Scott-Phillips Thomas C, Kirby Simon, Ritchie Graham R S
School of Psychology, Philosophy and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9AD, United Kingdom.
Cognition. 2009 Nov;113(2):226-33. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.08.009. Epub 2009 Sep 8.
A unique hallmark of human language is that it uses signals that are both learnt and symbolic. The emergence of such signals was therefore a defining event in human cognitive evolution, yet very little is known about how such a process occurs. Previous work provides some insights on how meaning can become attached to form, but a more foundational issue is presently unaddressed. How does a signal signal its own signalhood? That is, how do humans even know that communicative behaviour is indeed communicative in nature? We introduce an experimental game that has been designed to tackle this problem. We find that it is commonly resolved with a bootstrapping process, and that this process influences the final form of the communication system. Furthermore, sufficient common ground is observed to be integral to the recognition of signalhood, and the emergence of dialogue is observed to be the key step in the development of a system that can be employed to achieve shared goals.
人类语言的一个独特标志是它使用的信号既是习得的又是象征性的。因此，此类信号的出现是人类认知进化中的一个决定性事件，但对于这样一个过程是如何发生的，人们却知之甚少。先前的研究对意义如何附着于形式提供了一些见解，但目前一个更基础的问题尚未得到解决。一个信号如何表明其自身的信号性质？也就是说，人类究竟是如何知道交际行为在本质上确实是具有交际性的？我们引入了一个旨在解决这个问题的实验游戏。我们发现，这个问题通常通过一个自引导过程得到解决，并且这个过程会影响通信系统的最终形式。此外，我们观察到足够的共同基础对于信号性质的识别是不可或缺的，并且对话的出现被视为一个能够用于实现共同目标的系统发展过程中的关键步骤。
