Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This paper presents computer simulations which investigate the effect that different group sizes have on the emergence of compositional structures in languages. The simulations are based on a model that integrates the language game model with the iterated learning model. The simulations show that compositional structures tend to emerge more extensively for larger groups, which has a positive effect on the time in which the languages develop and on communicative success, which may even have an optimal group size. A mathematical analysis of the time of convergence is presented that provides an approximate explanation of the results. The paper concludes that increasing group sizes among humans could not only have triggered the origins of language, but also facilitated the evolution of more complex languages.

Language learning dynamics is modelled by an ensemble of individuals consisting of the grammar carriers and the learners. Increasing the system population size results into the transition from the individual to the collective mode of learning. At low communication level, different grammars coexist in their own survival niches. Enhancement of the communication level in purely collective mode, when all individuals are the part of general communication network, leads to the selection of the fittest grammar. Adding the individual mode of learning results into the formation of the quasigrammar, with the dominant grammar prevailing over the set of coexisting grammars.

Language can be viewed as a complex adaptive system which is continuously shaped and reshaped by the actions of its users as they try to solve communicative problems. To maintain coherence in the overall system, different language elements (sounds, words, grammatical constructions) compete with each other for global acceptance. This paper examines what happens when a language system uses systematic structure, in the sense that certain meaning-form conventions are themselves parts of larger units. We argue that in this case multi-level selection occurs: at the level of elements (e.g. tense affixes) and at the level of larger units in which these elements are used (e.g. phrases). Achieving and maintaining linguistic coherence in the population under these conditions is non-trivial. This paper shows that it is nevertheless possible when agents take multiple levels into account both for processing meaning-form associations and for consolidating the language inventory after each interaction.

There is an ongoing debate about whether the words in the first languages spoken by humans expressed single concepts or complex holophrases. A computer model was used to investigate the nature of the protolanguages that would arise if speakers could associate words and meanings, but lacked any productive ability beyond saying the word whose past uses most closely matched the meaning that they wished to express. It was found that both words expressing single concepts, and holophrastic words could arise, depending on the conceptual and articulatory abilities of the agents. However, most words were of an intermediate type, as they expressed more than a single concept but less than a holophrase. The model therefore demonstrates that protolanguages may have been of types that are not usually considered in the debate over the nature of the first human languages.

An important goal in cognitive development research is an understanding of the real-world physical and social environment in which learning takes place. However, the relevant aspects of this environment for the learner are only those that make contact with the learner’s sensory system. We report new findings using a novel method that seeks to describe the visual learning environment from a young child’s point of view. The method consists of a multi-camera sensing environment consisting of two head-mounted mini cameras that are placed on both the child’s and the parent’s foreheads respectively. The main results is that the adult and child’s view are fundamentally different in that the child’s view is more dynamic and centered on one object at time. These findings have broad implications for how one thinks about toddler’s attentional task as opposed to adults. In one sense, toddlers have found cheap solution: Selectively attend not by changing internal weights by bringing the attended object close to your eyes so it is the only one in view.

In the field of artificial life there is no agreement on what defines ‘autonomy’. This makes it difficult to measure progress made towards understanding as well as engineering autonomous systems. Here, we review the diversity of approaches and categorize them by introducing a conceptual distinction between and autonomy. Differences in the autonomy of artificial and biological agents tend to be marginalized for the former and treated as absolute for the latter. We argue that with this distinction the apparent opposition can be resolved.

Some research works have mentioned the similarity of autopoiesis with (M,R) systems proposed by Rosen, from the perspective of closedness of the systems. However, there are some difference between the aspects of closedness required for autopoiesis and (M,R) systems. This paper aims at clarifying these differences to investigate the possibility of algebraic description of living systems, based on category theoretic frameworks.

I introduce a quantitative measure of autonomy based on a time series analysis adapted from ‘Granger causality’. A system is considered autonomous if prediction of its future evolution is enhanced by considering its own past states, as compared to predictions based on past states of a set of external variables. The proposed measure, G-autonomy, amplifies the notion of autonomy as ‘self-determination’. I illustrate G-autonomy by application to example time series data and to an agent-based model of predator-prey behaviour. Analysis of the predator-prey model shows that evolutionary adaptation can enhance G-autonomy.

Agency detection is studied in a simple simulated model with embodied agents. Psychological experiments such as double TV-monitor experiments and perceptual crossing show the central role of dynamic mutuality and contingency in social interactions. This paper explores the ongoing dynamical aspects of minimal agency detection in terms of the mutuality and contingency. It is investigated how the embodied agents can establish a live interaction and discriminate this from interactions from recorded motions that are identical to the live interaction but cannot react contingently. Our results suggest that the recognition of the presence of another’s agency need not lie on complex cognitive individual mechanisms able to integrate past information, but rather on the situated ongoingness of the interaction process itself, on its dynamic properties, and its robustness to noise.

One major criticism of direct or active perception (and other forms of embodied action) from the perspective of cognitive psycology is that, according to common sense, there are some actions that require strictly symbolic information — for example, to stop a car in response to a red traffic light — which fall outside the realm of a perception-action cycle. Although such cognitive responses are not necessarily a goal of artificial life, they must necessarily be included within the embodied paradigm if it is to encompass the cognisant individual, the self-aware individual, or, potentially, the conscious individual. This paper will address the question, ‘can an animat appreciate art?’ Although this may seem very different to the example of a prosaic response to a traffic light, it will be argued that a common framework for establishing the meaning of an object is needed. It will also be argued that clarification to previous philosophical models of artistic engagement is required: in particular that the process of understanding is not a dialogue between an autopoietic artwork and animat, but that there is either a unity of object (artwork-animat) which becomes self-maintaining, or a more classical Gibsonian interpretation as a fixed set of affordances offered by an object to the subject, both of which lead to the conclusion that the process of understanding becomes a resonance in the unity or animat.