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  1. The Now-or-Never bottleneck: A fundamental constraint on language.Morten H. Christiansen & Nick Chater - 2016 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 39:e62.
    Memory is fleeting. New material rapidly obliterates previous material. How, then, can the brain deal successfully with the continual deluge of linguistic input? We argue that, to deal with this “Now-or-Never” bottleneck, the brain must compress and recode linguistic input as rapidly as possible. This observation has strong implications for the nature of language processing: (1) the language system must “eagerly” recode and compress linguistic input; (2) as the bottleneck recurs at each new representational level, the language system must build (...)
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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.
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  • Culture: Copying, Compression, and Conventionality.Mónica Tamariz & Simon Kirby - 2015 - Cognitive Science 39 (1):171-183.
    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 transmitted information, while reproducing is a source of random heritable (...)
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  • Transfer in artificial grammar learning: A reevaluation.Martin Redington & Nick Chater - 1996 - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 125 (2):123.
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  • Conventionalisation and discrimination as competing pressures on continuous speech-like signals.Hannah Little, Kerem Eryilmaz & Bart de Boer - 2017 - Interaction Studies 18 (3):352-375.
    Arbitrary communication systems can emerge from iconic beginnings through processes of conventionalisation via interaction. Here, we explore whether this process of conventionalisation occurs with continuous, auditory signals. We conducted an artificial signalling experiment. Participants either created signals for themselves, or for a partner in a communication game. We found no evidence that the speech-like signals in our experiment became less iconic or simpler through interaction. We hypothesise that the reason for our results is that when it is difficult to be (...)
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  • The Cultural Evolution of Structured Languages in an Open‐Ended, Continuous World.W. Carr Jon, Smith Kenny, Cornish Hannah & Kirby Simon - 2017 - Cognitive Science 41 (4):892-923.
    Language maps signals onto meanings through the use of two distinct types of structure. First, the space of meanings is discretized into categories that are shared by all users of the language. Second, the signals employed by the language are compositional: The meaning of the whole is a function of its parts and the way in which those parts are combined. In three iterated learning experiments using a vast, continuous, open-ended meaning space, we explore the conditions under which both structured (...)
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  • Synesthesia, Cross-Modality, and Language Evolution.Simon Kirby & Christine Cuskley - 2013 - In Julia Simner & Edward M. Hubbard (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia. Oxford University Press.
    In this chapter we suggest that the origin of language, specifically the protolinguistic stage, was iconic rather than arbitrary, and fundamentally based on shared cross-modal associations. We provide evidence from natural language in the form of sound symbolism, distinguishing conventional sound symbolism from sensory sound symbolism. Sensory sound symbolism, or the presence of iconicity in natural language, is considered alongside psychological experiments in naming, and other investigations of cross-modal associations specifically involving linguistic sound. This evidence supports the idea that we (...)
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  • (1 other version)The effects of rapidity of fading on communication systems.Bruno Galantucci, Christian Kroos & Theo Rhodes - 2010 - Interaction Studies 11 (1):100-111.
    Although 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 (...)
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  • Signal dimensionality and the emergence of combinatorial structure.Hannah Little, Kerem Eryılmaz & Bart de Boer - 2017 - Cognition 168 (C):1-15.
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  • Individual Differences in Learning Abilities Impact Structure Addition: Better Learners Create More Structured Languages.Tamar Johnson, Noam Siegelman & Inbal Arnon - 2020 - Cognitive Science 44 (8):e12877.
    Over the last decade, iterated learning studies have provided compelling evidence for the claim that linguistic structure can emerge from non‐structured input, through the process of transmission. However, it is unclear whether individuals differ in their tendency to add structure, an issue with implications for understanding who are the agents of change. Here, we identify and test two contrasting predictions: The first sees learning as a pre‐requisite for structure addition, and predicts a positive correlation between learning accuracy and structure addition, (...)
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  • (1 other version)The effects of rapidity of fading on communication systems.Bruno Galantucci, Christian Kroos & Theo Rhodes - 2010 - Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systemsinteraction Studies / Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systemsinteraction Studies 11 (1):100-111.
    Although 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 (...)
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  • (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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  • The length of words reflects their conceptual complexity.Molly L. Lewis & Michael C. Frank - 2016 - Cognition 153 (C):182-195.
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  • Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: From improvised gesture to systematic sign.Yasamin Motamedi, Marieke Schouwstra, Kenny Smith, Jennifer Culbertson & Simon Kirby - 2019 - Cognition 192 (C):103964.
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  • Compositional structure can emerge without generational transmission.Limor Raviv, Antje Meyer & Shiri Lev-Ari - 2019 - Cognition 182 (C):151-164.
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  • (1 other version)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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  • Remembering.F. C. Bartlett - 1935 - Scientia 29 (57):221.
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  • Contextual predictability shapes signal autonomy.James Winters, Simon Kirby & Kenny Smith - 2018 - Cognition 176 (C):15-30.
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  • Systematicity, but not compositionality: Examining the emergence of linguistic structure in children and adults using iterated learning.Limor Raviv & Inbal Arnon - 2018 - Cognition 181 (C):160-173.
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  • 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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  • Iconicity and the Emergence of Combinatorial Structure in Language.Tessa Verhoef, Simon Kirby & Bart Boer - 2016 - Cognitive Science 40 (8):1969-1994.
    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 presented in this paper studies the role (...)
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  • 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.
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  • How communication changes when we cannot mime the world: Experimental evidence for the effect of iconicity on combinatoriality.Gareth Roberts, Jirka Lewandowski & Bruno Galantucci - 2015 - Cognition 141 (C):52-66.
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