Studying the emergence of human communication systems in the laboratory Bruno Galantucci ( ( ( Haskins Laboratories ) ) )

FIELD STUDIES Studies of Pidgins and Creoles, Nicaraguan sign language, Home-sign-languages Language games with artificial agents COMPUTER SIMULATIONS BUT… WE DON’T HAVE EXPERIMENTAL CONTROL… BUT… HUMANS ARE MUCH MORE COMPLEX THAN ARTIFICIAL AGENTS… Combining the two options: field simulations Put two (or more) humans into a virtual environment that requires them to coordinate their individual actions and… neutralize the use of pre-established communication systems (e.g., speech, writing, body language…) Field simulations: a new option for studying the emergence of human communication systems

Player B’s view Player A’s view The basic game The virtual environment The need for coordination find each other with no more than one room change each The communication medium

Sign systems for playing Game 1 Quadrants Corners Longitude Icons: # of vertices Icons: shape Longitude & Latitude d a b c dcba t0t0 t0t0 Motion

Player A Sign system Mapping M 2 (e.g., icon vertices to # of dashes) Game environment Player B For both players Sign system Mapping M 1 (e.g., quadrants to # of lines) Game environment How are sign systems established? learning-by-using The build-up of SHARED COGNITION learning-by-observing CONVERGENT UNDERSTANDING SHARED COGNITION Player A’s signing behavior

Communication does not depend only on signs Game map PA’s view PB’s view

Media (air, light) User Task Communication system Field simulations allow us to manipulate all that we want… Studying communication systems in the laboratory How field simulations can help When studying a complex system, we can never know in advance what is going to relate to what Environment

Game 1 communication system 1 communication system 2 communication system 3 Environment 2 Manipulating the environment: Environment 3Environment 4 Environment 5 communication system 3 communication system 4 communication system 5 Once emerged… how do communication systems evolve?

Excellent performance OK performance FAILED! Excellent performance Communication does not depend only on signs II P8 P9 If in the central column, agents do not move sideways ? x Optimized talking Excessive talking

Sign systems develop parsimoniously P1 P3

Sign systems develop creatively 8 10 P2 P7 P15