Full-text

|| Go to publishers' web page for final fulltext/PDF. (see the Authoritative link as below)

Cached: PDF-268K

SAVE AS an easy-to-recall long filename:

Filename format: author--year--title   PDF-268K

Filename format: author--year--title--journal|proceedings|...--pages   PDF-268K

Related links

Authoritative: http://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2005-00340-y   (Publisher's PDF... likely be available here.)

Web search: Google Web Search   ::   Google Scholar

Within this site: Cited by (2)    References (62)

Abstract

Here we present a new model for Zipf's law in human word frequencies. The model defines the goal and the cost of communication using information theory. The model shows a continuous phase transition from a no communication to a perfect communication phase. Scaling consistent with Zipf's law is found in the boundary between phases. The exponents are consistent with minimizing the entropy of words. The model differs from a previous model [Ferrer i Cancho, SoléProc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100, 788–791 (2003)] in two aspects. First, it assumes that the probability of experiencing a certain stimulus is controlled by the internal structure of the communication system rather than by the probability of experiencing it in the `outside' world, which makes it specially suitable for the speech of schizophrenics. Second, the exponent ? predicted for the frequency versus rank distribution is in a range where ?>1, which may explain that of some schizophrenics and some children, with ?=1.5-1.6. Among the many models for Zipf's law, none explains Zipf's law for that particular range of exponents. In particular, two simplistic models fail to explain that particular range of exponents: intermittent silence and Simon's model. We support that Zipf's law in a communication system may maximize the information transfer under constraints.

@article{ferrer05ZipfLawPhaseTransition,
  author={Ramon {Ferrer-i-Cancho}},
  title={Zipf's law from a communicative phase transition},
  journal={European Physical Journal B},
  year={2005},
  volume={47},
  number={3},
  pages={449-457},
  doi={10.1140/epjb/e2005-00340-y},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/ferrer05ZipfLawPhaseTransition.html}
}

HOME   ::  Journal List   ::   Article	Comments to: junwang4 you-know-at gmail.com	Last update: 2/2/08