13 found
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  1.  56
    Foundations of Representation: Where Might Graphical Symbol Systems Come From?Simon Garrod, Nicolas Fay, John Lee, Jon Oberlander & Tracy MacLeod - 2007 - Cognitive Science 31 (6):961-987.
    It has been suggested that iconic graphical signs evolve into symbolic graphical signs through repeated usage. This article reports a series of interactive graphical communication experiments using a ‘pictionary’ task to establish the conditions under which the evolution might occur. Experiment 1 rules out a simple repetition based account in favor of an account that requires feedback and interaction between communicators. Experiment 2 shows how the degree of interaction affects the evolution of signs according to a process of grounding. Experiment (...)
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  2.  90
    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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  3.  69
    The Interactive Evolution of Human Communication Systems.Nicolas Fay, Simon Garrod, Leo Roberts & Nik Swoboda - 2010 - Cognitive Science 34 (3):351-386.
    This paper compares two explanations of the process by which human communication systems evolve: iterated learning and social collaboration. It then reports an experiment testing the social collaboration account. Participants engaged in a graphical communication task either as a member of a community, where they interacted with seven different partners drawn from the same pool, or as a member of an isolated pair, where they interacted with the same partner across the same number of games. Participants’ horizontal, pair‐wise interactions led (...)
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  4. Creating a communication system from scratch: gesture beats vocalization hands down.Nicolas Fay, Casey J. Lister, T. Mark Ellison & Susan Goldin-Meadow - 2014 - Frontiers in Psychology 5.
  5.  65
    (1 other version)Can iterated learning explain the emergence of graphical symbols?Simon Garrod, Nicolas Fay, Shane Rogers, Bradley Walker & Nik Swoboda - 2010 - Interaction Studies 11 (1):33-50.
    This 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 ‘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 (...)
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  6.  56
    (1 other version)Iconicity: From sign to system in human communication and language.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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  7.  30
    Are People Sensitive to Problems in Communication?Ashley Micklos, Bradley Walker & Nicolas Fay - 2020 - Cognitive Science 44 (2):e12816.
    Recent research indicates that interpersonal communication is noisy, and that people exhibit considerable insensitivity to problems in communication. Using a dyadic referential communication task, the goal of which is accurate information transfer, this study examined the extent to which interlocutors are sensitive to problems in communication and use other‐initiated repairs (OIRs) to address them. Participants were randomly assigned to dyads (N = 88 participants, or 44 dyads) and tried to communicate a series of recurring abstract geometric shapes to a partner (...)
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  8.  54
    How to Create Shared Symbols.Nicolas Fay, Bradley Walker, Nik Swoboda & Simon Garrod - 2018 - Cognitive Science 42 (S1):241-269.
    Human cognition and behavior are dominated by symbol use. This paper examines the social learning strategies that give rise to symbolic communication. Experiment 1 contrasts an individual-level account, based on observational learning and cognitive bias, with an inter-individual account, based on social coordinative learning. Participants played a referential communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of recurring meanings to a partner by drawing, but without using their conventional language. Individual-level learning, via observation and cognitive bias, was sufficient (...)
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  9.  57
    How to create a human communication system.Casey J. Lister & Nicolas Fay - 2017 - Interaction Studies 18 (3):314-329.
    Following a synthesis of naturalistic and experimental studies of language creation, we propose a theoretical model that describes the process through which human communication systems might arise and evolve. Three key processes are proposed that give rise to effective, efficient and shared human communication systems: motivated signs that directly resemble their meaning facilitate cognitive alignment, improving communication success; behavioral alignment onto an inventory of shared sign-to-meaning mappings bolsters cognitive alignment between interacting partners; sign refinement, through interactive feedback, enhances the efficiency (...)
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  10.  26
    Network Connectivity Dynamics, Cognitive Biases, and the Evolution of Cultural Diversity in Round‐Robin Interactive Micro‐Societies.José Segovia-Martín, Bradley Walker, Nicolas Fay & Monica Tamariz - 2020 - Cognitive Science 44 (7):e12852.
    The distribution of cultural variants in a population is shaped by both neutral evolutionary dynamics and by selection pressures. The temporal dynamics of social network connectivity, that is, the order in which individuals in a population interact with each other, has been largely unexplored. In this paper, we investigate how, in a fully connected social network, connectivity dynamics, alone and in interaction with different cognitive biases, affect the evolution of cultural variants. Using agent‐based computer simulations, we manipulate population connectivity dynamics (...)
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  11.  22
    Socially Situated Transmission: The Bias to Transmit Negative Information is Moderated by the Social Context.Nicolas Fay, Bradley Walker, Yoshihisa Kashima & Andrew Perfors - 2021 - Cognitive Science 45 (9):e13033.
    Cultural evolutionary theory has identified a range of cognitive biases that guide human social learning. Naturalistic and experimental studies indicate transmission biases favoring negative and positive information. To address these conflicting findings, the present study takes a socially situated view of information transmission, which predicts that bias expression will depend on the social context. We report a large‐scale experiment (N = 425) that manipulated the social context and examined its effect on the transmission of the positive and negative information contained (...)
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  12.  49
    Universal Principles of Human Communication: Preliminary Evidence From a Cross‐cultural Communication Game.Nicolas Fay, Bradley Walker, Nik Swoboda, Ichiro Umata, Takugo Fukaya, Yasuhiro Katagiri & Simon Garrod - 2018 - Cognitive Science 42 (7):2397-2413.
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  13. The adaptive evolution of early human symbolic behavior.Katrin Heimann, Riccardo Fusaroli, Sergio Rojo, Niels Nørkjær Johannsen, Felix Riede, Nicolas Fay, Marlize Lombard & Kristian Tylén - unknown
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