Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language
Open accessAbstract
We introduce an experimental paradigm for studying the cumulative cultural evolution of language. In doing so we provide the first experimental validation for the idea that cultural transmission can lead to the appearance of design without a designer. Our experiments involve the iterated learning of artificial languages by human participants. We show that languages transmitted culturally evolve in such a way as to maximize their own transmissibility: over time, the languages in our experiments become easier to learn and increasingly structured. Furthermore, this structure emerges purely as a consequence of the transmission of language over generations, without any intentional design on the part of individual language learners. Previous computational and mathematical models suggest that iterated learning provides an explanation for the structure of human language and link particular aspects of linguistic structure with particular constraints acting on language during its transmission. The experimental work presented here shows that the predictions of these models, and models of cultural evolution more generally, can be tested in the laboratory.
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The iterated learning framework showed that cultural transmission alone can generate compositional linguistic structure.
“Similarly, the iterated learning framework (Smith et al., 2003; Kirby et al., 2008) showed that cultural transmission alone can generate compositional linguistic structure.”
From Social Reality Construction via Active Inference: Modeling the Dialectic of Conformity and Creativity (2026) · cites this paper as Kirby et al., 2008
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Cites
Innateness and culture in the evolution of language
Kirby, S., Dowman, M., & Griffiths, T. L. (2007) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0608222104 · Cited by 442 · see citing works
Self-citationA bias for social information in human cultural transmission
Mesoudi, A., Whiten, A., & Dunbar, R. (2006) · British Journal of Psychology · doi:10.1348/000712605x85871 · Cited by 349 · see citing works
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Compression and communication in the cultural evolution of linguistic structure
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“Similar iterated learning experiments have shown that properties of languages, such as compositionality, spontaneously emerge as participants individually modify artificial languages to make them more learnable (Kirby et al. 2008).”
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“Similarly, the iterated learning framework (Smith et al., 2003; Kirby et al., 2008) showed that cultural transmission alone can generate compositional linguistic structure.”
- Authors
- Kirby, S., Cornish, H., & Smith, K.
- Affiliations
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- Northumbria University (GB)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2008-08-05
- Volume
- 105
- Issue
- 31
- Pages
- 10681-10686
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC2504810
- OpenAlex
- W2104563567
- Cited by
- 941
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 68 · 2024: 53 · 2023: 55 · 2022: 81 · 2021: 59 · 2020: 56 · 2019: 88 · 2018: 83 · 2017: 56 · 2016: 57 · 2015: 45 · 2014: 54 · 2013: 36 · 2012: 34
- FWCI
- 659.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2017-02-27)
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Northumbria Research Link (Northumbria University) (submittedVersion)
- Edinburgh Research Explorer (University of Edinburgh) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
- Keywords
- cumulative cultural evolution, origin of language, iterated learning, artificial languages, language transmission, transmissibility, language structure, experimental paradigms
- MeSH terms
- Cultural Evolution, Humans, Language, Learning, Linguistics, Models, Theoretical, Photic Stimulation
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