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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 13, 2026

Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language
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The cultural evolution of language.

Monica Tamariz1, Simon Kirby1

  • 1School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, 3 Charles St, Edinburgh, UK.

Current Opinion in Psychology
|March 7, 2018
PubMed
Summary

Researchers use lab experiments to study how cultural evolution shapes human language structure. This approach bridges individual cognition and population-level linguistic patterns, explaining the origins of signal structure and meaning mapping.

Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Cultural Evolution

Background:

  • Human language possesses unique structural properties facilitating open-ended communication.
  • Cultural evolution is increasingly recognized as a key factor in explaining language structure emergence.
  • Laboratory experiments provide a controlled environment to study these evolutionary processes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To review advances in using cultural evolution to explain linguistic structure.
  • To demonstrate how laboratory experiments bridge individual cognition and emergent population-level structures.
  • To explain the origins of structure in linguistic signals and their meaning mappings.

Main Methods:

  • Conducting laboratory experiments with participants learning artificial communication systems.

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  • Observing the evolutionary trajectory of these artificial communication systems over time.
  • Analyzing the emergent structures in signals and the mapping between signals and meanings.

    • Main Results:

    • Laboratory experiments successfully model the emergence of structure in communication systems.
    • Observed evolutionary dynamics in artificial systems provide insights into natural language evolution.
    • Cultural evolution principles effectively explain the development of signal complexity and semantic mapping.

    Conclusions:

    • Cultural evolution, studied via laboratory experiments, offers a powerful framework for understanding language origins.
    • This approach successfully links cognitive processes to population-wide linguistic phenomena.
    • The findings highlight the role of cultural transmission in shaping the structure of human language.