Statistical physics of language dynamics

Language dynamics is a rapidly growing field that focuses on all processes related to the emergence, evolution, change and extinction of languages. Recently, the study of self-organization and evolution of language and meaning has led to the idea that a community of language users can be seen as a complex dynamical system, which collectively solves the problem of developing a shared communication framework through the back-and-forth signaling between individuals. We shall review some of the progress made in the past few years and highlight potential future directions of research in this area. In particular, the emergence of a common lexicon and of a shared set of linguistic categories will be discussed, as examples corresponding to the early stages of a language. The extent to which synthetic modeling is nowadays contributing to the ongoing debate in cognitive science will be pointed out. In addition, the burst of growth of the web is providing new experimental frameworks. It makes available a huge amount of resources, both as novel tools and data to be analyzed, allowing quantitative and large-scale analysis of the processes underlying the emergence of a collective information and language dynamics

Playful campaigning

While gamification is becoming an increasingly popular tool in HCI, it is often criticized for not being meaningful. In this work, we present a new approach: narrative-oriented gamification, applied in the context of environmental conservation. A biodata-driven game experience was developed to raise awareness during an environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) event at a music festival. The NGO representatives developed narratives, tailored to each potential outcome of the game, which encouraged participants to immediately reflect on the broader environmental issues and take action. In this paper we present the findings from this work suggesting that this form of gamification, predicated on narrtives and reflection, can be a powerful tool for creating engagement with, and raising public awareness of, environmental issues