Much of recent research in linguistics has involved the use of experimentation to directly test hypotheses by comparing and contrasting real-world data with that of laboratory results and computer simulations. In a previous post I looked at how humans, non-human primates, and even non-human animals are all capable of high-fidelity cultural transmission. Yet, to apply … Continue reading “Experiments in Communication pt 1: Artificial Language Learning and Constructed Communication Systems”
In my last post I summed up some proposals for what (among other things) makes human cognition unique. But one thing that we should bear in mind, I think, is that our cognitive style may more be something of an idiosyncrasy due to a highly specific cognitive specialization instead of a definitive quantitative and qualitative … Continue reading “What Makes Humans Unique ?(III): Self-Domestication, Social Cognition, and Physical Cognition”
This is more a public note to myself than anything else. It’s likely to seem a bit odd to those who haven’t been following my thinking on memes. Cross-posted at New Savanna. Back in 1996 I published a long article, Culture as an Evolutionary Arena (link to downloadable PDF), in the, alas, now defunct, Journal … Continue reading “Where Are Memes?”
In an effort to provide a useful resource for myself, and anyone else who may stumble upon this blog, I’ve decided to begin writing several 101 series. Naturally, they will be focused around areas I consider to be useful for those who wish to become successful evolutionary linguists (something I’m also trying to work on, … Continue reading “Resources”
The returns on homogeneity Razib Kahn writes about the potential costs of the world having diversity in its languages, instead of just one. He also asks: “The extreme linguistic diversity of less developed regions of the world, or even 18th century France and Italy, is probably detrimental to economic growth and economies of scale, but … Continue reading “Some Links #5”
For those of you familiar with the formal mathematical models of cultural evolution (Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman, 1981; Boyd & Richerson, 1985), you’ll know there is a substantive body of literature behind the process of cultural transmission. It comes as a surprise, then, that experiments in this area are generally lacking. For instance, if we look … Continue reading “Experiments in cultural transmission and human cultural evolution”
It is well documented that Thomas Robert Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population greatly influenced both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace’s independent conception of their theory of natural selection. In it, Malthus puts forward his observation that the finite nature of resources is in conflict with the potentially exponential rate of reproduction, … Continue reading “Cultural innovation, Pleistocene environments and demographic change”
If we accept that language is not only a conveyer of cultural information, but it is itself a socially learned and culturally transmitted system, then an individual’s linguistic knowledge is the result of observing the linguistic behaviour of others. This well attested process of language acquisition is often termed Iterated Learning, and it opens up … Continue reading “Iterated Learning and Language Evolution”
