Related papers: A model for phonetic changes driven by social inte…
We introduce a stochastic agent-based model for the flocking dynamics of self-propelled particles that exhibit velocity-alignment interactions with neighbours within their field of view. The stochasticity in the dynamics of the model arises…
In this work, we consider a multi-population system where the dynamics of each agent evolve according to a system of stochastic differential equations in a general functional setup, determined by the global state of the system. Each agent…
It is argued that the present log-normal distribution of language sizes is, to a large extent, a consequence of demographic dynamics within the population of speakers of each language. A two-parameter stochastic multiplicative process is…
The evolution of natural languages poses a riddle to any theoretical perspective based on efficiency considerations. If languages are already optimally effective means of organization and communication of thought, why do they change? And if…
Human languages evolve continuously, and a puzzling problem is how to reconcile the apparent robustness of most of the deep linguistic structures we use with the evidence that they undergo possibly slow, yet ceaseless, changes. Is the state…
Computational modelling with multi-agent systems is becoming an important technique of studying language evolution. We present a brief introduction into this rapidly developing field, as well as our own contributions that include an…
Quantifying the speed of linguistic change is challenging due to the fact that the historical evolution of languages is sparsely documented. Consequently, traditional methods rely on phylogenetic reconstruction. In this paper, we propose a…
It is generally believed that, when a linguistic item acquires a new meaning, its overall frequency of use in the language rises with time with an S-shaped growth curve. Yet, this claim has only been supported by a limited number of case…
A simple spatial computer simulation model was recently introduced to study the evolution of the linguistic diversity. The model considers processes of selective geographic colonization, linguistic anomalous diffusion and mutation. In the…
Evolution and propagation of the world's languages is a complex phenomenon, driven, to a large extent, by social interactions. Multilingual society can be seen as a system of interacting agents, where the interaction leads to a modification…
We introduce and study a stochastic model for the dynamics of colonial species, which reproduce through fission or fragmentation. The fission rate depends on the relative sizes of colonies in the population, and the growth rate of colonies…
Human communication systems, such as language, evolve culturally; their components undergo reproduction and variation. However, a role for selection in cultural evolutionary dynamics is less clear. Often neutral evolution (also known as…
We introduce an agent-based model for co-evolving opinion and social dynamics, under the influence of multiplicative noise. In this model, every agent is characterized by a position in a social space and a continuous opinion state variable.…
The origin of stochastic fluctuations in gene expression has received considerable attention recently. Fluctuations in gene expression are particularly pronounced in cellular systems because of the small copy number of species undergoing…
Acoustic vowel dynamics have some speaker-identifying characteristics, which have been ascribed to individual properties of articulatory strategies: formant transitions have a particular shape because speakers move their articulators, using…
We consider the collective behaviour of active particles that locally align with their neighbours. Agent-based simulation models have previously shown that in one dimension, these particles can form into a flock that maintains its stability…
Natural language has the universal properties of being compositional and grounded in reality. The emergence of linguistic properties is often investigated through simulations of emergent communication in referential games. However, these…
Methods and insights from statistical physics are finding an increasing variety of applications where one seeks to understand the emergent properties of a complex interacting system. One such area concerns the dynamics of language at a…
While language is a complex adaptive system, most work on syntactic variation observes a few individual constructions in isolation from the rest of the grammar. This means that the grammar, a network which connects thousands of structures…
In animal groups, individual decisions are best characterised by probabilistic rules. Furthermore, animals of many species live in small groups. Probabilistic interactions among small numbers of individuals lead to a so called intrinsic…