their own communication system whilst engaged in some shared task. This paper describes four recent studies that take a different approach, showing how adaptive structure can emerge purely as a result of cultural transmission through single chains of learners. By removing elements of interactive communication and focusing only on the way in which language is repeatedly acquired by learners, we hope to gain a better understanding of how useful structural properties of language could have emerged without being intentionally designed or innovated.
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An experimental study of social selection and frequency of interaction in linguistic diversity
Author(s): Gareth Robertspp.: 138–159 (22)More LessComputational simulations have provided evidence that the use of linguistic cues as group markers plays an important role in the development of linguistic diversity shortcite (Nettle & Dunbar, 1997; Nettle, 1999). Other simulations, however, have contradicted these findings (Livingstone & Fyfe, 1999; Livingstone, 2002). Similar disagreements exist in sociolinguistics (e.g. Labov, 1963, 2001; Trudgill, 2004, 2008a; Baxter et al., 2009). This paper describes an experimental study in which participants played an anonymous economic game using an instant-messenger-style program and an artificial ‘alien language’. The competitiveness of the game and the frequency with which players interacted were manipulated. Given frequent enough interaction with team-mates, players were able to use linguistic cues to identify themselves. In the most competitive condition, this led to divergence in the language, which did not occur in other conditions. This suggests that both frequency of interaction and a pressure to use language to mark identity play a significant role in encouraging linguistic divergence over short periods, but that neither is suffi cient on its own.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 25 (2024)
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Volume 24 (2023)
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Volume 23 (2022)
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Volume 22 (2021)
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Volume 21 (2020)
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Volume 20 (2019)
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Volume 19 (2018)
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Volume 18 (2017)
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Volume 17 (2016)
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Volume 16 (2015)
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Volume 15 (2014)
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Volume 14 (2013)
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Volume 13 (2012)
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Volume 12 (2011)
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Volume 11 (2010)
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Volume 10 (2009)
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Volume 9 (2008)
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Volume 8 (2007)
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Volume 7 (2006)
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Volume 6 (2005)
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Volume 5 (2004)
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