Abstract We evaluate the effect of a
power-law-distributed social popularity on the origin
and change of language, based on three artificial life
models meticulously tracing the evolution of linguistic
conventions including lexical items, categories, and
simple syntax. A cross-model analysis reveals an
optimal social popularity, in which the E value of the
power law distribution is around 1.0. Under this
scaling, linguistic conventions can efficiently emerge
and widely diffuse among individuals, thus maintaining
a useful level of mutual understandability even in a
big population. From an evolutionary perspective, we
regard this social optimality as a tradeoff among
social scaling, mutual understandability, and
population growth. Empirical evidence confirms that
such optimal power laws exist in many large-scale
social systems that are constructed primarily via
language-related interactions. This study contributes
to the empirical explorations and theoretical
discussions of the evolutionary relations between
ubiquitous power laws in social systems and relevant
individual behaviors.
%0 Journal Article
%1 gong-power-law-social-2014
%A Gong, Tao
%A Shuai, Lan
%D 2014
%I MIT Press - Journals
%J Artificial Life
%K alife
%N 3
%P 385--408
%R 10.1162/artl_a_00138
%T Exploring the Effect of Power Law Social Popularity on
Language Evolution
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/ARTL_a_00138
%V 20
%X Abstract We evaluate the effect of a
power-law-distributed social popularity on the origin
and change of language, based on three artificial life
models meticulously tracing the evolution of linguistic
conventions including lexical items, categories, and
simple syntax. A cross-model analysis reveals an
optimal social popularity, in which the E value of the
power law distribution is around 1.0. Under this
scaling, linguistic conventions can efficiently emerge
and widely diffuse among individuals, thus maintaining
a useful level of mutual understandability even in a
big population. From an evolutionary perspective, we
regard this social optimality as a tradeoff among
social scaling, mutual understandability, and
population growth. Empirical evidence confirms that
such optimal power laws exist in many large-scale
social systems that are constructed primarily via
language-related interactions. This study contributes
to the empirical explorations and theoretical
discussions of the evolutionary relations between
ubiquitous power laws in social systems and relevant
individual behaviors.
@article{gong-power-law-social-2014,
abstract = {Abstract We evaluate the effect of a
power-law-distributed social popularity on the origin
and change of language, based on three artificial life
models meticulously tracing the evolution of linguistic
conventions including lexical items, categories, and
simple syntax. A cross-model analysis reveals an
optimal social popularity, in which the E value of the
power law distribution is around 1.0. Under this
scaling, linguistic conventions can efficiently emerge
and widely diffuse among individuals, thus maintaining
a useful level of mutual understandability even in a
big population. From an evolutionary perspective, we
regard this social optimality as a tradeoff among
social scaling, mutual understandability, and
population growth. Empirical evidence confirms that
such optimal power laws exist in many large-scale
social systems that are constructed primarily via
language-related interactions. This study contributes
to the empirical explorations and theoretical
discussions of the evolutionary relations between
ubiquitous power laws in social systems and relevant
individual behaviors.},
added-at = {2015-02-02T11:51:17.000+0100},
author = {Gong, Tao and Shuai, Lan},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2b26f377c07dfbc768b3f19a7a24647d3/mhwombat},
doi = {10.1162/artl_a_00138},
interhash = {7045b1763421e045718077c2ad3498b3},
intrahash = {b26f377c07dfbc768b3f19a7a24647d3},
journal = {Artificial Life},
keywords = {alife},
month = jul,
number = 3,
pages = {385--408},
publisher = {{MIT} Press - Journals},
timestamp = {2016-07-12T19:25:30.000+0200},
title = {Exploring the Effect of Power Law Social Popularity on
Language Evolution},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/ARTL_a_00138},
volume = 20,
year = 2014
}