THE ROLE OF CULTURAL TRANSMISSION IN INTENTION SHARING

摘要

This paper presents a simulation study exploring the role of cultural transmission inintention sharing (the ability to establish shared intentions in communications). Thisability has been argued to be human-unique, and the lack of it has deprived animals of thepossibility of developing human language. Our simulation results show that the adequatelevel of this ability to trigger a communal language is not very high, and that cultur al transmission can indirectly optimize the average level of this ability in the population.This work extends the current discussion on the human-uniqueness of some language-related abilities, and provides better understanding on the role of cultural transmission inlanguage evolution.