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Why evolution does not always lead to an optimal proto-language

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Abstract

Sender–receiver models in the style of Lewis (1969), Hurford (1989), or Nowak and Krakauer (1999) can be used to explain meaning of signals in situations of cooperative interaction. This paper provides a complete characterization of neutrally stable strategies of this game purely in terms of properties of the lexical matrices that agents use for sending and receiving messages. It is show that in a neutrally stable strategy there can be instances of both homonymy and synonymy as long as the degree of ambiguity is not too high. There be two (or more) events that are linked to the same signal or two (or more) signals that are linked to the same event, but there cannot be two (or more) signals that are linked to two (or more) events in parallel, and there cannot be no signal that remains idle in the presence of an event that is never possibly inferred. This has considerable consequences for the regularity patterns of the signaling system that can be explained to arise from a replicator dynamics in a population of individual agents. Building on a result by Bomze (2002) it can be shown that such an evolutionary dynamics does not necessarily lead to an optimal signaling system, but that it can be trapped in suboptimal situations, where due to ambiguous event–signal relations some of the potential of communication is left unexploited.

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  • Christina Pawlowitsch, 2006. "Why evolution does not always lead to an optimal proto-language," Vienna Economics Papers vie0604, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:vie:viennp:vie0604
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    1. Bomze Immanuel M. & Weibull Jorgen W., 1995. "Does Neutral Stability Imply Lyapunov Stability?," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 173-192, November.
    2. R.J. Aumann & S. Hart (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
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