BIO-LINGUISTIC TRANSITION AND BALDWIN EFFECT IN AN EVOLUTIONARY NAMING-GAME MODEL

Abstract

We examine an evolutionary naming-game model where communicating agents are equipped with an evolutionary selected learning ability. Such a coupling of biological and linguistic ingredients results in an abrupt transition: upon a small change of a model control parameter a poorly communicating group of linguistically unskilled agents transforms into almost perfectly communicating group with large learning abilities. When learning ability is kept fixed, the transition appears to be continuous. Genetic imprinting of the learning abilities proceeds via Baldwin effect: initially unskilled communicating agents learn a language and that creates a niche in which there is an evolutionary pressure for the increase of learning ability. Our model suggests that when linguistic (or cultural) processes became intensive enough, a transition took place where both linguistic performance and biological endowment of our species experienced an abrupt change that perhaps triggered the rapid expansion of human civilization.