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Automata Networks for Memory Loss Effects in the Formation of Linguistic Conventions

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Abstract

This work attempts to give new theoretical insights into the absence of intermediate stages in the evolution of language. In particular, a mathematical model, based on automata networks, is proposed with the purpose to answer a crucial question: How a population of language users can reach agreement on linguistic conventions? To describe the appearance of drastic transitions in the development of language, an extremely simple model of working memory is adopted: at each time step, language users simply lose part of their word memories according to a forgetfulness parameter. Through computer simulations on low-dimensional lattices, sharp transitions at critical values of the parameter are described.

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Notes

  1. \(M_u \setminus \{x_u\}\) denotes the set \(M_u\) without the element \(x_u\).

  2. \(\lfloor p(|M_u|-1)\rfloor\) means the largest integer lower than \(p(|M_u|-1)\).

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Acknowledgments

The authors like to thank CONICYT-Chile under the Doctoral scholarship 21140288 (J.V.) and the Grants FONDECYT 11400090 (E.G.), ECOS BASAL-CMM (DIM, U. Chile) (E.G.), ECOS C12E05 (E.G.). Finally, the authors acknowledge to anonymous referees for useful commentaries.

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Correspondence to Javier Vera.

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Javier Vera and Eric Goles declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (5). Additional informed consent was obtained from all patients for which identifying information is included in this article.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by the any of the authors.

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Vera, J., Goles, E. Automata Networks for Memory Loss Effects in the Formation of Linguistic Conventions. Cogn Comput 8, 462–466 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12559-015-9371-7

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