Related links

Authoritative: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/016909698386564   (Publisher's PDF... likely be available here.)

Source: http://hci.ucsd.edu/hutchins/web/cultprocess.html

Web search: Google Web Search   ::   Google Scholar

Within this site: Cited by (10)

Abstract

We present a connectionist model that demonstrates how propositional structure can emerge from the interactions among the members of a community of simple cognitive agents. We first describe a process in which agents coordinating their actions and verbal productions with each other in a shared world leads to the development of propositional structures. We then present a simulation model which implements this process for generating propositions from scratch. We report and discuss the behaviour of the model in terms of its ability to produce three properties of propositions: (1) a coherent lexicon characterised by shared form-meaning mappings; (2) conventional structure in the sequences of forms; (3) the prediction of spatial facts. We show that these properties do not emerge when a single individual learns the task alone and conclude that the properties emerge from the demands of the communication task rather than from anything inside the individual agents. We then show that the shared structural principles can be described as a grammar, and discuss the implications of this demonstration for theories concerning the origins of the structure of language.

@article{hutchins98propositionsEmergence,
  author={Brian Hazlehurst and Edwin Hutchins},
  title={The Emergence of Propositions from the Co-ordination of Talk and Action in a Shared World},
  journal={Language and Cognitive Processes},
  year={1998},
  month={June},
  volume={13},
  number={2-3},
  pages={373-424},
  doi={10.1080/016909698386564},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/hutchins98propositionsEmergence.html}
}