An agent-based model of sign language persistence informed by real-world data

Mudd, Katie; Vos, Connie De; Boer, Bart de

doi:10.1163/22105832-bja10010

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 40 publications

(70 reference statements)

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“…Agent-based approaches have also been used to model language emergence in conditions of contact between Deaf and hearing communities, providing insights into the conditions under which robust community sign languages emerge and persist (Mudd, De Vos, & De Boer, 2020).…”

Section: Extensions and Other Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communication games: Modeling language evolution through dyadic agent interactions

Ohmer¹,

Cuskley²

2023

Preprint

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This chapter focuses on how dyadic agent-based communication games are used to investigate language evolution. We start by putting communication games in historical and interdisciplinary context: similar approaches have been used across a variety of disciplines for close to 50 years. These have often existed in parallel, but nonetheless demonstrate a kind of convergent cultural evolution that speaks to the effectiveness of the method: dyadic communication games are a powerful tool for investigating language evolution and emergence. Focusing on the Lewis Signal- ing Game (LSG) and the Naming Game (NG), we make the similarities between different modeling traditions explicit by reducing them to their skeletal dynamics. Specific examples studying the role of sensory biases in the evolution of (color) categories are used to illustrate how game variations can lead to convergent but also complementary results. We further discuss strategies for implementing communication games including general strengths and weaknesses of the method, as well as how the approach has been extended to model and analyze various phenomena relevant to language evolution.

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Section: Extensions and Other Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communication games: Modeling language evolution through dyadic agent interactions

Ohmer¹,

Cuskley²

2023

Preprint

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“…The relationship between sign language and monogenic deafness is sometimes cited as an example [145]. However, the evidence for coevolution remains controversial because spontaneously rather than institutionally established sign language communities show much less assortative mating than is needed for an impact of language on genes [146,147]. The drift towards sign language is therefore more likely a special case of linguistic evolution with a change of sensory-motor support that has emerged in populations with prevalent deafness.…”

Section: Linguistic Evolution and Biological Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language follows a distinct mode of extra-genomic evolution

Bickel,

Giraud,

Zuberbühler

et al. 2023

Preprint

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As one of the most specific, yet most diverse of human behaviors, language is shaped by both genomic and extra-genomic evolution. Sharing methods and models between these modes of evolution has significantly advanced our understanding of language and inspired generalized theories of its evolution. Progress is hampered, however, by the fact that the extra-genomic evolution of languages, i.e. linguistic evolution, maps only partially to other forms of evolution. Contrasting it with the biological evolution of eukaryotes and the cultural evolution of technology as the best understood models, we show that linguistic evolution is special by yielding a stationary dynamic rather than stable solutions, and that this dynamic allows the use of language change for social differentiation while maintaining its global adaptiveness. Linguistic evolution furthermore differs from technological evolution by requiring vertical transmission, allowing the reconstruction of phylogenies; and it differs from eukaryotic biological evolution by foregoing a genotype vs phenotype distinction, allowing deliberate and biased change. Recognising these differences will improve our empirical tools and open new avenues for analyzing how linguistic, cultural, and biological evolution interacted with each other when language emerged in the hominin lineage. Importantly, our framework will help to cope with unprecedented scientific and ethical challenges that presently arise from how rapid cultural evolution impacts language, most urgently from interventional clinical tools for language disorders, potential epigenetic effects of technology on language, artificial intelligence and linguistic communicators, and global losses of linguistic diversity and identity. Beyond language, the distinctions made here allow identifying variation in other forms of biological and cultural evolution, developing new perspectives for empirical research.

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“… 2 Agent-based modeling techniques have been used to study sign language persistence in populations with a degree of inheritable deafness, showing that factors such as the proportion of deafness in the population, the proportion of hearing carriers of a deaf allele, the population size, the assortative marriage for deafness, and the method of sign language transmission (vertical, horizontal, oblique and grandparental) can have a substantive effect in sign language persitence in the population. See Mudd et al ( 2020a , b ). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological, cultural, and environmental factors catalyzing the emergence of (alternate) sign languages

Irurtzun

2023

Front. Psychol.

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An agent-based model of sign language persistence informed by real-world data

Cited by 6 publications

References 40 publications

Communication games: Modeling language evolution through dyadic agent interactions

Communication games: Modeling language evolution through dyadic agent interactions

Language follows a distinct mode of extra-genomic evolution

Biological, cultural, and environmental factors catalyzing the emergence of (alternate) sign languages

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