The Talking Heads experiment

The Talking Heads Experiment, conducted in the years 1999-2001, was the first large-scale experiment in which open populations of situated embodied agents created for the first time ever a new shared vocabulary by playing language games about real world scenes in front of them. The agents could teleport to different physical sites in the world through the Internet. Sites, in Antwerp, Brussels, Paris, Tokyo, London, Cambridge and several other locations were linked into the network. Humans could interact with the robotic agents either on site or remotely through the Internet and thus influence the evolving ontologies and languages of the artificial agents. The present book describes in detail the motivation, the cognitive mechanisms used by the agents, the various installations of the Talking Heads, the experimental results that were obtained, and the interaction with humans. It also provides a perspective on what happened in the field after these initial groundbreaking experiments. The book is invaluable reading for anyone interested in the history of agent-based models of language evolution and the future of Artificial Intelligence.

[1]  Luc Steels,et al.  The Construction and Acquisition of Visual Categories , 1997, EWLR.

[2]  Christopher G. Langton,et al.  Artificial Life , 2019, Philosophical Posthumanism.

[3]  Luc Steels,et al.  Collective Learning and Semiotic Dynamics , 1999, ECAL.

[4]  A. M. Turing,et al.  Computing Machinery and Intelligence , 1950, The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence.

[5]  Azriel Rosenfeld,et al.  Computer Vision , 1988, Adv. Comput..

[6]  Jeffrey Mark Siskind,et al.  Visual Event Classification via Force Dynamics , 2000, AAAI/IAAI.

[7]  Dietmar Saupe,et al.  Chaos and fractals - new frontiers of science , 1992 .

[8]  G S BRINDLEY.  Human colour vision. , 1957, Progress in biophysics and biophysical chemistry.

[9]  R. Langacker.  Foundations of cognitive grammar , 1983 .

[10]  Takashi Ikegami,et al.  From genetic evolution to emergence of game strategies , 1994 .

[11]  J. Nichols.  Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time , 1992 .

[12]  Ruben C. Arslan.  Evolutionary Genetics , 2014 .

[13]  L. Steels,et al.  coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: a case study for colour , 2005, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[14]  Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini,et al.  Language as a natural object – linguistics as a natural science , 2005 .

[15]  Luc Steels,et al.  Design patterns in fluid construction grammar , 2011 .

[16]  D. E. Rumelhart,et al.  chapter Parallel Distributed Processing, Exploration in the Microstructure of Cognition , 1986 .

[17]  B. Velichkovsky,et al.  Communicating Meaning : The Evolution and Development of Language , 1996 .

[18]  Ray Jackendoff,et al.  The Architecture of the Language Faculty , 1996 .

[19]  Terrence J. Sejnowski,et al.  The Computational Brain , 1996, Artif. Intell..

[20]  David E. Goldberg,et al.  Genetic Algorithms in Search Optimization and Machine Learning , 1988 .

[21]  Remi van Trijp.  evolution of case grammar , 2016 .

[22]  J. L. Heilbron,et al.  Leviathan and the air-pump. Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life , 1989, Medical History.

[23]  Stephen Crain,et al.  Constraints in language acquisition , 2011 .

[24]  Aude Billard,et al.  Experiments in Learning by Imitation - Grounding and Use of Communication in Robotic Agents , 1999, Adapt. Behav..

[25]  John R. Taylor,et al.  语言的范畴化:语言学理论中的类典型 = Linguistic categorization : prototypes in linguistic theory , 1989 .

[26]  Ming-Kuei Hu,et al.  Visual pattern recognition by moment invariants , 1962, IRE Trans. Inf. Theory.

[27]  C. Lehmann.  Thoughts on Grammaticalization , 2015 .

[28]  R. Badii,et al.  Complexity: Hierarchical Structures and Scaling in Physics , 1997 .

[29]  John McCarthy.  The well-designed child , 2008, Artif. Intell..

[30]  Brian Hazlehurst,et al.  How to invent a lexicon: the development of shared symbols in interaction , 2006 .

[31]  Katrien Beuls,et al.  A Language Strategy for Aspect: Encoding Aktionsarten through Morphology , 2012 .

[32]  Rodney A. Brooks,et al.  A Robust Layered Control Syste For A Mobile Robot , 2022 .

[33]  Kenneth Webb,et al.  Evolution of Communication Simulation of Adaptive Behavior – Project Report , 2004 .

[34]  J. Changeux.  Neuronal man : the biology of mind , 1985 .

[35]  V. Braitenberg.  Vehicles, Experiments in Synthetic Psychology , 1984 .

[36]  Angelo Cangelosi,et al.  The Emergence of a 'Language' in an Evolving Population of Neural Networks , 1998, Connect. Sci..

[37]  Luc Steels,et al.  The Emergence of Grammar in Communicating Autonomous Robotic Agents , 2000, ECAI.

[38]  Oscar Firschein,et al.  Readings in computer vision: issues, problems, principles, and paradigms , 1987 .

[39]  C. Waddington.  The evolution of an evolutionist , 1975 .

[40]  Luc Steels,et al.  The synthetic modeling of language origins , 1997 .

[41]  N. Presmeg.  The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination and reason , 1992 .

[42]  Tony Belpaeme,et al.  A cross-situational learning algorithm for damping homonymy in the guessing game , 2006 .

[43]  R. W. Casson,et al.  Color categories in thought and language: Color shift: evolution of English color terms from brightness to hue , 1997 .

[44]  Luc Steels,et al.  Emergent Action Language on Real Robots , 2012, Language Grounding in Robots.

[45]  Kunihiko Kaneko,et al.  Chaos as a Source of Complexity and Diversity in Evolution , 1993, Artificial Life.

[46]  Luc Steels,et al.  Perspective alignment in spatial language , 2006, Spatial Language and Dialogue.

[47]  Remi van Trijp.  FITNESS LANDSCAPES IN CULTURAL LANGUAGE EVOLUTION: A CASE STUDY ON GERMAN DEFINITE ARTICLES , 2014 .

[48]  J. Piaget,et al.  The equilibration of cognitive structures : the central problem of intellectual development , 1985 .

[49]  J. van Leeuwen,et al.  Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware , 2002, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[50]  Anna Wierzbicka,et al.  Semantics, Culture, and Cognition: Universal Human Concepts in Culture-Specific Configurations , 1992 .

[51]  M Oliphant,et al.  The dilemma of Saussurean communication. , 1996, Bio Systems.

[52]  T. Sejnowski,et al.  Irresistible environment meets immovable neurons , 1997, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[53]  J. Fodor.  The Modularity of mind. An essay on faculty psychology , 1986 .

[54]  Richard Montague,et al.  The Proper Treatment of Quantification in Ordinary English , 1973 .

[55]  Susan Bowsfield.  The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain , 2004 .

[56]  S. Pinker.  The language instinct : how the mind creates language , 1995 .

[57]  Michael Spranger,et al.  The evolution of grounded spatial language , 2016 .

[58]  Penelope Maddy,et al.  The logical structure of the world , 2007 .

[59]  Andrew D. M. Smith.  Cross-situational learning , 2012 .

[60]  Jeffrey L. Krichmar,et al.  Evolutionary robotics: The biology, intelligence, and technology of self-organizing machines , 2001, Complex..

[61]  Thomas J. Anastasio,et al.  Distributed Parallel Processing in the Vestibulo-Oculomotor System , 1989, Neural Computation.

[62]  Mary Monck.  What Color Are Your Eyes , 2002 .

[63]  Jacques Ferber,et al.  Multi-agent systems - an introduction to distributed artificial intelligence , 1999 .

[64]  Jay H. Jasanoff.  Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics , 1988 .

[65]  I. Prigogine,et al.  Exploring Complexity: An Introduction , 1989 .

[66]  D. Lewkowicz,et al.  A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action. , 2007, Journal of cognitive neuroscience.

[67]  M. Engelmann.  The Philosophical Investigations , 2013 .

[68]  Luc Steels,et al.  Net-mobile embodied agents , 1999 .

[69]  J. Elith,et al.  Species Distribution Models: Ecological Explanation and Prediction Across Space and Time , 2009 .

[70]  Baines Anthony Recent.  NAME INDEX , 1982, The Lancet.

[71]  Peter Norvig,et al.  Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach , 1995 .

[72]  I. A. Richards,et al.  The Meaning of Meaning: a Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism , 1923, Nature.

[73]  Hiroaki Kitano,et al.  Development of an Autonomous Quadruped Robot for Robot Entertainment , 1998, Auton. Robots.

[74]  Vittorio Loreto,et al.  Cultural route to the emergence of linguistic categories , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[75]  Willard Van Orman Quine,et al.  Word and Object , 1960 .

[76]  Luc Steels,et al.  Generation and Selection of Sensory Channels , 1999, EvoWorkshops.

[77]  Gilles Fauconnier,et al.  Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language , 1985 .

[78]  Luc Steels,et al.  Can Body Language Shape Body Image? , 2008, ALIFE.

[79]  Vittorio Loreto,et al.  Nonequilibrium dynamics of language games on complex networks. , 2006, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[80]  Ted Briscoe,et al.  Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models. , 2002 .

[81]  Bart de Boer,et al.  Emergence of Vowel Systems Through Self-Organisation , 2000, AI Commun..

[82]  R. Worden.  A speed limit for evolution. , 1995, Journal of theoretical biology.

[83]  K. Tuyls,et al.  How to reach linguistic consensus: a proof of convergence for the naming game. , 2006, Journal of theoretical biology.

[84]  Bruno Galantucci,et al.  An Experimental Study of the Emergence of Human Communication Systems , 2005, Cogn. Sci..

[85]  Joris Bleys,et al.  Language Strategies for the domain of colour , 2015 .

[86]  P. Richerson,et al.  Not by genes alone: How culture transformed human evolution. , 2004 .

[87]  James R. Hurford,et al.  Biological evolution of the Saussurean sign as a component of the language acquisition device , 1989 .

[88]  S. Freytag.  Knowledge Of Language Its Nature Origin And Use , 2016 .

[89]  Jean-Jacques Rousseau,et al.  Essai sur l'origine des langues , 1969 .

[90]  S. Garrod,et al.  Saying what you mean in dialogue: A study in conceptual and semantic co-ordination , 1987, Cognition.

[91]  Herbert Gintis,et al.  The Economy as a Complex Adaptive System , 2006 .

[92]  Alan MacLennan,et al.  The artificial life route to artificial intelligence: Building embodied, situated agents , 1996 .

[93]  C. E. Puente,et al.  The Essence of Chaos , 1995 .

[94]  Mike Hansell.  From Individual to Collective Behaviour in Social Insects, Jacques M. Pasteels, Jean-Louis Deneubourg (Eds.). Birkhauser Verlag, Basel (1987), 433 , 1988 .

[95]  许 曦明,et al.  语音学与音系学导论 = An introduction to phonetics and phonology , 2011 .

[96]  Michael Oliphant,et al.  Formal approaches to innate and learned communication : laying the foundation for language , 1998 .

[97]  Luc Steels,et al.  Multi-level Selection in the Emergence of Language Systematicity , 2007, ECAL.

[98]  A. Kemenade.  Syntactic Case and Morphological Case in the History of English , 1987 .

[99]  Kleanthes K. Grohmann,et al.  The Cambridge handbook of biolinguistics , 2012 .

[100]  Ronald C. Arkin,et al.  An Behavior-based Robotics , 1998 .

[101]  R. Lewontin.  ‘The Selfish Gene’ , 1977, Nature.

[102]  A. Babloyantz,et al.  Molecules, Dynamics, and Life: An Introduction to Self-Organization of Matter , 1986 .

[103]  Martin H. Levinson.  Not by Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution , 2006 .

[104]  D. McNeill.  Language and species , 1992, International Journal of Primatology.

[105]  Bernd Heine,et al.  Cognitive Foundations of Grammar , 1997 .

[106]  Peder J. Johnson,et al.  Cognitive Science: The Science of Intelligent Systems , 1994 .

[107]  G. Reeke.  Marvin Minsky, The Society of Mind , 1991, Artif. Intell..

[108]  Robert M. Seyfarth,et al.  The Social Origins of Language , 2017 .

[109]  P. Johnson-Laird.  Procedural semantics , 1977, Cognition.

[110]  Simon Kirby,et al.  Function, Selection, and Innateness: The Emergence of Language Universals , 1999 .

[111]  Angus McIntyre.  Babel: A Testbed for Research in Origins of Language , 1998, COLING-ACL.

[112]  N. Foo.  Conceptual Spaces—The Geometry of Thought , 2022 .

[113]  Helen Tager-Flusberg,et al.  Constraints on Language Acquisition : Studies of Atypical Children , 1996 .

[114]  B. Vereijken.  A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action: E. Thelen and L.B. Smith, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994. Pp. 376. ISBN 0-262-20095-3 , 1996 .

[115]  Stavroula Kousta,et al.  Understanding language change , 2017, Nature Human Behaviour.

[116]  James Milton.  The acquisition of the lexicon. , 2013 .

[117]  Phil Roberts,et al.  Learning to mean , 1982 .

[118]  E. Rolls.  High-level vision: Object recognition and visual cognition, Shimon Ullman. MIT Press, Bradford (1996), ISBN 0 262 21013 4 , 1997 .

[119]  M. Bowerman.  Learning how to structure space for language: A crosslinguistic perspective , 1996 .

[120]  H. Carr.  Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , 1923, Nature.

[121]  Luc Steels,et al.  The Origins of Syntax in Visually Grounded Robotic Agents , 1997, IJCAI.

[122]  G. M. Werner.  Evolution of Communication in Artificial Organisms, Artifial Life II , 1991 .

[123]  Noam Chomsky.  Language in a psychological setting , 1988 .

[124]  Simon E. Fisher,et al.  Culture, Genes, and the Human Revolution , 2013, Science.

[125]  Cristina P. Sandoval,et al.  Ecological Niche Dimensionality and the Evolutionary Diversification of Stick Insects , 2008, PloS one.

[126]  L. Steels,et al.  Social dynamics: Emergence of language , 2007 .

[127]  H. Meinhardt.  Models of biological pattern formation , 1982 .

[128]  Jaakko Hintikka,et al.  Paradigms For Language Theory And Other Essays , 1997 .

[129]  M. Ruhlen.  On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy , 1994 .

[130]  A. C. Haddon,et al.  The Evolution of Culture , 1932, Nature.

[131]  J. Elman,et al.  Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development , 1996 .

[132]  Luc Steels,et al.  The robot in the mirror , 2008, Connect. Sci..

[133]  Luc Steels,et al.  The Knowledge Level in Expert Systems: Conversations and Commentary , 1994 .

[134]  Elizabeth Closs Traugott,et al.  Constructionalization and Constructional Changes , 2014 .

[135]  Paul R. Kinnear,et al.  From Brightness to Hue: An Explanatory Model of Color-Category Evolution [and Comments and Reply] , 1992, Current Anthropology.

[136]  Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza,et al.  The great human diasporas : a history of diversity and evolution , 1995 .

[137]  F. W. Schneider.  Molecules, dynamics and life: an introduction to self-organization of matter , 1987 .

[138]  M. Studdert-Kennedy,et al.  Approaches To The Evolution Of Language: Social And Cognitive Bases , 1998 .

[139]  E. Jablonka,et al.  Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life , 2005 .

[140]  Monty Newborn,et al.  Kasparov versus Deep Blue - computer chess comes of age , 1996 .

[141]  Terry Winograd,et al.  Procedures As A Representation For Data In A Computer Program For Understanding Natural Language , 1971 .

[142]  G. Edelman.  Neural Darwinism: The Theory Of Neuronal Group Selection , 1989 .

[143]  Terry Regier,et al.  The Human Semantic Potential: Spatial Language and Constrained Connectionism , 1996 .

[144]  Angelo Cangelosi,et al.  Emergence of Communication and Language , 2006 .

[145]  Refractor.  Vision , 2000, The Lancet.

[146]  W. Labov.  Principles Of Linguistic Change , 1994 .

[147]  Salikoko S. Mufwene,et al.  Pidgin and Creole Languages , 2001 .

[148]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry , 2011 .

[149]  Bruce J. MacLennan,et al.  Synthetic Ethology and the Evolution of Cooperative Communication , 1993, Adapt. Behav..

[150]  Penny E. Lee,et al.  The Whorf Theory Complex: A Critical Reconstruction , 1996 .

[151]  W. Bisang.  Approaches to grammaticalization , 2014 .

[152]  R. Brown,et al.  A First Language , 1973 .

[153]  Rodney A. Brooks,et al.  Intelligence Without Reason , 1991, IJCAI.

[154]  Luc Steels.  Cognitive Teleportation and Situated Embodiment , 1999, ECAL.

[155]  Luc Steels,et al.  Aibo''s first words. the social learning of language and meaning. Evolution of Communication , 2002 .

[156]  Vittorio Loreto,et al.  Modeling the emergence of universality in color naming patterns , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[157]  Stephen C. Levinson,et al.  Grammars of Space , 2006 .

[158]  Chris Knight,et al.  HUNTER-GATHERER EGALITARIANISM ENABLED GRAMMAR TO EVOLVE , 2014 .

[159]  Luc Steels,et al.  Open-ended Procedural Semantics , 2012, Language Grounding in Robots.

[160]  Freek Van de Velde,et al.  Left-peripheral expansion of the English NP1 , 2011, English Language and Linguistics.

[161]  Matthias Schroder.  Mind Children The Future Of Robot And Human Intelligence , 2016 .

[162]  Arthur Ransom.  Origin of Languages , 1870, Nature.

[163]  Joachim De Beule,et al.  Creating Temporal Categories for an Ontology of Time , 2005 .

[164]  E. Marg.  A VISION OF THE BRAIN , 1994 .

[165]  Luc Steels,et al.  A Perceptual System for Language Game Experiments , 2012, Language Grounding in Robots.

[166]  M. Tomasello.  First Verbs: A Case Study of Early Grammatical Development , 1994 .

[167]  L. Steels,et al.  Agent-Based Models of Strategies for the Emergence and Evolution of Grammatical Agreement , 2013, PloS one.

[168]  Tracy Brown,et al.  The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience , 2002, Cybern. Hum. Knowing.

[169]  L. Margulis.  Symbiosis in cell evolution: Life and its environment on the early earth , 1981 .

[170]  W A Woods,et al.  Procedural Semantics as a Theory of Meaning. , 1981 .

[171]  Luc Steels,et al.  Flexible word meaning in embodied agents , 2008, Connect. Sci..

[172]  Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini,et al.  Language and Learning: The Debate Between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky , 1980 .

[173]  Luc Steels,et al.  A Self-Organizing Spatial Vocabulary , 1995, Artificial Life.

[174]  U. Eco.  The Search for the Perfect Language , 1997 .

[175]  W. Levelt,et al.  Speaking: From Intention to Articulation , 1990 .

[176]  Luc Steels,et al.  Scaffolding Language Emergence Using the Autotelic Principle , 2007, 2007 IEEE Symposium on Artificial Life.

[177]  M. Arbib,et al.  Language within our grasp , 1998, Trends in Neurosciences.

[178]  S. Mufwene.  Language Evolution: Contact, Competition and Change , 2008 .

[179]  Silvia Luraghi,et al.  The origin of the Proto-Indo-European gender system: Typological considerations , 2011 .

[180]  Stuart A. Kauffman,et al.  The origins of order , 1993 .

[181]  R Linsker,et al.  Perceptual neural organization: some approaches based on network models and information theory. , 1990, Annual review of neuroscience.

[182]  Remi van Trijp.  Linguistic Assessment Criteria for Explaining Language Change: A Case Study on Syncretism in German Definite Articles , 2013 .

[183]  Remi van Trijp.  STRATEGY COMPETITION IN THE EVOLUTION OF PRONOUNS: A CASE-STUDY OF SPANISH LEÍSMO, LAÍSMO AND LOÍSMO , 2010 .

[184]  Luc Steels,et al.  The Recruitment Theory of Language Origins , 2007 .

[185]  Nils J. Nilsson,et al.  Artificial Intelligence , 1974, IFIP Congress.

[186]  Luc Steels,et al.  Shared grounding of event descriptions by autonomous robots , 2003, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[187]  Revere D. Perkins,et al.  The Evolution of Grammar , 1994 .

[188]  Allen Newell,et al.  Computer science as empirical inquiry: symbols and search , 1976, CACM.

[189]  Vidroha Debroy,et al.  Genetic Programming , 1998, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[190]  J M Smith,et al.  Evolution and the theory of games , 1976 .