This chapter briefly reviews what is known-and what remains to be understood-about Grey parrot vocal learning. I review Greys' physical capacities-issues of auditory perception and production-then discuss how these capacities are used in vocal learning and can be recruited for referential communication with humans. I discuss cross-species comparisons where applicable and conclude with a descrip...

We present a game-theoretic model that formalizes core ideas of conversational grounding theory. This gametheoretic model is based on the concept of signaling games, originally proposed as a model of linguistic convention. We extend signaling games with an observation model, which allows for the possibility that the actions a dialog participant takes may only be partially observable to others. ...

The present study tested whether the hypothesis that high levels of progesterone (P) have a decoupling effect on the function of the brain hemispheres (Hausmann & Gunturkun, 2000) also extends to attentional functions, referential connections between verbal and nonverbal representations and the degree to which implicit motivational needs match a person's explicit goal commitments. Participants ...

New definitions are proposed for communication and language. Communication is defined as the evolution of physical, biochemical, cellular, community, technological information exchange. Language community whereby exchanged comprises evolving individual group-constructed knowledge beliefs, that enacted, narrated, or otherwise conveyed by rule-governed meaningful symbol systems, grounded, interpr...

We describe a multi-cellular shape replication mechanism implemented in a sensing and communication network, motivated by robust self-monitoring and self-repairing aerospace vehicles. In particular, we propose a self-referential representation (a “genome”), enabling self-inspection and selfrepair; an algorithm solving the problem for connected and disconnected shapes; and a robust algorithm rec...

The study examined the role of establishing local conventions in the interpretation of left and right. 32 adults participated in a referential communication game carrying commands like “Put the red cup to the left of the green.” The results suggest that local conventions strongly influence the interpretation of the two spatial terms but global expectations about the usage of the terms also play...

The ability to monitor the communicative success of its utterances and, if necessary, provide feedback and repair is useful for a dialog system. We show that in situated communication, eyetracking can be used to reliably and efficiently monitor the hearer’s reference resolution process. An interactive system that draws on hearer gaze to provide positive or negative feedback after referring to o...

Understanding the referent of other's utterance by referring the contextual information helps in smooth communication. Although this pragmatic referential process can be observed even in infants, its underlying mechanism and relative abilities remain unclear. This study aimed to comprehend the background of the referential process by investigating whether the phonological loop affected the refe...