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COGSR
2011

How groups develop a specialized domain vocabulary: A cognitive multi-agent model

13 years 5 months ago
How groups develop a specialized domain vocabulary: A cognitive multi-agent model
We simulate the evolution of a domain vocabulary in small communities. Empirical data show that human communicators can evolve graphical languages quickly in a constrained task (Pictionary), and that communities converge towards a common language. We propose that simulations of such cultural evolution incorporate properties of human memory (cue-based retrieval, learning, A cognitive model is described that encodes abstract concepts with small sets of concrete, related concepts (directing), and that also decodes such signs (matching). Learning captures conventionalized signs. Relatedness of concepts is characterized by a mixture of shared and individual knowledge, which we sample from a text corpus. Simulations show vocabulary convergence of agent communities of varied structure, but idiosyncrasy in vocabularies of each dyad of models. Convergence is weakened when agents do not alternate between encoding and decoding, predicting the necessity of bi-directional communication. Convergenc...
David Reitter, Christian Lebiere
Added 13 May 2011
Updated 13 May 2011
Type Journal
Year 2011
Where COGSR
Authors David Reitter, Christian Lebiere
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