The fitness and functionality of culturally evolved communication systems.
This paper assesses whether human communication systems undergo the same progressive adaptation seen in animal communication systems and concrete artefacts. Four experiments compared the fitness of ad hoc sign systems created under different conditions when participants play a graphical communication task. Experiment 1 demonstrated that when participants are organized into interacting communities, a series of signs evolve that enhance individual learning and promote efficient decoding. No such benefits are found for signs that result from the local interactions of isolated pairs of interlocutors. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the decoding benefits associated with community evolved signs cannot be attributed to superior sign encoding or detection. Experiment 4 revealed that naive overseers were better able to identify the meaning of community evolved signs when compared with isolated pair developed signs. Hence, the decoding benefits for community evolved signs arise from their greater residual iconicity. We argue that community evolved sign systems undergo a process of communicative selection and adaptation that promotes optimized sign systems. This results from the interplay between sign diversity and a global alignment constraint; pairwise interaction introduces a range of competing signs and the need to globally align on a single sign-meaning mapping for each referent applies selection pressure.
Fay
Nicolas
N
The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia. nfay@psy.uwa.edu.au
Garrod
Simon
S
Roberts
Leo
L
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D003142:Communication; D003468:Cultural Evolution; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012660:Semantics
Cognition. 2005 Mar;95(2):201-36
15694646
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Mar 20;104(12):5241-5
17360393
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Feb 15;102(7):2661-5
15699343
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Jun 26;104(26):10944-9
17537923
Behav Brain Sci. 2006 Aug;29(4):329-47; discussion 347-83
17094820
Cogn Sci. 2005 Sep 10;29(5):737-67
21702792
Behav Brain Sci. 2005 Oct;28(5):675-91; discussion 691-735
16262930
Cogn Sci. 2010 Apr;34(3):351-86
21564217
Annu Rev Psychol. 2003;54:145-73
12359915
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2008 Nov 12;363(1509):3529-39
18799419
Vision Res. 1995 Sep;35(17):2503-22
8594817
Nature. 2007 Oct 11;449(7163):713-6
17928859
Artif Life. 2002;8(2):185-215
12171637
Behav Brain Sci. 2004 Apr;27(2):169-90; discussion 190-226
15595235
Cogn Sci. 2007 Mar 4;31(2):285-309
21635298
Cognition. 1994 Dec;53(3):181-215
7842633
Nature. 2007 Oct 11;449(7163):717-20
17928860
Cogn Sci. 2007 Nov 12;31(6):961-87
21635324
Trends Cogn Sci. 2003 Jul;7(7):300-307
12860188
J Exp Psychol Appl. 2000 Dec;6(4):291-306
11218339