The Role of Social and Cognitive Factors in the Emergence of Communication: Experiments in Evolutionary Robotics

Evolutionary robotics is a biologically inspired approach to robotics that is advantageous to studying the evolution of language. A new model for the evolution of language is presented. This model is used to investigate the interrelationships between communication abilities, namely linguistic production and comprehension, and other behavioral skills. For example, the model supports the hypothesis that the ability to form categories from direct interaction with an environment constitutes the ground for subsequent evolution of communication and language. A variety of experiments, based on the role of social and evolutionary variables in the emergence of communication, are described.