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SUMMARY:The Cultural Origins of Structure - Simon Kirby\, University of Ed
 inburgh
DTSTART:20150423T153000Z
DTEND:20150423T173000Z
UID:TALK54381@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jamie Douglas
DESCRIPTION:Language is striking in its systematic structure at all levels
  of description. By exhibiting combinatoriality and compositionality\, eac
 h utterance in a language does not stand alone\, but rather exhibits a net
 work of dependencies on the other utterances in that language. Where does 
 this structure come from? Why is language systematic\, and where else migh
 t we expect to find this kind of systematicity in nature?\n\nIn this talk\
 , I will propose a simple hypothesis that systematic structure is the inev
 itable result of a suite of behaviours being transmitted by iterated learn
 ing. Iterated learning is a mechanism of cultural evolution in which behav
 iours persist by being learned through observation of that behaviour in an
 other individual who acquired it in the same way. I will survey a wide ran
 ge of lab studies of iterated learning\, in which the cultural evolution o
 f sets of behaviours is experimentally recreated. These studies include ev
 erything from artificial language learning tasks and sign language experim
 ents\, to more abstract behaviours like slide whistle imitation and sequen
 ce learning\, and have recently even been extended to other species. I wil
 l conclude by suggesting that these cultural evolution experiments provide
  clear predictions about where we should expect to see structure in behavi
 our\, and what form that structure might take.
LOCATION:GR06-7\, English Faculty\, 9 West Road (Sidgwick Site)
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