KI/RuG symposium Artificial Intelligence in the Wild


Embodiment, situatedness and language origins

(Invited Lecture)

Paul Vogt

Language Evolution & Computation Research Unit

University of Edinburgh

Abstract

When studying the origins and evolution of language there are various research methods that one can use. One method involves robotics. Robotics can be used to study issues relating to language evolution that involve symbol grounding. One aspect is that when one wants to model certain aspects of language evolution, these models should remain valid in grounded settings. Another, stronger aspect, is the hypothesis that already much of the language structure can be extracted from an agent's interaction with its environment. Such a view is consistent with the embodied and situated cognition paradigm.
In this talk I present some work that I have done on using robotic platforms to study language evolution. In particular, some issues are discussed that relate to sharing attention and to the emergence of compositional structures in language. If time permits, I will look forward to a recently started project in which a large multi-agent population is, among others, supposed to evolve language in an environment in which cooperation among agents will be crucial for their viability.