Publications

@article{brown_22_Semantic,

title = {Semantic Cues in Language Learning: An Artificial Language Study with Adult and Child Learners},

author = {Helen Brown and Kenny Smith and Anna Samara and Elizabeth Wonnacott},

doi = {10.1080/23273798.2021.1995612},

issn = {2327-3798, 2327-3801},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-04-01},

journal = {Language, Cognition and Neuroscience},

volume = {37},

number = {4},

pages = {509--531},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{hawkins_22_partners,

title = {From Partners to Populations: A Hierarchical Bayesian Account of Coordination and Convention.},

author = {Robert D. Hawkins and Michael Franke and Michael C. Frank and Adele E. Goldberg and Kenny Smith and Thomas L. Griffiths and Noah D. Goodman},

doi = {10.1037/rev0000348},

issn = {1939-1471, 0033-295X},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-04-01},

journal = {Psychological Review},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{smith_22_How,

title = {How Language Learning and Language Use Create Linguistic Structure},

author = {Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1177/09637214211068127},

issn = {0963-7214, 1467-8721},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-04-01},

journal = {Current Directions in Psychological Science},

volume = {31},

number = {2},

pages = {177--186},

abstract = {Languages persist through a cycle of learning and use: You learn a language through immersion in the language used in your linguistic community, and in using language to communicate, you produce further linguistic data, which other people might learn from in turn. Languages change over historical time as a result of errors and innovations in these processes of learning and use; this article reviews experimental and computational methods that have been developed to test the hypothesis that those same processes of learning and use are responsible for creating the fundamental structural properties shared by all human languages, including some of the design features that make language such a powerful tool for communication.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{tal_22_Impact,

title = {The Impact of Information Structure on the Emergence of Differential Object Marking: An Experimental Study},

author = {Shira Tal and Kenny Smith and Jennifer Culbertson and Eitan Grossman and Inbal Arnon},

doi = {10.1111/cogs.13119},

issn = {0364-0213, 1551-6709},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-03-01},

journal = {Cognitive Science},

volume = {46},

number = {3},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{tal2022redundancy,

title = {Redundancy can benefit learning: Evidence from word order and case marking},

author = {Shira Tal and Inbal Arnon},

year  = {2022},

date = {2022-01-01},

journal = {Cognition},

volume = {224},

pages = {105055},

publisher = {Elsevier},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{dautriche_21_Subjective,

title = {Subjective Confidence Influences Word Learning in a Cross-Situational Statistical Learning Task},

author = {Isabelle Dautriche and Hugh Rabagliati and Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2021.104277},

issn = {0749596X},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-12-01},

journal = {Journal of Memory and Language},

volume = {121},

pages = {104277},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{loy_21_Speakers,

title = {Speakers Align With Their Partner's Overspecification During Interaction},

author = {Jia E. Loy and Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1111/cogs.13065},

issn = {0364-0213, 1551-6709},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-12-01},

journal = {Cognitive Science},

volume = {45},

number = {12},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{woensdregt_21_computational,

title = {A Computational Model of the Cultural Co-Evolution of Language and Mindreading},

author = {Marieke Woensdregt and Chris Cummins and Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1007/s11229-020-02798-7},

issn = {0039-7857, 1573-0964},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-12-01},

journal = {Synthese},

volume = {199},

number = {1-2},

pages = {1347--1385},

abstract = {Abstract Several evolutionary accounts of human social cognition posit that language has co-evolved with the sophisticated mindreading abilities of modern humans. It has also been argued that these mindreading abilities are the product of cultural, rather than biological, evolution. Taken together, these claims suggest that the evolution of language has played an important role in the cultural evolution of human social cognition. Here we present a new computational model which formalises the assumptions that underlie this hypothesis, in order to explore how language and mindreading interact through cultural evolution. This model treats communicative behaviour as an interplay between the context in which communication occurs, an agent's individual perspective on the world, and the agent's lexicon. However, each agent's perspective and lexicon are private mental representations, not directly observable to other agents. Learners are therefore confronted with the task of jointly inferring the lexicon and perspective of their cultural parent, based on their utterances in context. Simulation results show that given these assumptions, an informative lexicon evolves not just under a pressure to be successful at communicating, but also under a pressure for accurate perspective-inference. When such a lexicon evolves, agents become better at inferring others' perspectives; not because their innate ability to learn about perspectives changes, but because sharing a language (of the right type) with others helps them to do so.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{motamedi_21_emergence,

title = {The Emergence of Systematic Argument Distinctions in Artificial Sign Languages},

author = {Yasamin Motamedi and Kenny Smith and Marieke Schouwstra and Jennifer Culbertson and Simon Kirby},

doi = {10.1093/jole/lzab002},

issn = {2058-458X},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-11-01},

journal = {Journal of Language Evolution},

volume = {6},

number = {2},

pages = {77--98},

abstract = {Abstract Word order is a key property by which languages indicate the relationship between a predicate and its arguments. However, sign languages use a number of other modality-specific tools in addition to word order such as spatial agreement, which has been likened to verbal agreement in spoken languages, and role shift, where the signer takes on characteristics of propositional agents. In particular, data from emerging sign languages suggest that, though some use of a conventional word order can appear within a few generations, systematic spatial modulation as a grammatical feature takes time to develop. We experimentally examine the emergence of systematic argument marking beyond word order, investigating how artificial gestural systems evolve over generations of participants in the lab. We find that participants converge on different strategies to disambiguate clause arguments, which become more consistent through the use and transmission of gestures; in some cases, this leads to conventionalized iconic spatial contrasts, comparable to those found in natural sign languages. We discuss how our results connect with theoretical issues surrounding the analysis of spatial agreement and role shift in established and newly emerging sign languages, and the possible mechanisms behind its evolution.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{johnson_21_Predictive,

title = {Predictive Structure or Paradigm Size? Investigating the Effects of i-Complexity and e-Complexity on the Learnability of Morphological Systems},

author = {Tamar Johnson and Kexin Gao and Kenny Smith and Hugh Rabagliati and Jennifer Culbertson},

doi = {10.15398/jlm.v9i1.259},

issn = {2299-8470, 2299-856X},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-10-01},

journal = {Journal of Language Modelling},

volume = {9},

number = {1},

abstract = {Research on cross-linguistic differences in morphological paradigms reveals a wide range of variation on many dimensions, including the number of categories expressed, the number of unique forms, and the number of inflectional classes. However, in an influential paper, Ackerman & Malouf (2013) argue that there is one dimension on which languages do not differ widely: in predictive structure. Predictive structure in a paradigm describes the extent to which forms predict each other, called i-complexity. Ackerman & Malouf (2013) show that although languages differ according to measure of surface paradigm complexity, called e-complexity, they tend to have low i-complexity. They conclude that morphological paradigms have evolved under a pressure for low i-complexity, such that even paradigms with very high e-complexity are relatively easy to learn so long as they have low i-complexity. While this would potentially explain why languages are able to maintain large paradigms, recent work by Johnson et al. (submitted) suggests that both neural networks and human learners may actually be more sensitive to e-complexity than i-complexity. Here we will build on this work, reporting a series of experiments under more realistic learning conditions which confirm that indeed, across a range of paradigms that vary in either e- or i-complexity, neural networks (LSTMs) are sensitive to both, but show a larger effect of e-complexity (and other measures associated with size and diversity of forms). In human learners, we fail to find any effect of i-complexity at all. Further, analysis of a large number of randomly generated paradigms show that e- and i-complexity are negatively correlated: paradigms with high e-complexity necessarily show low i-complexity.These findings suggest that the observations made by Ackerman & Malouf (2013) for natural language paradigms may stem from the nature of these measures rather than learning pressures specially attuned to i-complexity.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{karjus_21_Conceptual,

title = {Conceptual Similarity and Communicative Need Shape Colexification: An Experimental Study},

author = {Andres Karjus and Richard A. Blythe and Simon Kirby and Tianyu Wang and Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1111/cogs.13035},

issn = {0364-0213, 1551-6709},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-09-01},

journal = {Cognitive Science},

volume = {45},

number = {9},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{kirton_21_Constituent,

title = {Constituent Order in Silent Gesture Reflects the Perspective of the Producer},

author = {Fiona Kirton and Simon Kirby and Kenny Smith and Jennifer Culbertson and Marieke Schouwstra},

doi = {10.1093/jole/lzaa010},

issn = {2058-458X},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-05-01},

journal = {Journal of Language Evolution},

volume = {6},

number = {1},

pages = {54--76},

abstract = {Abstract Understanding the relationship between human cognition and linguistic structure is a central theme in language evolution research. Numerous studies have investigated this question using the silent gesture paradigm in which participants describe events using only gesture and no speech. Research using this paradigm has found that Agent– Patient– Action (APV) is the most commonly produced gesture order, regardless of the producer's native language. However, studies have uncovered a range of factors that influence ordering preferences. One such factor is salience, which has been suggested as a key determiner of word order. Specifically, humans, who are typically agents, are more salient than inanimate objects, so tend to be mentioned first. In this study, we investigated the role of salience in more detail and asked whether manipulating the salience of a human agent would modulate the tendency to express humans before objects. We found, first, that APV was less common than expected based on previous literature. Secondly, salience influenced the relative ordering of the patient and action, but not the agent and patient. For events involving a non-salient agent, participants typically expressed the patient before the action and vice versa for salient agents. Thirdly, participants typically omitted non-salient agents from their descriptions. We present details of a novel computational solution that infers the orders participants would have produced had they expressed all three constituents on every trial. Our analysis showed that events involving salient agents tended to elicit AVP; those involving a non-salient agent were typically described with APV, modulated by a strong tendency to omit the agent. We argue that these findings provide evidence that the effect of salience is realized through its effect on the perspective from which a producer frames an event.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{ota_21_emergence,

title = {The Emergence of Word-Internal Repetition through Iterated Learning: Explaining the Mismatch between Learning Biases and Language Design},

author = {Mitsuhiko Ota and Aitor San José and Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104585},

issn = {00100277},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-05-01},

journal = {Cognition},

volume = {210},

pages = {104585},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{saldana_21_Regularization,

title = {Is Regularization Uniform across Linguistic Levels? Comparing Learning and Production of Unconditioned Probabilistic Variation in Morphology and Word Order},

author = {Carmen Saldana and Kenny Smith and Simon Kirby and Jennifer Culbertson},

doi = {10.1080/15475441.2021.1876697},

issn = {1547-5441, 1547-3341},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-04-01},

journal = {Language Learning and Development},

volume = {17},

number = {2},

pages = {158--188},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{dautriche_21_Knowing,

title = {Knowing How You Know: Toddlers Reevaluate Words Learned From an Unreliable Speaker},

author = {Isabelle Dautriche and Louise Goupil and Kenny Smith and Hugh Rabagliati},

doi = {10.1162/opmi_a_00038},

issn = {2470-2986},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-02-01},

journal = {Open Mind},

volume = {5},

pages = {1--19},

abstract = {There has been little investigation of the way source monitoring, the ability to track the source of one's knowledge, may be involved in lexical acquisition. In two experiments, we tested whether toddlers (mean age 30 months) can monitor the source of their lexical knowledge and reevaluate their implicit belief about a word mapping when this source is proven to be unreliable. Experiment 1 replicated previous research (Koenig & Woodward, 2010 ): children displayed better performance in a word learning test when they learned words from a speaker who has previously revealed themself as reliable (correctly labeling familiar objects) as opposed to an unreliable labeler (incorrectly labeling familiar objects). Experiment 2 then provided the critical test for source monitoring: children first learned novel words from a speaker before watching that speaker labeling familiar objects correctly or incorrectly. Children who were exposed to the reliable speaker were significantly more likely to endorse the word mappings taught by the speaker than children who were exposed to a speaker who they later discovered was an unreliable labeler. Thus, young children can reevaluate recently learned word mappings upon discovering that the source of their knowledge is unreliable. This suggests that children can monitor the source of their knowledge in order to decide whether that knowledge is justified, even at an age where they are not credited with the ability to verbally report how they have come to know what they know.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{10.1162/ling_a_00375,

title = {Vowel Harmony and Disharmony Are Not Equivalent in Learning},

author = {Alexander Martin and James White},

url = {https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00375},

doi = {10.1162/ling_a_00375},

issn = {0024-3892},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-01-01},

journal = {Linguistic Inquiry},

volume = {52},

number = {1},

pages = {227-239},

abstract = {General vowel harmony and disharmony rules have comparable formal complexity but differ dramatically in typological frequency and phonetic motivation. Previous studies found no difference in learning between vowel harmony and disharmony; this putative equivalence has been used to discount the view that learners are influenced by substantive learning biases. In the current study, we use a more nuanced test to show that there is a clear difference in learning between vowel harmony and disharmony: learners readily infer a vowel harmony pattern, but not a disharmony pattern. The findings suggest that vowel disharmony is in fact strongly disfavored during learning.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{saldana2021cross,

title = {Cross-linguistic patterns of morpheme order reflect cognitive biases: An experimental study of case and number morphology},

author = {Carmen Saldana and Yohei Oseki and Jennifer Culbertson},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-01-01},

journal = {Journal of Memory and Language},

volume = {118},

pages = {104204},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{blythe2021how,

title = {How individuals change language},

author = {Richard A Blythe and William Croft},

doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0252582},

year  = {2021},

date = {2021-01-01},

journal = {PLoS ONE},

volume = {16},

pages = {e0252582},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{loy_20_Effects,

title = {Effects of Priming and Audience Design on the Explicitness of Referring Expressions: Evidence From a Confederate Priming Paradigm},

author = {Jia E. Loy and Stephanie J. Bloomfield and Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1080/0163853X.2020.1802192},

issn = {0163-853X, 1532-6950},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-10-01},

journal = {Discourse Processes},

volume = {57},

number = {9},

pages = {808--821},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{ogrady_20_Perspectivetaking,

title = {Perspective-Taking Is Spontaneous but Not Automatic},

author = {Cathleen O'Grady and Thom Scott-Phillips and Suilin Lavelle and Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1177/1747021820942479},

issn = {1747-0218, 1747-0226},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-10-01},

journal = {Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology},

volume = {73},

number = {10},

pages = {1605--1628},

abstract = {Data from a range of different experimental paradigms in particular (but not only) the dot perspective task have been interpreted as evidence that humans automatically track the perspective of other individuals. Results from other studies, however, have cast doubt on this interpretation, and some researchers have suggested that phenomena that seem like perspective-taking might instead be the products of simpler behavioural rules. The issue remains unsettled in significant part because different schools of thought, with different theoretical perspectives, implement the experimental tasks in subtly different ways, making direct comparisons difficult. Here, we explore the possibility that subtle differences in experimental method explain otherwise irreconcilable findings in the literature. Across five experiments we show that the classic result in the dot perspective task is not automatic (it is not purely stimulus-driven), but nor is it exclusively the product of simple behavioural rules that do not involve mentalising. Instead, participants do compute the perspectives of other individuals rapidly, unconsciously, and involuntarily, but only when attentional systems prompt them to do so (just as, for instance, the visual system puts external objects into focus only as and when required). This finding prompts us to clearly distinguish spontaneity from automaticity. Spontaneous perspective-taking may be a computationally efficient means of navigating the social world.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{carr_20_Simplicity,

title = {Simplicity and Informativeness in Semantic Category Systems},

author = {Jon W. Carr and Kenny Smith and Jennifer Culbertson and Simon Kirby},

doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104289},

issn = {00100277},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-09-01},

journal = {Cognition},

volume = {202},

pages = {104289},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{wilson_20_Non,

title = {Non-adjacent Dependency Learning in Humans and Other Animals},

author = {Benjamin Wilson and Michelle Spierings and Andrea Ravignani and Jutta L. Mueller and Toben H. Mintz and Frank Wijnen and Anne Kant and Kenny Smith and Arnaud Rey},

doi = {10.1111/tops.12381},

issn = {1756-8757, 1756-8765},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-07-01},

journal = {Topics in Cognitive Science},

volume = {12},

number = {3},

pages = {843--858},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{karjus_20_Challenges,

title = {Challenges in Detecting Evolutionary Forces in Language Change Using Diachronic Corpora},

author = {Andres Karjus and Richard A. Blythe and Simon Kirby and Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.5334/gjgl.909},

issn = {2397-1835},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-05-01},

journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},

volume = {5},

number = {1},

abstract = {Newberry et al. (Detecting evolutionary forces in language change, Nature 551, 2017) tackle an important but difficult problem in linguistics, the testing of selective theories of language change against a null model of drift. Having applied a test from population genetics (the Frequency Increment Test) to a number of relevant examples, they suggest stochasticity has a previously under-appreciated role in language evolution. We replicate their results and find that while the overall observation holds, results produced by this approach on individual time series can be sensitive to how the corpus is organized into temporal segments (binning). Furthermore, we use a large set of simulations in conjunction with binning to systematically explore the range of applicability of the Frequency Increment Test. We conclude that care should be exercised with interpreting results of tests like the Frequency Increment Test on individual series, given the researcher degrees of freedom available when applying the test to corpus data, and fundamental differences between genetic and linguistic data. Our findings have implications for selection testing and temporal binning in general, as well as demonstrating the usefulness of simulations for evaluating methods newly introduced to the field.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{smith_20_How,

title = {How Culture and Biology Interact to Shape Language and the Language Faculty},

author = {Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1111/tops.12377},

issn = {1756-8757, 1756-8765},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-04-01},

journal = {Topics in Cognitive Science},

volume = {12},

number = {2},

pages = {690--712},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{karjus_20_Quantifying,

title = {Quantifying the Dynamics of Topical Fluctuations in Language},

author = {Andres Karjus and Richard A. Blythe and Simon Kirby and Kenny Smith},

doi = {10.1163/22105832-01001200},

issn = {2210-5824, 2210-5832},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-02-01},

journal = {Language Dynamics and Change},

volume = {10},

number = {1},

pages = {86--125},

abstract = {Abstract The availability of large diachronic corpora has provided the impetus for a growing body of quantitative research on language evolution and meaning change. The central quantities in this research are token frequencies of linguistic elements in texts, with changes in frequency taken to reflect the popularity or selective fitness of an element. However, corpus frequencies may change for a wide variety of reasons, including purely random sampling effects, or because corpora are composed of contemporary media and fiction texts within which the underlying topics ebb and flow with cultural and socio-political trends. In this work, we introduce a simple model for controlling for topical fluctuations in corpora the topical-cultural advection model and demonstrate how it provides a robust baseline of variability in word frequency changes over time. We validate the model on a diachronic corpus spanning two centuries, and a carefully-controlled artificial language change scenario, and then use it to correct for topical fluctuations in historical time series. Finally, we use the model to show that the emergence of new words typically corresponds with the rise of a trending topic. This suggests that some lexical innovations occur due to growing communicative need in a subspace of the lexicon, and that the topical-cultural advection model can be used to quantify this.},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{martin_peperkamp_2020,

title = {Phonetically natural rules benefit from a learning bias: a re-examination of vowel harmony and disharmony},

author = {Alexander Martin and Sharon Peperkamp},

doi = {10.1017/S0952675720000044},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-01-01},

journal = {Phonology},

volume = {37},

number = {1},

pages = {65–90},

publisher = {Cambridge University Press},

keywords = {},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}