Cover not available
Article published In:
Computational Construction Grammar and Constructional Change
Edited by Katrien Beuls and Remi van Trijp
[Belgian Journal of Linguistics 30] 2016
► pp. 147–169

A boy named Sue

The semiotic dynamics of naming and identity

| ICREA-Institut de Biologia Evolutiva, Universitat Pompeu Fabra and CSIC, Barcelona, Spain | VUB AI Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium
| VUB AI Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium
| Sony Computer Science Laboratories Inc.

One major lesson learned in the cognitive sciences is that even basic human cognitive capacities are extraordinarily complicated and elusive to mechanistic explanations. This is definitely the case for naming and identity. Nothing seems simpler than using a proper name to refer to a unique individual object in the world. But psychological research has shown that the criteria and mechanisms by which humans establish and use names are unclear and seemingly contradictory. Children only develop the necessary knowledge and skills after years of development and naming degenerates in unusual selective ways with strokes, schizophrenia, or Alzheimer disease. Here we present an operational model of social interaction patterns and cognitive functions to explain how naming can be achieved and acquired. We study the Grounded Naming Game as a particular example of a symbolic interaction that requires naming and present mechanisms that build up and use the semiotic networks necessary for performance in the game. We demonstrate in experiments with autonomous physical robots that the proposed dynamical systems indeed lead to the formation of an effective naming system and that the model hence explains how naming and identity can get socially constructed and shared by a population of embodied agents.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Results
  • From visual stimuli to object segments
  • From objects to prototypical views of individual objects
  • Coordinating prototypes, individual objects, and names
  • Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 10 January 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.30.07ste
References (36)

References

Baronchelli, Andrea, Vittorio Loreto, and Luc Steels
2008 “In-depth analysis of the Naming Game dynamics: the homogeneous mixing case.” Int. J. of Mod. Phys. C 19 (785).Google Scholar
Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann
1966 The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. NY: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Bischop, Christopher M.
1995 Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition. Oxford: Oxford Univ Press.Google Scholar
Dall’Asta, Luca, Andrea Baronchelli, Allain Barrat, and Vittorio Loreto
2006 “Nonequilibrium dynamics of language games on complex networks.” Phys. Rev. E 74 (3): 036105. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Vylder, Bart and Karl Tuyls
2006 “How to reach linguistic consensus: A proof of convergence for the naming game.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 242 (4): 818–831. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DeLeon, Jessica, Rebecca F. Gottesman, Jonathan T. Kleinman, Melissa Newhart, Cameron Davis, Jennifer Heidler-Gary, Andrew Lee, and Argye E. Hillis
2007 “Neural regions essential for distinct cognitive processes underlying picture naming.” Brain 1301: 1408–1422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dominey, Peter F. and Jean-David Boucher
2005 “Developmental stages of perception and language acquisition in a perceptually grounded robot.” Cognitive Systems Research 6 (3): 243–259. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fujita, Masahiro, Yoshihiro Kuroki, Tatsuzo Ishida, and Toshi Doi
2003 “Autonomous behavior control architecture of entertainment humanoid robot SDR-4X.” In Proceedings of IROS 2003, Volume 11, 960–967. Las Vegas, Nevada: IEEE.Google Scholar
Galantucci, Bruno
2008 “An experimental study of the emergence of human communication systems.” Cognitive Science 25 (5): 737–767. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gutheil, Grant, Susan A. Gelman, Eileen Klein, Katherine Michos, and Kara Kelaita
2008 “Preschoolers’ use of spatiotemporal history, appearance, and proper name in determining individual identity.” Cognition 107 (1): 366–380. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hirsch, Joy, Diana R. Moreno, and Karl H.S. Kim
2001 “Interconnected large-scale systems for three fundamental cognitive tasks revealed by functional MRI.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 13 (3): 389–405. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, Glyn W., M. Jane Riddoch, and Cathy J. Price
1997 “Top-down processes in object identification: evidence from experimental psychology, neuropsychology and functional anatomy.” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 3521: 1275–1282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, Anne Treisman, and Brian J. Gibbs
1992 “The reviewing of object files: Object-specific integration of information.” Cognitive Psychology 241: 174–219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kalman, Rudolf Emil
1960 “A New Approach to Linear Filtering and Prediction Problems.” Transactions of the ASME-Journal of Basic Engineering 82 (1): 35–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kohonen, Teuvo
1982 “Self-organized formation of topologically correct feature maps.” Biological Cybernetics 43 (1): 59–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kripke, Saul A.
1980 Naming and Necessity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Piaget, Jean
1954 The Construction of Reality in the Child. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plebe, Alessio
2007 “A Neural Model of Object Naming.” Proceedings of the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 201: 232–237.Google Scholar
Qiming, Lu, Gyorgy Korniss, and Boleslaw Szymanski
2006 “Naming Games in Spatially-Embedded Random Networks.” In Proceedings of AAAI Symposium, 148–155. AAAI. arXiv:cs/0604075v3.Google Scholar
Rao, S. Chenchal, Gregor Rainer, and Earl K. Miller
1997 “Integration of what and where in the primate prefrontal cortex.” Science 2761: 821–824. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor
1975 “Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104 (3): 192–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roy, Deb
2005 “Grounding Words in Perception and Action: Computational Insights..“ Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9 (8): 389–396. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roy, Deb and Alex Pentland
2002 “Learning words from sights and sounds: a computational model.” Cognitive Science 26 (1): 113–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scholl, Brian J.
2007 “Object persistence in philosophy and psychology.” Mind & Language 22 (5): 563–591. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Selten, Reinhard and Massimo Warglien
2007 “The emergence of simple languages in an experimental coordination game.” PNAS 18 (104): 73617366.Google Scholar
Sorrentino, Christina M.
2001 “Children and adults represent proper names as referring to unique individuals.” Developmental Science 4 (4): 399–407. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spelke, Elizabeth S.
1990 “Principles of object perception.” Cognitive Science 14 (1): 29–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steels, Luc
2001 “Language games for autonomous robots.. “ IEEE Intelligent Systems 16 (5): 16–22.Google Scholar
2005 “The Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Structure: From Lexical to Grammatical Communication Systems..“ Connection Science 17 (3): 213–230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steels, Luc and Tony Belpaeme
2005 “Coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: A case study for colour.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28 (4): 469–489. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steels, Luc and Frédéric Kaplan
1999 “Situated Grounded Word Semantics.” In Proceedings IJCAI’99, ed. by Thomas Dean, 862–867. Stockholm, Sweden: Morgan Kaufmann.Google Scholar
Steels, Luc and Angus McIntyre
1995 “A Self-Organizing Spatial Vocabulary.” Artificial Life 2 (3): 319–332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997 “Spatially Distributed Naming Games.” Advances in Complex systems 1 (4): 301–302. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steels, Luc and Paul Vogt
1997 “Grounding Adaptive Language Games in Robotic Agents.” In Proceedings ALIFE’97, ed. by Phil Husbands and Inman Harvey, 473–484. Brighton, U.K.: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Woollams, Anna M., Elisa Cooper-Pye, John R. Hodges, and Karalyn Patterson
2008 “Anomia: A doubly typical signature of semantic dementia.” Neuropsychologia 461: 2503–2514. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xu, Fei
1999 “Object individuation and object identity in infancy: the role of spatiotemporal information, object property information, and language.” Acta Psychologica 1021: 113–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by 2 other publications

De Vos, Liesbet, Jens Nevens, Paul Van Eecke & Katrien Beuls
2024. Construction grammar and procedural semantics for human-interpretable grounded language processing. Linguistics Vanguard 0:0 DOI logo
Kronrod, Ann, Mary E. Hammar, JongSoo Lee, Herpreet K. Thind & Kelsey M. Mangano
2021. Linguistic Delight Promotes Eating Right: Figurative Language Increases Perceived Enjoyment and Encourages Healthier Food Choices. Health Communication 36:14 ► pp. 1898 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.