Skip to main content

Cumulative Cultural Evolution: Can We Ever Learn More?

  • Conference paper
Book cover From Animals to Animats 9 (SAB 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4095))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

This paper investigates the dynamics of cumulative cultural evolution in a simulation concerning the evolution of language. This simulation integrates the iterated learning model with the Talking Heads experiment in which a population of agents evolves a language to communicate geometrical coloured objects by playing guessing games and transmitting the language from one generation to the next. The results show that cumulative cultural evolution is possible if the language becomes highly regular, which only happens if the language is transmitted from generation to generation.

This study has been supported by an EC Marie Curie fellowship and a VENI grant funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Darwin, C.: The Origin of Species. John Murray, London (1959)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Boyd, R., Richerson, P.: The origin and evolution of cultures. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Cavalli-Sforza, L.L., Feldman, M.W.: Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A quantitative approach. Princeton University Press, Princeton (1981)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Croft, W.: Explaining Language Change: An evolutionary approach. Longman, Harlow (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Wray, A.: Protolanguage as a holistic system for social interaction. Language and Communication 18, 47–67 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Kirby, S., Smith, K., Brighton, H.: From UG to universals: linguistic adaptation through iterated learning. Studies in Language 28(3), 587–607 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Vogt, P.: The emergence of compositional structures in perceptually grounded language games. Artificial Intelligence 167(1-2), 206–242 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Deacon, T.: The Symbolic Species. W. Norton and Co., New York (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Vogt, P.: On the acquisition and evolution of compositional languages: Sparse input and the productive creativity of children. Adaptive Behavior 13(4), 325–346 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Vogt, P.: Stability conditions in the evolution of compositional languages: issues in scaling population sizes. In: Bourgine, P., Képès, F., Schoenauer, M. (eds.) Proceedings of the European Conference on Complex Systems, ECCS 2005 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Batali, J.: The negotiation and acquisition of recursive grammars as a result of competition among exemplars. In: Briscoe, E. (ed.) Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models, pp. 111–172. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. Steels, L., Kaplan, F., McIntyre, A., Van Looveren, J.: Crucial factors in the origins of word-meaning. In: Wray, A. (ed.) The Transition to Language. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  13. De Beule, J., Bergen, B.K.: On the emergence of compositionality. In: Cangelosi, A., Smith, A., Smith, K. (eds.) The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Baronchelli, A., Loreto, V., Dall’Asta, L., Barrat, A.: Bootstrapping communication in language games: Strategy, topology and all that. In: Cangelosi, A., Smith, A., Smith, K. (eds.) Proceedings of Evolang, vol. 6. World Scientific Publishing, Singapore (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Edelman, G.M.: Neural Darwinism. Basic Books Inc., New York (1987)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Tamariz, M.: Evolutionary dynamics in language form and language meaning. In: Cangelosi, A., Smith, A.D.M., Smith, K. (eds.) The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language. World Scientific Press, Singapore (2006)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Vogt, P. (2006). Cumulative Cultural Evolution: Can We Ever Learn More?. In: Nolfi, S., et al. From Animals to Animats 9. SAB 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4095. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11840541_61

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11840541_61

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-38608-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-38615-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics