The major transitions (JMS & ES, 1995)

***

*

* These transitions are regarded to be ‘difficult’

Three interwoven processes

• Note the different time-scales involved• Cultural transmission: language transmits itself as

well as other things• A novel inheritance system

Challenges: a simple experiment (Hauser & Fitch)

• Habituation experiments• Finite state grammar

(AB)n is recognizable by tamarins

• Phrase structure grammar AnBn is NOT.

• Human students recognize both

BUT: Recursive syntactic pattern learning in birds!

• European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) accurately recognize recursive syntactic patterns

• They are able to exlude agrammatical forms• Centre-embedding is not uniquely human

Patterns are made up of naturally occurring vocal patterns

• Learning to classify by operant conditioning• This is NOT production!

Theories/Questions 1 2 3 4 5 6

Language as a mental tool (Jerison, 1991; Burling, 1993) + + - + - -Grooming hypothesis (Dunbar, 1998) - + - - - -Gossip (Power, 1998) + - - + - -Tool making (Greenfield, 1991) + + + + + -Mating contract (Deacon, 1997) - - - - - -Sexual selection (Miller, 2000) + - - - - -Status for information (Dessalles, 2000) + - - + - -Song hypothesis (Vaneechoutte & Skoyles, 1998) - - - - - +Group bonding/ ritual (Knight, 1998) - + - - - -Gestural theory (Hewes, 1973) + - + + - -Hunting theories (Washburn & Lanchester, 1968) + + + + - -

(1) selective advantage (2) honesty (3) grounded in reality (4) power of generalisations (5) cognitive abilities (6) uniqueness

The evolutionary approachgenes

development

behaviour

selection

learning

environmentImpact of evolution on the developmental genetics of the brain!

ECAgents: project founded by the Future and Emerging Technologies program (IST-FET) of the European Community under EU R&D contract IST1940.

Software architecture

519 classes

99267 lines of C++ code

ECAgents: project founded by the Future and Emerging Technologies program (IST-FET) of the European Community under EU R&D contract IST1940.

Population dynamics and agent lifecycle

ECAgents: project founded by the Future and Emerging Technologies program (IST-FET) of the European Community under EU R&D contract IST1940.

Ontogenesis of a neuronal network

ECAgents: project founded by the Future and Emerging Technologies program (IST-FET) of the European Community under EU R&D contract IST1940.

-1/1

Population

Environment

A Coordination Game

Speaker Listener

Decision

Signal

Decision

Different types of gameDifferent types of game

Coodination game (Coop)Coodination game (Coop) Division of Labour (Div)Division of Labour (Div) Prisoners’ dilemma (PD)Prisoners’ dilemma (PD) Hawk- Dove game (SD)Hawk- Dove game (SD)

Environment -1 Environment 1

Coop (-1) Coop (1)

Div Div

PD (-1) PD (1)

SD (-1) SD (1)

PD (-1) Coop (-1)

PD (-1) CoopRev (1)

SD (-1) Coop (-1)

SD (-1) CoopRev (1)

D(1) D(-1)

D(1) 1 5

D(-1) 0 3

D(1) D(-1)

D(1) -1 5

D(-1) 0 3

D(1) D(-1)

D(1) 0 5

D(-1) 5 0

D(1) D(-1)

D(1) 5 1

D(-1) 0 0

Coodination gameCoodination game Division of LabourDivision of Labour Prisoners’ dilemmaPrisoners’ dilemma Hawk - Dove gameHawk - Dove game