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Komarova, N. L. and Nowak, M. A. (2001) Natural selection of the critical period for language acquisition. Proceedings of The Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 268(1472):1189--1196.
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Abstract

The language acquisition period in humans lasts about 13 years. After puberty it becomes increasingly difficult to learn a language. We explain this phenomenon by using an evolutionary framework. We present a dynamical system describing competition between language acquisition devices, which differ in the length of the learning period. There are two selective forces that play a role in determining the critical learning period: (i) having a longer learning period increases the accuracy of language acquisition; (ii) learning is associated with certain costs that affect fitness. As a result, there exists a limited learning period which is evolutionarily stable. This result is obtained analytically by means of a Nash equilibrium analysis of language acquisition devices. Interestingly, the evolutionarily stable learning period does not maximize the average fitness of the population.

Keywords: universal grammar; language evolution; game theory; evolutionary dynamics; learning; fitness

BibTex
@article{komarova01naturalSelection,
  author={N. L. Komarova and M. A. Nowak},
  title={Natural selection of the critical period for language acquisition},
  journal={Proceedings of The Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences},
  year={2001},
  volume={268},
  number={1472},
  pages={1189-1196},
  doi={10.1098/rspb.2001.1629},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/komarova01naturalSelection.html},
  keywords={universal grammar; language evolution; game theory; evolutionary dynamics; learning; fitness}
}

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