WP3: Language Evolution
Paul Vogt
Federico Divina
Tilburg University
Objectives (from Annex I)
… to design a population such that it iscapable of evolving one (or possibly more)languages that enables them to optimizecooperation.
A secondary objective is to design theexperiment such that the agents willdiscover communication as a useful strategyand find ways to use this strategyeffectively.
Tasks
Task 3.1 Define (…) the required set-up for evolvinglanguage, learning how to use communication andhow to react properly on linguistic communication(…). Year 1: M3.1
Task 3.2 Implement the code for under 3.1 definedspecifications and integrating the results achieved intasks 2.2 and 2.3. Year 2: D3.1
Task 3.3 Perform experiments with the system asimplemented in task 3.2. Started Year 2
Task 3.4 Report on the experiments performed.Started Year 2
Overview
State of WP3
Language games
Preliminary results
Social learning of skills
Outlook final year
Conclusions
Language games
Referent
Form
“Cabbage”
Category
Category
Aspects of language learning
Establishing joint attention
pointing
Cross-situational learning
statistical co-occurrences across situations
Feedback
not reliable
Principle of contrast
associations with existing meanings lower initial score
Experiments
Aim: To test effect of learning mechanisms onlanguage development
Conditions:
Fixed controller (no individual learning)
Reproduction, but no evolution
Socialness gene randomly set
Possible actions: move, turn, pick-up, eat, mate, talk &shout
Possible topics: features of one object
Fixed categories
Initial population size = 100
Simulated for 36,500 time steps (~100 NTYears)
Some statistics
Per time step: ~27 language games initiated(total simulation ~1 million games)
~42% of games accompanied by pointinggesture
~12% of games accompanied by feedbacksignal
~50% of games no pointing, nor feedback
Varying No. of Features
Divina & Vogt, Proc. EELC, 2006
Excluding learning mechanisms
Vogt & Divina, Interaction Studies, in press
Social learning
Assuming communication has evolved, how canlanguage be used to acquire new skills?
Example
h
f
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A1
“hungry,have-food, eat”
h
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A2
E
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{h,f,E}
Example
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h
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A1
A2
{h,f,E}
“hungry,no-food,talk”
{h,¬f,T}
E
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R
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L
Example
h
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A2
{h,f,E}
{h,¬f,T}
E
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Example
h
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A2
{h,f,E}
{h,¬f,T}
f
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L
Will it work?
Good question, we don’t know...
RL has (at least) 2 ways of deciding whichnodes to insert
Random insertion
‘Intelligent’ insertion
Our feeling is that second option could bemore effective and integrates languageevolution & social learning elegantly
Outlook final year
Integrating social learning (mostly done) – alsousing ‘telepathy’
Performing experiments to
Improve model regarding accuracy
Evolve language that aids survival & social learning
Focus of interest:
Language diffusion
Emergence of dialects
Social learning
(Grammar)
Define language specific challenges
Conclusions
Made great progress
Language games work well beyond chance,but could be improved
Social learning of skills defined,implemented, but not integrated
Still much to do...