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Cultural Evolution and Perpetuation of Arbitrary Communicative Conventions in Experimental Microsocieties

Previous studies have shown that iconic graphical signs can evolve into symbols through repeated usage within dyads and interacting communities. Here we investigate the evolution of graphical signs over chains of participants. In these chains (or “replacement microsocieties”), membership of an inter...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Caldwell, Christine A., Smith, Kenny
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3426541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22928039
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043807
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author Caldwell, Christine A.
Smith, Kenny
author_facet Caldwell, Christine A.
Smith, Kenny
author_sort Caldwell, Christine A.
collection PubMed
description Previous studies have shown that iconic graphical signs can evolve into symbols through repeated usage within dyads and interacting communities. Here we investigate the evolution of graphical signs over chains of participants. In these chains (or “replacement microsocieties”), membership of an interacting group changed repeatedly such that the most experienced members were continually replaced by naïve participants. Signs rapidly became symbolic, such that they were mutually incomprehensible across experienced members of different chains, and new entrants needed to learn conventionalised meanings. An objective measure of graphical complexity (perimetric complexity) showed that the signs used within the microsocieties were becoming progressively simplified over successive usage. This is the first study to show that the signs that evolve in graphical communication experiments can be transmitted to, and spontaneously adopted by, naïve participants. This provides critical support for the view that human communicative symbols could have evolved culturally from iconic representations.
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spelling pubmed-34265412012-08-27 Cultural Evolution and Perpetuation of Arbitrary Communicative Conventions in Experimental Microsocieties Caldwell, Christine A. Smith, Kenny PLoS One Research Article Previous studies have shown that iconic graphical signs can evolve into symbols through repeated usage within dyads and interacting communities. Here we investigate the evolution of graphical signs over chains of participants. In these chains (or “replacement microsocieties”), membership of an interacting group changed repeatedly such that the most experienced members were continually replaced by naïve participants. Signs rapidly became symbolic, such that they were mutually incomprehensible across experienced members of different chains, and new entrants needed to learn conventionalised meanings. An objective measure of graphical complexity (perimetric complexity) showed that the signs used within the microsocieties were becoming progressively simplified over successive usage. This is the first study to show that the signs that evolve in graphical communication experiments can be transmitted to, and spontaneously adopted by, naïve participants. This provides critical support for the view that human communicative symbols could have evolved culturally from iconic representations. Public Library of Science 2012-08-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3426541/ /pubmed/22928039 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043807 Text en © 2012 Caldwell, Smith http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Caldwell, Christine A.
Smith, Kenny
Cultural Evolution and Perpetuation of Arbitrary Communicative Conventions in Experimental Microsocieties
title Cultural Evolution and Perpetuation of Arbitrary Communicative Conventions in Experimental Microsocieties
title_full Cultural Evolution and Perpetuation of Arbitrary Communicative Conventions in Experimental Microsocieties
title_fullStr Cultural Evolution and Perpetuation of Arbitrary Communicative Conventions in Experimental Microsocieties
title_full_unstemmed Cultural Evolution and Perpetuation of Arbitrary Communicative Conventions in Experimental Microsocieties
title_short Cultural Evolution and Perpetuation of Arbitrary Communicative Conventions in Experimental Microsocieties
title_sort cultural evolution and perpetuation of arbitrary communicative conventions in experimental microsocieties
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3426541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22928039
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043807
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