EVOC (for EVOlution of Culture) is a computer model of culture that enables us to investigate how various factors such as barriers to cultural diffusion, the presence and choice of leaders, or changes in the ratio of innovation to imitation affect the diversity and effectiveness of ideas. It consists of neural network based agents that invent ideas for actions, and imitate neighbors’ actions. T...

When Darwin left for his voyage around the world on the Beagle, he took with him the first volume of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology. Later in the voyage he received the second volume by post somewhere in South America. Lyell never accepted Darwin’s account of evolution by natural selection, presumably because of his religious beliefs. It is ironic then that Lyell’s work played a crucial ...

How language and cognition interact in thinking? Is language just used for communication of completed thoughts, or is it fundamental for thinking? Existing approaches have not led to a computational theory. We develop a hypothesis that language and cognition are two separate but closely interacting mechanisms. Language accumulates cultural wisdom; cognition develops mental representations model...