Starfish: 1 (+) Bit Communication and Signaling In Groups

Biology and Philosophy

Ethological theories usually attribute semantic content to animal signals. To account for this fact, many biologists and philosophers appeal to some version of Teleosemantics. However, this picture has recently came under attack: while mainstream teleosemantics assumes that representational systems must cooperate, some biologists and philosophers argue that in certain cases signaling can evolve within systems lacking common interest. In this paper I defend the standard view from this objection.

Cognitive Science, 2010

This paper compares two explanations of the process by which human communication systems evolve: iterated learning and social collaboration. It then reports an experiment testing the social collaboration account. Participants engaged in a graphical communication task either as a member of a community, where they interacted with seven different partners drawn from the same pool, or as a member of an isolated pair, where they interacted with the same partner across the same number of games. Participants' horizontal, pair-wise interactions led ''bottom up'' to the creation of an effective and efficient shared sign system in the community condition. Furthermore, the communityevolved sign systems were as effective and efficient as the local sign systems developed by isolated pairs. Finally, and as predicted by a social collaboration account, and not by an iterated learning account, interaction was critical to the creation of shared sign systems, with different isolated pairs establishing different local sign systems and different communities establishing different global sign systems.

2011

Abstract: Language is an imperfect and coarse means of communicating information about a complex and nuanced world. We run an experimental investigation of a setting in which the messages available to the sender imperfectly describe the state of the world, however the sender can improve communication, at a cost, by increasing the complexity or elaborateness of the message. As is standard in the communication literature, the sender learns the state of the world then sends a message to the receiver.

The World Wide Web Conference on - WWW '19

Stack Overflow, a Q&A site on programming, awards reputation points and badges (game elements) to users on performing various actions. Situating our work in Digital Signaling Theory, we investigate the role of these game elements in characterizing social qualities (specifically, popularity and impact) of its users. We operationalize these attributes using common metrics and apply statistical modeling to empirically quantify and validate the strength of these signals. Our results are based on a rich dataset of 3,831,147 users and their activities spanning nearly a decade since the site's inception in 2008. We present evidence that certain non-trivial badges, reputation scores and age of the user on the site positively correlate with popularity and impact. Further, we find that the presence of costly to earn and hard to observe signals qualitatively differentiates highly impactful users from highly popular users. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; Reputation systems.

Infant Behavior and Development, 2007

The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model, based on a dynamic systems perspective and the metaphor of aliveness in communication. Traditional concepts and methods for the study of communication are relatively static and based on the metaphor of signal and response. These traditional methods lend themselves to relatively simplified measures of frequencies and durations, sequences and co-occurrences: a model of objectified communication. The concept of alive communication focuses on the dynamically changing aspects of communication using three related components: coregulation, ordinary variability, and innovation. Like living organisms, alive communication develops over time as it forms dynamically stable patterns. Aliveness can be applied to communication at any age, in any species, between species, in any form including time-delayed practices using written symbols, and with non-living objects. The model provides a tool for evaluating the "life-likeness" of communication with animate and inanimate objects and robotic devices, and for assessing and treating communicative difficulties -in which aliveness is missing -within and between dyads/families. Traditional concepts and methods for the study of communication are relatively static and based on the metaphor of signal and response. These concepts lend themselves to relatively easy coding and data analysis because all instances of a particular action, say a smile or an offering gesture, are treated as "the same" across instances. The concept of alive communication focuses on the dynamically changing aspects of communication. From the perspective of aliveness, no two instances of a facial expression or gesture are completely alike. Each time a person smiles spontaneously or with sincerity, it is in some sense "new" and "alive." Expressions and gestures that do not change in this way across repeated instances are typically signs of intra-or inter-individual dysfunction or pathology. In these cases, the self or the other is viewed as an object, not a fully alive person.

Cognitive Processing, 2012

The paper defines the notion of social signal, in terms of a cognitive model of mind and social interaction, as a communicative or informative signal or a cue that directly or indirectly provides information about ''social facts'': social interactions, social emotions, social attitudes, evaluations and stances, social relations, and social identities. This notion is compared with other connected notions in Semiotics, Ethology, and Psychology, several types of informative and communicative signals and cues are exemplified, and their process of production and interpretation is overviewed, while considering the role of context and previous knowledge in it. The implications of this model are outlined for the construction of systems for the analysis of social signals and their simulation in Virtual Agents.

To say that communication is at the heart of our everyday lives would be but stating the obvious. Its influence is so all embracing and its tentacles widespread that they encompass the art of persuading, influencing, entertaining, sharing, discovering and transmitting information. From the moment we wake in the morning, thinking about the challenges of the day ahead, to the moment we drift off to sleep at night, we are constantly in the process of communication. We do so either as senders of messages or receivers of messages. In the words of Hybels and Weaver (2005:5), 'it is not surprising that communication, and how to communicate, is so important to daily life that it has spawned an entire industry of books, articles, and seminars explaining how to do it better'.

John Donne

Fell, E. (2017), In Search of a Simple Introduction to Communication. J Commun. doi:10.1111/jcom.12307 Pages: E1-E3

Interaction Studies, 2010

Human communication is o en thought about in terms of transmitted messages in a conventional code like a language. But communication requires a specialized interactive intelligence. Senders have to be able to perform recipient design, while receivers need to be able to do intention recognition, knowing that recipient design has taken place. To study this interactive intelligence in the lab, we developed a new task that taps directly into the underlying abilities to communicate in the absence of a conventional code. We show that subjects are remarkably successful communicators under these conditions, especially when senders get feedback from receivers. Signaling is accomplished by the manner in which an instrumental action is performed, such that instrumentally dysfunctional components of an action are used to convey communicative intentions. e ndings have important implications for the nature of the human communicative infrastructure, and the task opens up a line of experimentation on human communication.