title: Sequence Memory Constraints Give Rise to Language-Like Structure through Iterated Learning.
abstract: Human language is composed of sequences of reusable elements. The origins of the sequential structure of language is a hotly debated topic in evolutionary linguistics. In this paper, we show that sets of sequences with language-like statistical properties can emerge from a process of cultural evolution under pressure from chunk-based memory constraints. We employ a novel experimental task that is non-linguistic and non-communicative in nature, in which participants are trained on and later asked to recall a set of sequences one-by-one. Recalled sequences from one participant become training data for the next participant. In this way, we simulate cultural evolution in the laboratory. Our results show a cumulative increase in structure, and by comparing this structure to data from existing linguistic corpora, we demonstrate a close parallel between the sets of sequences that emerge in our experiment and those seen in natural language.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of Stirling, Stirling, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Hannah
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cornish
authors.affiliation: Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California-Merced, Merced, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Rick
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dale
authors.affiliation: School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Science, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kirby
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America.|The Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Morten H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Christiansen
mesh_terms: D003468:Cultural Evolution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012153:Retention, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult