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Effects of Population Structure on the Evolution of Linguistic Convention

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Complex Networks & Their Applications X (COMPLEX NETWORKS 2021)

Part of the book series: Studies in Computational Intelligence ((SCI,volume 1072))

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Abstract

We define a model for the evolution of linguistic convention in a population of agents embedded on a network, and consider the effects of topology on the population-level language dynamics. Individuals are subject to evolutionary forces that over time result in the adoption of a shared language throughout the population. The differences in convergence time to a common language and that language’s communicative efficiency under different underlying social structures and population sizes are examined. We find that shorter average path lengths contribute to a faster convergence and that the final payoff of languages is unaffected by the underlying topology. Compared to models for the emergence of linguistic convention based on self-organization, we find similarities in the effects of average path lengths, but differences in the role of degree heterogeneity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Simulations were developed in Python (3.8.2), using the NetworkX (2.5.1) and NumPy (1.21.0) libraries. Runs were parallelized on the IRIDIS 5 compute cluster. Figures were generated using Matplotlib (3.4.2).

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the use of the IRIDIS High Performance Computing Facility, and associated support services at the University of Southampton, in the completion of this work. MB acknowledges support from the Alan Turing Institute (EPSRC grant EP/N510129/1, https://www.turing.ac.uk/) and the Royal Society (grant IES\(\backslash \)R2\(\backslash \)192206, https://royalsociety.org/).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Kaloyan Danovski & Markus Brede

Authors
  1. Kaloyan Danovski
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  2. Markus Brede
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Correspondence to Kaloyan Danovski .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Agronómica, Alimentaria y de Biosistemas, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Rosa Maria Benito

  2. IUT Lumière, University of Lyon, Bron Cedex, France

    Chantal Cherifi

  3. LIB, UFR Sciences et Techniques, University of Burgundy, Dijon, France

    Hocine Cherifi

  4. Grupo Interdisciplinar de Sistemas Complejos, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Leganés, Madrid, Spain

    Esteban Moro

  5. Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science, Binghamton University, Binghamton, USA

    Luis M. Rocha

  6. Department of Chemical Engineering, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Tarragona, Spain

    Marta Sales-Pardo

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Danovski, K., Brede, M. (2022). Effects of Population Structure on the Evolution of Linguistic Convention. In: Benito, R.M., Cherifi, C., Cherifi, H., Moro, E., Rocha, L.M., Sales-Pardo, M. (eds) Complex Networks & Their Applications X. COMPLEX NETWORKS 2021. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 1072. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93409-5_57

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93409-5_57

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-93408-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-93409-5

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