Naming Game Research Articles

Generalized naming game and Bayesian naming game as dynamical systems.

We study the β model (β-NG) and the Bayesian Naming Game (BNG) as dynamical systems. By applying linear stability analysis to the dynamical system associated with the β model, we demonstrate the existence of a nongeneric bifurcation with a bifurcation point β_{c}=1/3. As β passes through β_{c}, the stability of isolated fixed points changes, giving rise to a one-dimensional manifold of fixed points. Notably, this attracting invariant manifold forms an arc of an ellipse. In the context of the BNG, we propose modeling the Bayesian learning probabilities p_{A} and p_{B} as logistic functions. This modeling approach allows us to establish the existence of fixed points without relying on the overly strong assumption that p_{A}=p_{B}=p, where p is a constant.

The Populist Name Game: About Populism and Naming

For populist leaders, naming is an important political tool, helping them to consolidate their leadership while harming the legitimacy of their opponents. The article offers a theoretical framework explaining populist tactical uses of naming; how they name and misname their opponents. The explanation locates the naming tactics within the overall populist framework as a thin-centered ideology. The following three naming tactics are described and analyzed: (1) coining ridiculing nicknames, (2) appropriating existing nicknames, and (3) avoiding the opponent’s name. To substantiate the theoretical arguments, we discursively analyze these three tactics, as were employed by the former US president, Donald Trump, the prime minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.

On Interferences between the Pannonian-Finnish Corridor and the Silk Road

Connections between the Balkan-Serbian-Pannonian corridor and the Pannonian-Finnish corridor extending to the Silk Road are multiple and complex. Thus Stefan Vladislav, son of Stefan Dragutin (King of Serbia) is depicted holding an axe by Hieromonk Stefan, symbol of his Árpádian ancestry, his Árpádian position, related to his victorious ancestor at Kerlés. In Wallachia, the saint popularly known as Philothea is depicted with the axe of St. Ladislaus. St. Catherine, depicted next to a breaking wheel, symbol of gnosis, but also the instrument of her death, or the martyrs, depicted by the Cross, symbol of Christ's divinity, but analogously, way of our death and redemption, give us a glimpse of St. Philothea's axe double meaning. Catherine, in her lives in Greek and in her hymnography, is called Philothea, the one who loves God. St. Philothea of Argeş is depicted in her lay attire, and she is not a nun, and by tradition she lived in the 13th century. St. Philothea, the historical one, lived in the 4th century, and was a nun. It is clear that it is another character. Although Euthymius of Tarnovo wrote about the life of this holy nun, there is no evidence that her relics existed at Tarnovo. In correlation with Ladislaus cycle, archetype for that, the earliest representation of the concept of liberating the state from a false emperor or illegitimate conqueror, is in Constantine's cup (dated after 300 AD), where Constantine liberates Sofia as a state from the pagan Licinius. The model monarch of Moscow, the monarchical ancestor of the era when Moscow became a state, is the main character of Skazanie o Drakule voievode. He is Vlad the Impaler. The ultimate expression, on European level, of the imperial nature of the Nemanjić branch who inherited the Árpádians in Ungrovlachia. The branch that preserved the name of the Árpádian imperial succession through the Nemanjić. Hungarian Vlach. And national consciousness. Dynasty symbolized by the axe of St. Ladislaus, which for this reason appears on Hungarian-Vlachian coins, including those of Mircea the Elder, next to the holy ancestor, as well as on the first coinage of Moscow, from the time of Ivan III. The presence of Ladislaus in that context on the Moscow coinage with Matthias Corvinus’ weapons but the name of Ivan III and the name of Moscow in the legend, shows us a possible archaic alternative genealogy of the rulers of Moscow, visible in the systematic election of the Hungarian kings, including Matthias’ in the Chronicle of Faces, whose death is depicted in detail there with Orthodox priests present and Serbian nobility next to him with the title of tsar. Roman and Vlahata is not only a text about Moldova, but also about the founding of Moscow, Caraș (the land of Criș), Maramureș and Moldova being landmarks of entrance to a north Pontic and north Caucasian corridor leading to Moscow. It is the mechanism of the Third Rome foundation, and the Romanovich family name, which later got linked to the Romanov dynasty, and archaically also added the history of the ancient Rurik family, also using that name, and the history of the Moldavian lords bearing these names and the city founded, confirms that yes, Moscow had become somewhat of a Hungarian-Wallachia. This ideology led to the adoption of the tree of Jesse in Moscow, but also to the somehow ethnic name of medieval Serbs, as rumâni, old Romans. The name game of Roma, Roman and Vlahata, and the ethnic name of the Serbs at St. Sava, rumâni, linked to the existence of a parallel medieval Hungarian legend about the eponymous heroes Hunor and Magor, which include, as in the case of the Romanovich, the names given at the time to the Hungarians (Hungarians and Magyars, respectively Romanians and Vlachs) shows us that the Hungarian-Wallachian ideology that inherited through Dragutin the Árpádians and the Nemanjić was also the state ideology of Moscow at the time. Basically these two chronicles, Hunor and Magor and Roman and Vlahata show us the history of the Jewish-Khazar world on the Moscow-Pannonia route. They came as Hunor and Magor, as Hungarian-Magyars, and returned as Serbs, as Roman and Vlahata, as Romanian-Wallachians. From Moscow to Pannonia-Ilyria and back again.

Lexical skills and gesture use: A comparison between expressive and receptive/expressive late talkers

BackgroundStudies on late talkers (LTs) highlighted their heterogeneity and the relevance of describing different communicative profiles. AimsTo examine lexical skills and gesture use in expressive (E-LTs) vs. receptive-expressive (R/E-LTs) LTs through a structured task. Methods and proceduresForty-six 30-month-old screened LTs were distinguished into E-LTs (n= 35) and R/E-LTs (n= 11) according to their receptive skills. Lexical skills and gesture use were assessed with a Picture Naming Game by coding answer accuracy (correct, incorrect, no response), modality of expression (spoken, spoken-gestural, gestural), type of gestures (deictic, representational), and spoken-gestural answers’ semantic relationship (complementary, equivalent, supplementary). Outcomes and resultsR/E-LTs showed lower scores than E-LTs for noun and predicate comprehension with fewer correct answers, and production with fewer correct and incorrect answers, and more no responses. R/E-LTs also exhibited lower scores in spoken answers, representational gestures, and equivalent spoken-gestural answers for noun production and in all spoken and gestural answers for predicate production. Conclusions and implicationsFindings highlighted more impaired receptive and expressive lexical skills and lower gesture use in R/E-LTs compared to E-LTs, underlying the relevance of assessing both lexical and gestural skills through a structured task, besides parental questionnaires and developmental scales, to describe LTs’ communicative profiles.

Emergent communication of multimodal deep generative models based on Metropolis-Hastings naming game.

Deep generative models (DGM) are increasingly employed in emergent communication systems. However, their application in multimodal data contexts is limited. This study proposes a novel model that combines multimodal DGM with the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) naming game, enabling two agents to focus jointly on a shared subject and develop common vocabularies. The model proves that it can handle multimodal data, even in cases of missing modalities. Integrating the MH naming game with multimodal variational autoencoders (VAE) allows agents to form perceptual categories and exchange signs within multimodal contexts. Moreover, fine-tuning the weight ratio to favor a modality that the model could learn and categorize more readily improved communication. Our evaluation of three multimodal approaches - mixture-of-experts (MoE), product-of-experts (PoE), and mixture-of-product-of-experts (MoPoE)-suggests an impact on the creation of latent spaces, the internal representations of agents. Our results from experiments with the MNIST + SVHN and Multimodal165 datasets indicate that combining the Gaussian mixture model (GMM), PoE multimodal VAE, and MH naming game substantially improved information sharing, knowledge formation, and data reconstruction.

Divide-and-Conquer Policy in the Naming Game

Divide-and-Conquer Policy in the Naming Game

Metropolis-Hastings algorithm in joint-attention naming game: experimental semiotics study.

We explore the emergence of symbols during interactions between individuals through an experimental semiotic study. Previous studies have investigated how humans organize symbol systems through communication using artificially designed subjective experiments. In this study, we focused on a joint-attention-naming game (JA-NG) in which participants independently categorized objects and assigned names while assuming their joint attention. In the Metropolis-Hastings naming game (MHNG) theory, listeners accept provided names according to the acceptance probability computed using the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm. The MHNG theory suggests that symbols emerge as an approximate decentralized Bayesian inference of signs, which is represented as a shared prior variable if the conditions of the MHNG are satisfied. This study examines whether human participants exhibit behavior consistent with the MHNG theory when playing the JA-NG. By comparing human acceptance decisions of a partner's naming with acceptance probabilities computed in the MHNG, we tested whether human behavior is consistent with the MHNG theory. The main contributions of this study are twofold. First, we reject the null hypothesis that humans make acceptance judgments with a constant probability, regardless of the acceptance probability calculated by the MH algorithm. The results of this study show that the model with acceptance probability computed by the MH algorithm predicts human behavior significantly better than the model with a constant probability of acceptance. Second, the MH-based model predicted human acceptance/rejection behavior more accurately than four other models (i.e., Constant, Numerator, Subtraction, Binary). Among the models compared, the model using the MH algorithm, which is the only model with the mathematical support of decentralized Bayesian inference, predicted human behavior most accurately, suggesting that symbol emergence in the JA-NG can be explained by the MHNG.

A review and analysis of the use of epithets in infrageneric, species, and infraspecific names in Kalanchoe (Crassulaceae subfam. Kalanchooideae): trends in the plant naming game

Given recent wide-ranging international debates in the scientific press and on social media platforms on, especially, aspects of the ethics of historically published and currently used biological nomenclature, an analysis is presented of trends in the use of epithets in the scientific names of Kalanchoe taxa (Crassulaceae subfam. Kalanchooideae). Kalanchoe, in which about 200 taxa are recognised at various taxonomic ranks, has a wide natural geographical distribution range in Madagascar and on some Indian Ocean Islands, in southern, eastern, and northern Africa, and in the Near, Middle, and Far East. A comprehensive database of epithets published at infrageneric, species, and infraspecific ranks in Kalanchoe over a period of 270 years—1753 to the present—was compiled and analysed to establish tendencies in the selection of epithets. The 370 epithets published to date were classified under: (1) plant characteristics; (2) the celebration of people (eponyms); (3) place names (toponyms); and (4) ‘other’ (habitat features, an ethnic group, etc.). Names derived from plant characteristics are the most commonly used in the naming of kalanchoes. However, since the early 1900s and continuing to the present, naming taxa after people is the preferred option. Lists of gender-based eponymic, toponymic, and ‘other’ epithets, with their derivations, used in the validly published names of kalanchoes are provided. We point out that one epithet used in the genus is contentious. We briefly reflect on the derivation of the genus name Kalanchoe.

Emergent communication through Metropolis-Hastings naming game with deep generative models

Constructive studies on symbol emergence systems seek to investigate computational models that can better explain human language evolution, the creation of symbol systems, and the construction of internal representations. Specifically, emergent communication aims to formulate a computational model that enables agents to build efficient sign systems and internal representations. This study provides a new model for emergent communication, which is based on a probabilistic generative model (PGM) instead of a discriminative model based on deep reinforcement learning. We define the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) naming game by generalizing previously proposed models. It is not a referential game with explicit feedback, as assumed by many emergent communication studies. Instead, it is a game based on joint attention without explicit feedback. Mathematically, the MH naming game is proved to be a type of MH algorithm for an integrative PGM that combines two agents that play the naming game. From this viewpoint, symbol emergence is regarded as decentralized Bayesian inference, and semiotic communication is regarded as inter-personal cross-modal inference. This notion leads to the collective predictive coding hypothesis regarding language evolution and, in general, the emergence of symbols. We also propose the inter-Gaussian mixture model (GMM)+ variational autoencoder (VAE), a deep generative model for emergent communication based on the MH naming game. In this model, two agents create internal representations and categories and share signs (i.e. names of objects) from raw visual images observed from different viewpoints. The model has been validated on MNIST and Fruits 360 datasets. Experimental findings demonstrate that categories are formed from real images observed by agents, and signs are correctly shared across agents by successfully utilizing both of the observations of agents via the MH naming game. Furthermore, scholars verified that visual images were recalled from signs uttered by agents. Notably, emergent communication without supervision and reward feedback improved the performance of the unsupervised representation learning of agents.

Describing communication profiles of low-risk preterm and full-term late talkers

IntroductionLate talkers represent a heterogeneous population. We aimed to describe communication profiles of low-risk preterm and full-term late talkers according to their receptive and expressive vocabulary size, considering communicative, linguistic, cognitive, and motor skills, as well as biological and environmental risk factors. MethodsSixty-eight late talkers (33 born low-risk preterm and 35 full-term) were identified through a language screening at 30 months. Parents filled out the Italian Short Forms of the MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventories and the Socio Conversational Skills Rating Scales. Children were assessed with the Picture Naming Game test and the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. ResultsA two-step cluster analysis identified three distinct profiles among late talkers according to their receptive and expressive vocabulary size. Severe late talkers (25%) showed less frequent use of pointing, limited verbal imitation, receptive vocabulary size, lexical and sentence production, responsiveness and assertiveness, and lower cognitive scores than mild late talkers (40%). Moderate late talkers (35%) showed less frequent verbal imitation, limited lexical and sentence production and lower cognitive scores than mild late talkers. Male gender was significantly more represented in the severe late profile, whereas other biological and environmental factors did not differ among the three profiles. ConclusionsFindings highlighted the relevance of assessing communicative, lexical, grammar, pragmatic, and cognitive skills to describe late talkers’ profiles. A deeper investigation of phonological skills might also contribute to a further understanding of interindividual variability in this population.

Redefining Biological Horror: The Aesthetic Evolution of an Infected Body in HBO’s ‟The Last of Us”

"The post-apocalyptic genre has seen a resurgence in 2023 due to HBO’s The Last of Us, a television adaptation based on Naughty Dog’s video game of the same name, where the society has collapsed due to an infection that causes human bodies to gradually mutate and become violent. There have been debates on whether the infected humans should be called “zombies”, as the word was banned on the production set and the creative director of the video game has refused numerous times to use the word when labeling the infected bodies. In this article, I am taking a closer look at the infection presented in the series, its impact on the human body, the mutation and transformation that precedes it, and the question of zombification in relation to an existing and real-world infection, as in the case Cordyceps fungus. Moreso, I will discuss the validity of considering analyzing The Last of Us through the body horror filter, due to the exploration of an infection that happens in stages, and the different anatomical and aesthetical changes it provokes to the human body. Keywords: horror, television, video game, body horror, adaptation. "

Cinema’s Cosmic Shifts

Cinema’s Cosmic Shifts

Language games meet multi-agent reinforcement learning: A case study for the naming game

AbstractToday, computational models of emergent communication in populations of autonomous agents are studied through two main methodological paradigms: multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) and the language game paradigm. While both paradigms share their main objectives and employ strikingly similar methods, the interaction between both communities has so far been surprisingly limited. This can to a large extent be ascribed to the use of different terminologies and experimental designs, which sometimes hinder the detection and interpretation of one another’s results and progress. Through this paper, we aim to remedy this situation by (1) formulating the challenge of re-conceptualising the language game experimental paradigm in the framework of MARL, and by (2) providing both an alignment between their terminologies and an MARL−based reformulation of the canonical naming game experiment. Tackling this challenge will enable future language game experiments to benefit from the rapid and promising methodological advances in the MARL community, while it will enable future MARL experiments on learning emergent communication to benefit from the insights and results gained through language game experiments. We strongly believe that this cross-pollination has the potential to lead to major breakthroughs in the modelling of how human-like languages can emerge and evolve in multi-agent systems.

Name game: the naming history of the chemical elements: part 2—turbulent nineteenth century

The second article of the “Naming game…” series provides detailed information on the discovery and naming of elements in the nineteenth century. Outlines of discoveries of 46 elements were presented, with particular emphasis on publications in which the name appeared for the first time. In the article the short historical information about every element naming is presented. The process of naming each chemical element was analyzed, with particular emphasis on the first publication with a given name.

Name game: the naming history of the chemical elements—part 3—rivalry of scientists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries

The third article of the “Naming game…” series presents the issues of naming elements discovered and synthesized in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Based on the source data, the publication time of the names of the last 35 chemical elements was identified. In the case of discoveries from the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, the principle was adopted of the priority of information about the synthesis of a new chemical element in scientific journals or conference reports. However, when the same information was published earlier in the news sections of scientific journals, in articles in popular science journals, and (in modern times) on the websites of interested research institutes, such an info is presented as well. It turned out that in some cases this information is very complex as the names of some elements were changed several times and published in different media in the same period. Therefore, this article is an attempt to sort out the issue of first publishing of the names of the last known 35 chemical elements.

Name game behind labeling terrorist groups in Syria

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of terrorist groups' names on attracting a certain audience to join a specific terrorist group. The study tries to prove that there is a name game behind picking terrorist groups' names and hence it is a main reason in members' decision to follow the group. There is a number of cues present in the environment, which guide people to make their decisions about being members of a particular terrorist group. This study hypothesizes that one of these cues is the attractiveness of groups' names which were chosen in a deliberate way to affect some people. This study is made on thirty ex-members of different terrorist groups who were led into error and were deluded by the names of terrorists groups to be a member in the terrorists’project. These deluded ex-members found that what is called ' jihadist groups' were not more than terrorist groups and decided not to get dragged into the terrorists' project. The 30 ex-members are all Syrian citizens, educated, aged between 20 to 35 years old.

Name game: the naming history of the chemical elements—part 1—from antiquity till the end of 18th century

The aim of the series of the three articles entitled “Name game…” is to present the historical information about nomenclature history of every known chemical element. The process of naming each chemical element is analyzed, with particular emphasis on the first publication with a given name. It turned out that in many cases this information is not obvious and unambiguous, and the published data are even contradictory. In a few cases, the names of the elements were changed even several times. Moreover, even when the author of a given element name is known, it is sometimes not entirely clear in which publication he/she first used it. Therefore, the series of three articles are an attempt to sort out the issue of first publishing of the names of all 118 chemical elements known so far, based on original source texts, available thanks to the digitization of a number of collections of scientific literature. The articles are divided according to the time of discoveries: (1) research till the end of the 18th century, (2) discoveries in the 19th century, (3) discoveries and syntheses of elements in the 20th and 21st centuries. This particular article presents the history of naming of the first 37 elements: known from antiquity, discovered in nature and named in 17th and 18th century.

1920-30년대 명동 콘텐츠와 장소기반 AR게임 디자인

In this study, the process of AR game storytelling based on the physical place of Myeong-dong and the historical and cultural information of Myeong-dong in the 1920s-30s was specified, noting that the spatio-temporal meaning of the place can be discovered, expanded, and shared through game play in AR games. The main concept of Myeongdong Nori (tentative name) game design is Myeongdong experience in the 1920s and 30s based on AR technology, and the target experience is storytelling through reasoning, place experience, and role experience activities. In place-based AR games, players derive different games based on their experiences and choices, and actively construct the meaning of the game, which requires storytelling that provides rich information and situations. Therefore, characters, places, episodes, and visual materials centered on Myeong-dong in the 1920s and 30s were widely collected, and information DB was constructed using digital tools, and a series of processes were presented to plan game storytelling based on this. It is hoped that the place-based AR game storytelling study based on Myeong-dong content in the 1920s and 30s covered in this study can be used as the basis for a place-based AR game design model in which virtual time and real space-time experience are realized in the future.

The Third Census of Outdoor Orientation Programs in the United States, 2019

This study investigated the number of outdoor orientation programs—high-impact transition programs for college students—in the United States. Researchers used a census methodology to identify the number of outdoor orientation programs existing at accredited, residential, bachelor’s degree-granting colleges and universities within the United States (N = 1,217). Researchers found 212 outdoor orientation programs (OOPs), representing 17% of the identified colleges, the largest number of OOPs in the history of these programs. A follow-up survey found OOPs were notably aligned in risk management procedures (medical training of leaders, tracking incidents, etc.) and programmatic similarities (use of name games, problem-solving and initiative activities). Programs diverged in the use of curricular activities (i.e., solo experiences) and the specifics of risk management (i.e., physician oversight). The COVID-19 pandemic led to 83% of programs being cancelled in 2021. A question remains as to how well these high-impact programs will recover after the pandemic.

Navigating Black Identity and White Desire: Seven-Eleven and the 1920s Crossover Musical Comedy

Navigating Black Identity and White Desire: <i>Seven-Eleven</i> and the 1920s Crossover Musical Comedy