Hermann Ackermann, Wolfram Ziegler
Audra Ames, Sara Wielandt, Dianne Cameron, Stan Kuczaj
David Ardell, Noelle Anderson, Bodo Winter
Rie Asano, Edward Ruoyang Shi
Mark Atkinson, Kenny Smith, Simon Kirby
Andreas Baumann, Christina Prömer, Kamil Kazmierski, Nikolaus Ritt
Christian Bentz
Aleksandrs Berdicevskis, Hanne Eckhoff
Richard A. Blythe, Alistair H. Jones, Jessica Renton
Cedric Boeckx, Constantina Theofanopoulou, Antonio Benítez-Burraco
Megan Broadway, Jamie Klaus, Billie Serafin, Heidi Lyn
Jon W. Carr, Kenny Smith, Hannah Cornish, Simon Kirby
Federica Cavicchio, Livnat Leemor, Simone Shamay-Tsoory, Wendy Sandler
Zanna Clay, Jahmaira Archbold, Klaus Zuberbuhler
Katie Collier, Andrew N. Radford, Balthasar Bickel, Marta B. Manser, Simon W. Townsend
Jennifer Culbertson, Simon Kirby, Marieke Schouwstra
Christine Cuskley, Vittorio Loreto
Christine Cuskley, Bernardo Monechi, Pietro Gravino, Vittorio Loreto
Dan Dediu, Scott Moisik
Sabrina Engesser, Amanda R. Ridley, Simon W. Townsend
Dankmar Enke, Roland Mühlenbernd, Igor Yanovich
Kerem Eryilmaz, Hannah Little, Bart de Boer
Nicolas Fay, Shane Rogers
Maryia Fedzechkina, Becky Chu, T. Florian Jaeger, John Trueswell
Olga Feher, Kenny Smith, Elizabeth Wonnacott, Nikolaus Ritt
Piera Filippi, Sebastian Ocklenburg, Daniel Liu Bowling, Larissa Heege, Albert Newen, Onur Güntürkün, Bart de Boer
Piera Filippi, Jenna V. Congdon, John Hoang, Daniel Liu Bowling, Stephan Reber, Andrius Pašukonis, Marisa Hoeschele, Sebastian Ocklenburg, Bart de Boer, Christopher B. Sturdy, Albert Newen, Onur GÜntÜrkÜn
Molly Flaherty, Katelyn Stangl, Susan Goldin-Meadow
Marlen Fröhlich, Paul H Kuchenbuch, Gudrun Müller, Barbara Fruth, Takeshi Furuichi, Roman M Wittig, Simone Pika
Victor Gay, Daniel Hicks, Estefania Santacreu-Vasut
Andreea Geambasu, Michelle J. Spierings, Carel ten Cate, Clara C. Levelt
Matt Hall, Russell Richie, Marie Coppola
Stefan Hartmann, Peeter Tinits, Jonas Nölle, Thomas Hartmann, Michael Pleyer
Wolfram Hinzen, Joana Rosselló
Rick Janssen, Bodo Winter, Dan Dediu, Scott Moisik, Sean Roberts
Rick Janssen, Dan Dediu, Scott Moisik
Jasmeen Kanwal, Kenny Smith, Jennifer Culbertson, Simon Kirby
Deborah Kerr, Kenny Smith
Buddhamas Kriengwatana, Paola Escudero, Anne Kerkhoven, Carel ten Cate
Adriano Lameira, Jeremy Kendal, Marco Gamba
Molly Lewis, Michael C. Frank
Casey Lister, Tiarn Burtenshaw, Nicolas Fay, Bradley Walker, Jeneva Ohan
Hannah Little, Kerem Eryılmaz, Bart de Boer
Hannah Little, Kerem Eryılmaz, Bart de Boer
Giuseppe Longobardi, Armin Buch, Andrea Ceolin, Aaron Ecay, Cristina Guardiano, Monica Irimia, Dimitris Michelioudakis, Nina Radkevich, Gerhard Jaeger
Heidi Lyn, Stephanie Jett, Megan Broadway, Mystera Samuelson
Michael Mcloughlin, Luca Lamoni, Ellen Garland, Simon Ingram, Alexis Kirke, Michael Noad, Luke Rendell, Eduardo Miranda
Adrien Meguerditchian, Damien Marie, Konstantina Margiotoudi, Scott A. Love, Alice Bertello, Romain Lacoste, Muriel Roth, Bruno Nazarian, Jean-Luc Anton, Olivier Coulon
Jérôme Michaud
Ashley Micklos
Marie Montant, Johannes Ziegler, Benny Briesemeister, Tila Brink, Bruno Wicker, Aurélie Ponz, Mireille Bonnard, Arthur Jacobs, Mario Braun
Yasamin Motamedi, Marieke Schouwstra, Kenny Smith, Simon Kirby
Roland Mühlenbernd, Johannes Wahle
Tomoya Nakai, Kazuo Okanoya
Savithry Namboodiripad, Daniel Lenzen, Ryan Lepic, Tessa Verhoef
Alan Nielsen, Dieuwke Hupkes, Simon Kirby, Kenny Smith
Bill Noble, Raquel Fernández
Irene M. Pepperberg, Katia Zilber-Izhar, Scott Smith
Lynn Perry, Marcus Perlman, Gary Lupyan, Bodo Winter, Dominic Massaro
Ljiljana Progovac
Andrea Ravignani, Tania Delgado, Simon Kirby
Terry Regier, Alexandra Carstensen, Charles Kemp
Lilia Rissman, Laura Horton, Molly Flaherty, Marie Coppola, Annie Senghas, Diane Brentari, Susan Goldin-Meadow
Gareth Roberts, Mariya Fedzechkina
Carmen Saldana, Simon Kirby, Kenny Smith
Carlos Santana
William Schueller, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer
Catriona Silvey, Christos Christodoulopoulos
Katie Slocombe, Stuart Watson, Anne Schel, Claudia Wilke, Emma Wallace, Leveda Cheng, Victoria West, Simon Townsend
Ruth Sonnweber, Andrea Ravignani
Michelle Spierings, Carel ten Cate
Kevin Stadler, Elyse Jamieson, Kenny Smith, Simon Kirby
Monica Tamariz, Joleana Shurley
Monica Tamariz, Jon W. Carr
Bill Thompson, Heikki Rasilo
Oksana Tkachman, Carla L. Hudson Kam
Simon Townsend, Andrew Russell, Sabrina Engesser
Francesca Tria, Vittorio Loreto, Vito Servedio, S. Mufwene Salikoko
Anu Vastenius, Jordan Zlatev, Joost Van de Weijer
Tessa Verhoef, Carol Padden, Simon Kirby
Slawomir Wacewicz, Przemyslaw Zywiczynski, Arkadiusz Jasinski
Bodo Winter, David Ardell
Bodo Winter, Lynn Perry, Marcus Perlman, Gary Lupyan
Marieke Woensdregt, Kenny Smith, Chris Cummins, Simon Kirby
Eva Zehentner, Andreas Baumann, Nikolaus Ritt, Christina Prömer
Keywords: Language learning, Language production, Language universals, Efficient information transfer, Morpho-syntax, Miniature artificial language learning
Abstract:
In his seminal work, Zipf (1949) popularized the hypothesis that languages are shaped by a trade-off between production effort and robust message transfer. It is hard to overestimate the influence this idea has had in functional linguistics and related approaches. Yet, to this day, there is little direct (rather than correlational) evidence for this trade-off.
Recent large-scale quantitative typological studies have shown that lexicon structure in a variety of languages exhibits properties that are consistent with the hypothesized trade-off (e.g., Piantadosi, Tily, & Gibson, 2011). Iterated miniature language learning studies have identified a potential cause for these patterns: biases during learning and communication cause learners to deviate from the input towards languages that conserve effort while still guaranteeing robust communication (e.g., Kirby, Tamariz, Cornish, & Smith, 2015).
While this work has identified patterns consistent with the trade-off hypothesis, it has not manipulated effort or the chance of communicative success to directly test the presence of a trade-off. Here we present a crowdsourcing-based miniature language learning experiment that directly assesses whether learners trade off the probability of successful message transmission against the effort associated with producing the message.
We ask in particular whether the inverse correlation between word order (WO) flexibility and the presence of a case system in a language is shaped by this trade-off.
In the experiment (administered in 2x45min sessions over 2 consecutive days over Amazon Mechanical Turk), different groups of participants learned miniature artificial languages by watching short videos and hearing their descriptions. All videos depicted human actors performing simple transitive events. Participants first learned the names of the actors and then learned the grammar through sentence exposure. At the end of each session, participants were shown the entire lexicon of the language at the top of the screen and asked to describe previously unseen scenes by clicking on the corresponding lexical items. All languages had optional case-marking (present on 67% of objects; never on subjects). The languages differed in the amount of WO flexibility: The fixed WO language used SOV 100% of the time, while the flexible WO language used SOV and OSV equally frequently. Thus, the uncertainty about the intended message was low in the fixed and high in the flexible WO language. The critical manipulation was the amount of effort required to produce case. During the production test, participants in the low-effort condition were shown a case-marked and non-case-marked variant of every noun (along with all the verbs). Case production, thus, required the same number of clicks as production of bare nouns. In the high-effort condition, participants saw non-case-marked variants of all nouns along with the two free case-markers. Case production, thus, took 2 additional clicks compared to bare nouns.
If production effort is indeed traded off against robust message transfer, we would expect learners in the high-effort condition to use more case in the language with higher uncertainty about the intended meaning (flexible WO) compared to the language with lower uncertainty (fixed WO). Since there is no difference in effort associated with case use in the low-effort condition, differential case use would not be expected here. The results support our hypothesis. We observed differential case use only in the high-effort condition: Learners tended to maintain case only in the flexible WO language. In contrast, in the low-effort condition, learners of both languages produced the same amount of case, equal to the input proportion.
Our findings suggest that some cross-linguistic patterns are shaped by a trade-off between production effort and robust message transmission. Even though the difference in uncertainty about the message between the flexible and fixed WO languages was equal across the two effort conditions, learners restructured the input language to more closely resemble naturally occurring types only when case production required a substantial effort increase. Our results also highlight the potential of web-based multi-day experiments as an alternative to substantially more expensive and time-consuming lab paradigms.
References
Kirby, S., Tamariz, M., Cornish, H., & Smith, K. (2015). Compression and communication in the cultural evolution of linguistic structure. Cognition, 141, 87-102.
Piantadosi, S., Tily, H., & Gibson, E. (2011). Word lengths are optimized for efficient communication. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 108(9), 3526.
Zipf, G. K. (1949). Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Citation:
Jaeger T. F. and Fedzechkina M. (2016). Effort Vs. Robust Information Transfer In Language Evolution. In S.G. Roberts, C. Cuskley, L. McCrohon, L. Barceló-Coblijn, O. Fehér & T. Verhoef (eds.) The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11). Available online: http://evolang.org/neworleans/papers/100.html