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2Predictability and Variation in Language Are Differentially Affected by Learning and ProductionCognitive Science 48 (4). 2024.General principles of human cognition can help to explain why languages are more likely to have certain characteristics than others: structures that are difficult to process or produce will tend to be lost over time. One aspect of cognition that is implicated in language use is working memory—the component of short‐term memory used for temporary storage and manipulation of information. In this study, we consider the relationship between working memory and regularization of linguistic variation. …Read more
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3Evaluating the Relative Importance of Wordhood Cues Using Statistical LearningCognitive Science 48 (3). 2024.Identifying wordlike units in language is typically done by applying a battery of criteria, though how to weight these criteria with respect to one another is currently unknown. We address this question by investigating whether certain criteria are also used as cues for learning an artificial language—if they are, then perhaps they can be relied on more as trustworthy top‐down diagnostics. The two criteria for grammatical wordhood that we consider are a unit's free mobility and its internal immu…Read more
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8Minimal Requirements for the Emergence of Learned SignalingCognitive Science 41 (3): 623-658. 2017.The emergence of signaling systems has been observed in numerous experimental and real‐world contexts, but there is no consensus on which (if any) shared mechanisms underlie such phenomena. A number of explanatory mechanisms have been proposed within several disciplines, all of which have been instantiated as credible working models. However, they are usually framed as being mutually incompatible. Using an exemplar‐based framework, we replicate these models in a minimal configuration which allow…Read more
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31Evolution might select constructivismBehavioral and Brain Sciences 20 (4): 567-568. 1997.There is evidence for increase, followed by decline, in synaptic numbers during development. Dendrites do not function in isolation. A constructive neuronal process may underpin a selectionist cognitive process. The environment shapes both ontogeny and phylogeny. Phylogenetic natural selection and neural selection are compatible. Natural selection can yield both constructivist and selectionist solution to adaptuive problems.
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13Documenting a Reduction in Signing Space in Nicaraguan Sign Language Using Depth and Motion CaptureCognitive Science 47 (4). 2023.In this paper, we use motion tracking technology to document the birth of a brand new language: Nicaraguan Sign Language. Languages are dynamic entities that undergo change and growth through use, transmission, and learning, but the earliest stages of this process are generally difficult to observe as most languages have been used and passed down for many generations. Here, we observe a rare case of language emergence: the earliest stages of the new sign language in Nicaragua. By comparing the s…Read more
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10The Effects of Iconicity and Conventionalization on Word Order PreferencesCognitive Science 46 (10). 2022.Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 10, October 2022.
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17From improvisation to learning: How naturalness and systematicity shape language evolutionCognition 228 (C): 105206. 2022.
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5Investigating Word Order Emergence: Constraints From Cognition and CommunicationFrontiers in Psychology 13. 2022.How do cognitive biases and mechanisms from learning and use interact when a system of language conventions emerges? We investigate this question by focusing on how transitive events are conveyed in silent gesture production and interaction. Silent gesture experiments have been used to investigate cognitive biases that shape utterances produced in the absence of a conventional language system. In this mode of communication, participants do not follow the dominant order of their native language, …Read more
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33Conceptual Similarity and Communicative Need Shape Colexification: An Experimental StudyCognitive Science 45 (9). 2021.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…Read more
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25Systematicity and arbitrariness in novel communication systemsInteraction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systemsinteraction Studies / Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systemsinteraction Studies 11 (1): 14-32. 2010.Arbitrariness 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 arbi…Read more
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74Self domestication and the evolution of languageBiology and Philosophy 33 (1-2): 9. 2018.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 c…Read more
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40Iconicity and the Emergence of Combinatorial Structure in LanguageCognitive Science 40 (8): 1969-1994. 2016.In language, recombination of a discrete set of meaningless building blocks forms an unlimited set of possible utterances. How such combinatorial structure emerged in the evolution of human language is increasingly being studied. It has been shown that it can emerge when languages culturally evolve and adapt to human cognitive biases. How the emergence of combinatorial structure interacts with the existence of holistic iconic form-meaning mappings in a language is still unknown. The experiment p…Read more
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74Systematicity and arbitrariness in novel communication systemsInteraction Studies 11 (1): 14-32. 2010.
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70Minimal Requirements for the Emergence of Learned SignalingCognitive Science 40 (7): 623-658. 2016.The emergence of signaling systems has been observed in numerous experimental and real-world contexts, but there is no consensus on which shared mechanisms underlie such phenomena. A number of explanatory mechanisms have been proposed within several disciplines, all of which have been instantiated as credible working models. However, they are usually framed as being mutually incompatible. Using an exemplar-based framework, we replicate these models in a minimal configuration which allows us to d…Read more
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33Culture: Copying, Compression, and ConventionalityCognitive Science 39 (1): 171-183. 2015.Through cultural transmission, repeated learning by new individuals transforms cultural information, which tends to become increasingly compressible . Existing diffusion chain studies include in their design two processes that could be responsible for this tendency: learning and reproducing . This paper manipulates the presence of learning in a simple iterated drawing design experiment. We find that learning seems to be the causal factor behind the increase in compressibility observed in the tra…Read more
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39Word Meanings Evolve to Selectively Preserve Distinctions on Salient DimensionsCognitive Science 39 (1): 212-226. 2015.Words refer to objects in the world, but this correspondence is not one-to-one: Each word has a range of referents that share features on some dimensions but differ on others. This property of language is called underspecification. Parts of the lexicon have characteristic patterns of underspecification; for example, artifact nouns tend to specify shape, but not color, whereas substance nouns specify material but not shape. These regularities in the lexicon enable learners to generalize new words…Read more
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35The brain plus the cultural transmission mechanism determine the nature of languageBehavioral and Brain Sciences 31 (5): 533-534. 2008.We agree that language adapts to the brain, but we note that language also has to adapt to brain-external constraints, such as those arising from properties of the cultural transmission medium. The hypothesis that Christiansen & Chater (C&C) raise in the target article not only has profound consequences for our understanding of language, but also for our understanding of the biological evolution of the language faculty
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33Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: From improvised gesture to systematic signCognition 192 (C): 103964. 2019.
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33The emergence of linguistic structure: An overview of the iterated learning modelIn A. Cangelosi & D. Parisi (eds.), Simulating the Evolution of Language, Springer Verlag. pp. 121--147. 2002.
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The evolution of languageIn Robin Dunbar & Louise Barrett (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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24An evolutionary approach to sign language emergence: From state to processBehavioral and Brain Sciences 40. 2017.
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20Function, Selection, and Innateness: The Emergence of Language UniversalsOxford University Press UK. 1999.This book explores issues at the core of modern linguistics and cognitive science. Why are all languages similar in some ways and in others utterly different? Why do languages change and change variably? How did the human capacity for language evolve, and how far did it do so as an innate ability? Simon Kirby looks at these questions from a broad perspective, arguing that they can be studied together. The author begins by examining how far the universal properties of language may be explained by…Read more
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47Compression and communication in the cultural evolution of linguistic structureCognition 141 (C): 87-102. 2015.
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33Simplicity and Specificity in Language: Domain-General Biases Have Domain-Specific EffectsFrontiers in Psychology 6. 2015.
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37Species evolve, very slowly, through selection of genes which give rise to phenotypes well adapted to their environments. The cultures, including the languages, of human communities evolve, much faster, maintaining at least a minimum level of adaptedness to the external, non- cultural environment. In the phylogenetic evolution of species, the transmission of information across generations is via copying of molecules, and innovation is by mutation and sexual recombination. In cultural evolution, …Read more