Language dynamics is a rapidly growing field that focuses on all processes related to the evolution, emergence, change, competition and extinction of languages. One of the major outcomes from this field of research is that language can be viewed as a complex adaptive dynamical system that evolves through the process of self-organization and self-regulation. According to this viewpoint, a community of language users can be seen as a dynamical system that collectively solves the problem of developing a shared communication framework through the back-and-forth signaling between the participating individuals.
Our group is interested in the interaction of the cognitive and socio-cultural factors that play a key role in language dynamics with a special focus on how a population develops a shared set of names (Naming Game), categories (Category Game), or rules (Rule Dynamics) from scratch. The basic framework is grounded in theories of Language Games, but frequently borrows concepts and methods from the areas of statistical physics and complex systems science. These areas have proven to be extremely powerful in providing various quantitative insights into language emergence and evolution.
2012 |
Loreto, Vittorio; Mukherjee, Animesh; Tria, Francesca On the origin of the hierarchy of color names (Journal Article) PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (PNAS), 2012. (Abstract | Links | BibTeX) @article{b,
title = {On the origin of the hierarchy of color names},
author = {Vittorio Loreto and Animesh Mukherjee and Francesca Tria},
url = {http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/04/09/1113347109.abstract, http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84860819374&partnerID=65&md5=d7b06adcaee23e02cd4e3f3eeb6be15c, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=000303602100019&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=0c7ff228ccbaaa74236f48834a34396a
http://samarcanda.phys.uniroma1.it/vittorioloreto/PAPERS/2012/PNAS-2012-Loreto-1113347109.pdf},
year = {2012},
date = {2012-01-01},
journal = {PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (PNAS)},
abstract = {One of the fundamental problems in cognitive science is how humans categorize the visible color spectrum. The empirical evidence of the existence of universal or recurrent patterns in color naming across cultures is paralleled by the observation that color names begin to be used by individual cultures in a relatively fixed order. The origin of this hierarchy is largely unexplained. Here we resort to multiagent simulations, where a population of individuals, subject to a simple perceptual constraint shared by all humans, namely the human Just Noticeable Difference, categorizes and names colors through a purely cultural negotiation in the form of language games. We found that the time needed for a population to reach consensus on a color name depends on the region of the visible color spectrum. If color spectrum regions are ranked according to this criterion, a hierarchy with [red, (magenta)-red], [violet], [green/yellow], [blue], [orange], and [cyan], appearing in this order, is recovered, featuring an excellent quantitative agreement with the empirical observations of the WCS. Our results demonstrate a clear possible route to the emergence of hierarchical color categories, confirming that the theoretical modeling in this area has now attained the required maturity to make significant contributions to the ongoing debates concerning language universals.},
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pubstate = {published},
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One of the fundamental problems in cognitive science is how humans categorize the visible color spectrum. The empirical evidence of the existence of universal or recurrent patterns in color naming across cultures is paralleled by the observation that color names begin to be used by individual cultures in a relatively fixed order. The origin of this hierarchy is largely unexplained. Here we resort to multiagent simulations, where a population of individuals, subject to a simple perceptual constraint shared by all humans, namely the human Just Noticeable Difference, categorizes and names colors through a purely cultural negotiation in the form of language games. We found that the time needed for a population to reach consensus on a color name depends on the region of the visible color spectrum. If color spectrum regions are ranked according to this criterion, a hierarchy with [red, (magenta)-red], [violet], [green/yellow], [blue], [orange], and [cyan], appearing in this order, is recovered, featuring an excellent quantitative agreement with the empirical observations of the WCS. Our results demonstrate a clear possible route to the emergence of hierarchical color categories, confirming that the theoretical modeling in this area has now attained the required maturity to make significant contributions to the ongoing debates concerning language universals. |
Mukherjee, Animesh; Loreto, Vittorio; Tria, Francesca Why are basic color names "basic"? (Journal Article) ADVANCES IN COMPLEX SYSTEM, 15 , pp. 1150016–1150028, 2012. (Abstract | Links | BibTeX) @article{b,
title = {Why are basic color names "basic"?},
author = {Animesh Mukherjee and Vittorio Loreto and Francesca Tria},
url = {http://www.worldscinet.com/acs/15/1503n04/S0219525911003426.html, http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-84861852212&partnerID=65&md5=5dc58383af9b9dc951b3821f9790de68, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=000304607400003&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=0c7ff228ccbaaa74236f48834a34396a},
year = {2012},
date = {2012-01-01},
journal = {ADVANCES IN COMPLEX SYSTEM},
volume = {15},
pages = {1150016--1150028},
publisher = {WORLD SCIENTIFIC PUBL CO PTE LTD},
abstract = {It is widely known that color names across the world's languages tend to be organized into a neat hierarchy with a small set of "basic names" featuring in a comparatively fixed order across linguistic societies. However, to date, the basic names have only been defined through a set of linguistic principles. There is no statistical definition that quantitatively separates the basic names from the rest of the color words across languages. Here we present a rigorous statistical analysis of the World Color Survey database hosting color word information from 110 non-industrialized languages. The central result is that those names for which a population of individuals show a larger overall agreement across languages turn out to be the basic ones exactly reproducing the color name hierarchy and, thereby, providing, for the first time, an empirical definition of the basic color names.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
It is widely known that color names across the world's languages tend to be organized into a neat hierarchy with a small set of "basic names" featuring in a comparatively fixed order across linguistic societies. However, to date, the basic names have only been defined through a set of linguistic principles. There is no statistical definition that quantitatively separates the basic names from the rest of the color words across languages. Here we present a rigorous statistical analysis of the World Color Survey database hosting color word information from 110 non-industrialized languages. The central result is that those names for which a population of individuals show a larger overall agreement across languages turn out to be the basic ones exactly reproducing the color name hierarchy and, thereby, providing, for the first time, an empirical definition of the basic color names. |
2011 |
Loreto, Vittorio; Tria, Francesca Linguistica in Silico (Journal Article) SISTEMI INTELLIGENTI, 2 , pp. 319–328, 2011. (BibTeX) @article{b,
title = {Linguistica in Silico},
author = {Vittorio Loreto and Francesca Tria},
year = {2011},
date = {2011-01-01},
journal = {SISTEMI INTELLIGENTI},
volume = {2},
pages = {319--328},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
|
Tria, Francesca; Mukherjee, Animesh; Baronchelli, Andrea; Puglisi, Andrea; Loreto, Vittorio A fast no-rejection algorithm for the category game (Journal Article) JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE, 2 , pp. 316–323, 2011. (Abstract | Links | BibTeX) @article{b,
title = {A fast no-rejection algorithm for the category game},
author = {Francesca Tria and Animesh Mukherjee and Andrea Baronchelli and Andrea Puglisi and Vittorio Loreto},
url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877750311000883, http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-82455187963&partnerID=65&md5=2e81b85740b8a15a5b048389e9dbe573},
year = {2011},
date = {2011-01-01},
journal = {JOURNAL OF COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE},
volume = {2},
pages = {316--323},
publisher = {Elsevier},
abstract = {The Category Game is a multi-agent model that accounts for the emergence of shared categorization patterns in a population of interacting individuals. In the framework of the model, linguistic categories appear as long lived consensus states that are constantly reshaped and re-negotiated by the communicating individuals. It is therefore crucial to investigate the long time behavior to gain a clear understanding of the dynamics. However, it turns out that the evolution of the emerging category system is so slow, already for small populations, that such an analysis has remained so far impossible. Here, we introduce a fast no-rejection algorithm for the Category Game that disentangles the physical simulation time from the CPU time, thus opening the way for thorough analysis of the model. We verify that the new algorithm is equivalent to the old one in terms of the emerging phenomenology and we quantify the CPU performances of the two algorithms, pointing out the neat advantages offered by the no-rejection one. This technical advance has already opened the way to new investigations of the model, thus helping to shed light on the fundamental issue of categorization.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
The Category Game is a multi-agent model that accounts for the emergence of shared categorization patterns in a population of interacting individuals. In the framework of the model, linguistic categories appear as long lived consensus states that are constantly reshaped and re-negotiated by the communicating individuals. It is therefore crucial to investigate the long time behavior to gain a clear understanding of the dynamics. However, it turns out that the evolution of the emerging category system is so slow, already for small populations, that such an analysis has remained so far impossible. Here, we introduce a fast no-rejection algorithm for the Category Game that disentangles the physical simulation time from the CPU time, thus opening the way for thorough analysis of the model. We verify that the new algorithm is equivalent to the old one in terms of the emerging phenomenology and we quantify the CPU performances of the two algorithms, pointing out the neat advantages offered by the no-rejection one. This technical advance has already opened the way to new investigations of the model, thus helping to shed light on the fundamental issue of categorization. |
Mukherjee, Animesh; Tria, Francesca; Baronchelli, Andrea; Puglisi, Andrea; Loreto, Vittorio Aging in language dynamics (Journal Article) PLOS ONE, 6(2) , 2011. (Links | BibTeX) @article{b,
title = {Aging in language dynamics},
author = {Animesh Mukherjee and Francesca Tria and Andrea Baronchelli and Andrea Puglisi and Vittorio Loreto},
url = {http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-79951878510&partnerID=65&md5=cdc7034d1003aad153923fb5adf9ca72, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=000287482300019&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=0c7ff228ccbaaa74236f48834a34396a},
year = {2011},
date = {2011-01-01},
journal = {PLOS ONE},
volume = {6(2)},
publisher = {San Francisco, CA: Public Library of Science},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
|
