Chimento, Michael

Cuskley, Christine

Kirby, Simon

Edinburgh Research Explorer

     Edinburgh Research Explorer                                      Modelling strangersCitation for published version:Chimento, M, Cuskley, C & Kirby, S 2018, 'Modelling strangers: Population size, fluidity, and complexity inshared cultural systems' Cultural Evolution Conference, Arizona, United States, 22/10/18 - 24/10/18, .Link:Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research ExplorerDocument Version:Peer reviewed versionGeneral rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s)and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise andabide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorercontent complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright pleasecontact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately andinvestigate your claim.Download date: 05. Apr. 2019Modeling Strangers: Population size, fluidity, and complexity in shared cultural systems  MICHAEL CHIMENTO​1​∗†​, ​CHRISTINE CUSKLEY​*​, ​SIMON KIRBY​* Languages are equal in their ability to convey complex meanings, but there is variation in their encoding complexity. There has been a mounting body of evidence that language complexity is shaped by social features of its population (Lupyan & Dale, 2010; Reali, Chater & Christiansen, 2018) However, the causal mechanisms and dynamics of this process are still open questions.  We present an agent-based model exploring how the arrival of new agents interacts with social network features to shape the complexity of a cultural system. We apply the model to language complexity, though the paradigm readily extends to other forms of cultural consensus (Baronchelli, 2018). A population of agents plays a variant of the regularity game (Cuskley, Kirby & Loreto, 2018), where shared rule paradigms emerge over successive paired interactions. Importantly, agents change their generalization strategy as they become more proficient, mirroring experimental findings (Cuskley et al., 2015).  We manipulate population size, turnover rate, and network position of entering agents to examine how these affect the complexity of the emerging systems.  Results show that larger, more fluid populations result in simpler rule systems due to constant pressure from new learners. Languages also become simpler when new learners inhabit central nodes of a heterogeneous network. These results support the claim that less proficient learners may be one of the drivers of language simplification, but shows that the mechanisms underlying this involve dynamic interactions between population structure and growth.  We argue that size, turnover rate, and network position of incoming agents influences cultural outcomes because these parameters effect overall information loss in a population (Spike, Stadler, Kirby & Smith, 2016). Our results emphasize the importance of information loss for shared conventional structure in culturally transmitted systems, providing a useful empirical frame for future experimental and observational approaches to examining complexity and consensus in cultural systems. ____________________________________ 1​Corresponding author: chimento.cm@gmail.com *​Centre for Language Evolution, The University of Edinburgh, UK †​Cognitive and Cultural Ecology Research Group, University of Konstanz, Germany  References Baronchelli, A. (2018). The emergence of consensus: a primer. ​Royal Society open science​, ​5​(2), 172189. Cuskley, C., Colaiori, F., Castellano, C., Loreto, V., Pugliese, M., and Tria, F. (2015). The adoption of linguistic rules in native and non-native speakers: Evidence from a Wug task. ​Journal of Memory and Language​, 84, 205-223. Cuskley, C., Loreto, V. and Kirby, S. (2018). A Social Approach to Rule Dynamics Using an Agent-Based Model. ​Topics in Cognitive Science​. doi: 10.1111/tops.12327 Lupyan, G., & Dale, R. (2010). Language structure is partly determined by social structure. ​PloS one​, ​5​(1), e8559. Reali, F., Chater, N., & Christiansen, M. H. (2018). Simpler grammar, larger vocabulary: how population size affects language. Proc. R. Soc. B​, ​285​(1871), 20172586. Spike, M. , Stadler, K. , Kirby, S. and Smith, K. (2017), Minimal Requirements for the Emergence of Learned Signaling. Cognitive Science​, 41: 623-658. doi:​10.1111/cogs.12351 

Modelling strangers:Population size, fluidity, and complexity in shared cultural systems

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Modelling strangers:Population size, fluidity, and complexity in shared cultural systems

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