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  1. Spoken language achieves robustness and evolvability by exploiting degeneracy and neutrality.Bodo Winter - 2014 - Bioessays 36 (10):960-967.
    As with biological systems, spoken languages are strikingly robust against perturbations. This paper shows that languages achieve robustness in a way that is highly similar to many biological systems. For example, speech sounds are encoded via multiple acoustically diverse, temporally distributed and functionally redundant cues, characteristics that bear similarities to what biologists call “degeneracy”. Speech is furthermore adequately characterized by neutrality, with many different tongue configurations leading to similar acoustic outputs, and different acoustic variants understood as the same by recipients. (...)
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  • Analyzing Visual Metaphor and Metonymy to Understand Creativity in Fashion.Ryoko Uno, Eiko Matsuda & Bipin Indurkhya - 2019 - Frontiers in Psychology 9:387010.
    The role of figurative languages such as metaphor and metonymy in creativity has been studied in cognitive linguistics. These methods can also be applied to analyze non-linguistic data such as pictures and gestures. In this paper we analyze fashion design by focusing on visual metaphor and metonymy. The nature of creativity in fashion design is not fully studied from a cognitive perspective compared to other related fields such as art. We especially focus on the aspect of fashion design as a (...)
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  • Self domestication and the evolution of language.James Thomas & Simon Kirby - 2018 - Biology and Philosophy 33 (1-2):9.
    We set out an account of how self-domestication plays a crucial role in the evolution of language. In doing so, we focus on the growing body of work that treats language structure as emerging from the process of cultural transmission. We argue that a full recognition of the importance of cultural transmission fundamentally changes the kind of questions we should be asking regarding the biological basis of language structure. If we think of language structure as reflecting an accumulated set of (...)
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  • Predicting the Structure of a Lexical Environment from Properties of Verbal Working Memory.Yuki Tanida & Satoru Saito - 2022 - Cognitive Science 46 (8):e13181.
    Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 8, August 2022.
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  • Integrative and Separationist Perspectives: Understanding the Causal Role of Cultural Transmission in Human Language Evolution.Francesco Suman - 2018 - Biological Theory 13 (4):246-260.
    Biological evolution and cultural evolution are distinct evolutionary processes; they are apparent also in human language, where both processes contributed in shaping its evolution. However, the nature of the interaction between these two processes is still debated today. It is often claimed that the emergence of modern language was preceded by the evolution of a language-ready brain: the latter is usually intended as a product of biological evolution, while the former is believed to be the consequence of cultural processes. I (...)
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  • An Updated Evolutionary Research Programme for the Evolution of Language.Francesco Suman - 2018 - Topoi 37 (2):255-263.
    Language evolution, intended as an open problem in the evolutionary research programme, will be here analyzed from the theoretical perspective advanced by the supporters of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Four factors and two associated concepts will be matched with a selection of critical examples concerning genus Homo evolution, relevant for the evolution of language, such as the evolution of hominin life-history traits, the enlargement of the social group, increased cooperation among individuals, behavioral change and innovations, heterochronic modifications leading to increased (...)
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  • Why Language Evolution Needs Memory: Systems and Ecological Approaches.Anton V. Sukhoverkhov & Carol A. Fowler - 2015 - Biosemiotics 8 (1):47-65.
    The main purpose of this article is to consider the significance of different types of memory and non-genetic inheritance and different biosemiotic systems for the origin and evolution of language. It presents language and memory as distributed, heteronomous and system-determined processes implemented in biological and social domains. The article emphasises that language and other sign systems are both ecological and inductive systems that were caused by and always correlate with the environment and deductive systems that are inherited by and depend (...)
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  • Cognitive indigenization effects in the English dative alternation.Melanie Röthlisberger, Jason Grafmiller & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi - 2017 - Cognitive Linguistics 28 (4):673-710.
    Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.
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  • Conversation, cognition and cultural evolution.Seán G. Roberts & Stephen C. Levinson - 2017 - Interaction Studies 18 (3):402-442.
    This paper outlines a first attempt to model the special constraints that arise in language processing in conversation, and to explore the implications such functional considerations may have on language typology and language change. In particular, we focus on processing pressures imposed by conversational turn-taking and their consequences for the cultural evolution of the structural properties of language. We present an agent-based model of cultural evolution where agents take turns at talk in conversation. When the start of planning for the (...)
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  • Greater learnability is not sufficient to produce cultural universals.Anna N. Rafferty, Thomas L. Griffiths & Marc Ettlinger - 2013 - Cognition 129 (1):70-87.
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  • A Systematic Investigation of Gesture Kinematics in Evolving Manual Languages in the Lab.Wim Pouw, Mark Dingemanse, Yasamin Motamedi & Aslı Özyürek - 2021 - Cognitive Science 45 (7):e13014.
    Silent gestures consist of complex multi‐articulatory movements but are now primarily studied through categorical coding of the referential gesture content. The relation of categorical linguistic content with continuous kinematics is therefore poorly understood. Here, we reanalyzed the video data from a gestural evolution experiment (Motamedi, Schouwstra, Smith, Culbertson, & Kirby, 2019), which showed increases in the systematicity of gesture content over time. We applied computer vision techniques to quantify the kinematics of the original data. Our kinematic analyses demonstrated that gestures (...)
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  • Cultural Evolution of Precise and Agreed‐Upon Semantic Conventions in a Multiplayer Gaming App.Olivier Morin, Thomas F. Müller, Tiffany Morisseau & James Winters - 2022 - Cognitive Science 46 (2):e13113.
    Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.
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  • Cultural Evolution of Precise and Agreed‐Upon Semantic Conventions in a Multiplayer Gaming App.Olivier Morin, Thomas F. Müller, Tiffany Morisseau & James Winters - 2022 - Cognitive Science 46 (2):e13113.
    The amount of information conveyed by linguistic conventions depends on their precision, yet the codes that humans and other animals use to communicate are quite ambiguous: they may map several vague meanings to the same symbol. How does semantic precision evolve, and what are the constraints that limit it? We address this question using a multiplayer gaming app, where individuals communicate with one another in a scaled-up referential game. Here, the goal is for a sender to use black and white (...)
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  • The Influence of Shared Visual Context on the Successful Emergence of Conventions in a Referential Communication Task.Thomas F. Müller, James Winters & Olivier Morin - 2019 - Cognitive Science 43 (9).
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  • Machine Impostors Can Avoid Human Detection and Interrupt the Formation of Stable Conventions by Imitating Past Interactions: A Minimal Turing Test.Thomas F. Müller, Levin Brinkmann, James Winters & Niccolò Pescetelli - 2023 - Cognitive Science 47 (4):e13288.
    Interactions between humans and bots are increasingly common online, prompting some legislators to pass laws that require bots to disclose their identity. The Turing test is a classic thought experiment testing humans’ ability to distinguish a bot impostor from a real human from exchanging text messages. In the current study, we propose a minimal Turing test that avoids natural language, thus allowing us to study the foundations of human communication. In particular, we investigate the relative roles of conventions and reciprocal (...)
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  • Compression and communication in the cultural evolution of linguistic structure.Simon Kirby, Monica Tamariz, Hannah Cornish & Kenny Smith - 2015 - Cognition 141 (C):87-102.
  • Conceptual Similarity and Communicative Need Shape Colexification: An Experimental Study.Andres Karjus, Richard A. Blythe, Simon Kirby, Tianyu Wang & Kenny Smith - 2021 - Cognitive Science 45 (9):e13035.
    Colexification refers to the phenomenon of multiple meanings sharing one word in a language. Cross‐linguistic lexification patterns have been shown to be largely predictable, as similar concepts are often colexified. We test a recent claim that, beyond this general tendency, communicative needs play an important role in shaping colexification patterns. We approach this question by means of a series of human experiments, using an artificial language communication game paradigm. Our results across four experiments match the previous cross‐linguistic findings: all other (...)
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  • Iterated Learning Models of Language Change: A Case Study of Sino‐Korean Accent.Chiyuki Ito & Naomi H. Feldman - 2022 - Cognitive Science 46 (4):e13115.
    Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 4, April 2022.
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  • Chunk‐Based Memory Constraints on the Cultural Evolution of Language.Erin S. Isbilen & Morten H. Christiansen - 2018 - Topics in Cognitive Science 12 (2):713-726.
    How linguistic structures evolve so as to become easier to process is addressed by Isbilen and Christiansen for the Now‐or‐Never bottleneck. The authors suggest that this fundamental challenge in language processing is coped with by rapid compression of the transient linguistic input into chunks then to be passed on. As linguistic structures that can be chunked more easily tend to stabilize and proliferate, language evolves to fit learners’ cognitive capabilities.
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  • Infinite Generation of Language Unreachable From a Stepwise Approach.M. A. C. Huybregts - 2019 - Frontiers in Psychology 10.
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  • What Complexity Differences Reveal About Domains in Language.Jeffrey Heinz & William Idsardi - 2013 - Topics in Cognitive Science 5 (1):111-131.
    An important distinction between phonology and syntax has been overlooked. All phonological patterns belong to the regular region of the Chomsky Hierarchy, but not all syntactic patterns do. We argue that the hypothesis that humans employ distinct learning mechanisms for phonology and syntax currently offers the best explanation for this difference.
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  • How to Bootstrap a Human Communication System.Nicolas Fay, Michael Arbib & Simon Garrod - 2013 - Cognitive Science 37 (7):1356-1367.
    How might a human communication system be bootstrapped in the absence of conventional language? We argue that motivated signs play an important role (i.e., signs that are linked to meaning by structural resemblance or by natural association). An experimental study is then reported in which participants try to communicate a range of pre-specified items to a partner using repeated non-linguistic vocalization, repeated gesture, or repeated non-linguistic vocalization plus gesture (but without using their existing language system). Gesture proved more effective (measured (...)
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  • Iconicity.Nicolas Fay, Mark Ellison & Simon Garrod - 2014 - Pragmatics and Cognition 22 (2):244-263.
    This paper explores the role of iconicity in spoken language and other human communication systems. First, we concentrate on graphical and gestural communication and show how semantically motivated iconic signs play an important role in creating such communication systems from scratch. We then consider how iconic signs tend to become simplified and symbolic as the communication system matures and argue that this process is driven by repeated interactive use of the signs. We then consider evidence for iconicity at the level (...)
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  • Evolution of speech-specific cognitive adaptations.Bart de Boer - 2015 - Frontiers in Psychology 6.
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  • Recycling utterances: A speaker's guide to sentence processing.Ewa Dąbrowska - 2014 - Cognitive Linguistics 25 (4).
    Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 25 Heft: 4 Seiten: 617-653.
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  • Mapping complex social transmission: technical constraints on the evolution of cultures.Mathieu Charbonneau - 2015 - Biology and Philosophy 30 (4):527-546.
    Social transmission is at the core of cultural evolutionary theory. It occurs when a demonstrator uses mental representations to produce some public displays which in turn allow a learner to acquire similar mental representations. Although cultural evolutionists do not dispute this view of social transmission, they typically abstract away from the multistep nature of the process when they speak of cultural variants at large, thereby referring both to variation and evolutionary change in mental representations as well as in their corresponding (...)
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  • The Origin of Languages. A Constrained Set of Hypotheses.José Luis Guijarro - 2014 - Humana Mente 7 (27).
    As it seems impossible to find reliable evidence to back up hypotheses on the origin of our use of the linguistic tool in our acts of communication, I believe that we may start by pointing as accurately as possible to the processes involved, using a methodology that attempts to reach the levels of adequacy proposed by Chomsky, complemented by those suggested by David Marr. If we conclude that human communication and human language may have had different origins, we might find (...)
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  • Greater learnability is not sufficient to produce cultural universals.Marc Ettlinger Anna N. Rafferty, Thomas L. Griffiths - 2013 - Cognition 129 (1):70.
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  • A report on the workshop on complexity in linguistics.T. Gong & C. Coupé - unknown - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31:489-509.