BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Cultural evolution creates language-like structure: from humans to
  humpback whales and beyond - Inbal Arnon\, the Hebrew University of Jerus
 alem\, & the University of Edinburgh
DTSTART:20260605T153000Z
DTEND:20260605T170000Z
UID:TALK246634@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Psychology Reception
DESCRIPTION:All known languages are made up of statistically coherent sequ
 ences - words - whose frequency distribution follows a power law known as 
 a Zipfian distribution. Despite the ubiquity of these features across lang
 uages their origins are poorly understood. In this talk\, I will argue tha
 t they arise because they facilitate learning and therefore emerge through
  the process of cultural transmission of language. I will present a set of
  results on the learnability sources and consequences of such distribution
 s in human language\, looking at infants\, children\, and adults. I will t
 hen summarise results from an iterated learning study in which non-linguis
 tic sequences evolve as they are transmitted from generation to generation
  of participants. We draw on insights from infant speech segmentation to d
 evelop analytic pipelines for analysing the sequences and observe the emer
 gence of Zipf's law over generations. This work makes a prediction that we
  should find Zipfian distribution of statistically coherent sequences wher
 ever systems culturally evolve\, including in other species. In the second
  part of the talk I will turn to the culturally evolving song of humpback 
 whales and apply the same analytic technique to 8 years of whale recording
 s. Together with Ellen Garland and Simon Kirby\, we show\, for the first t
 ime in another species\, that these characteristic statistical properties 
 are indeed present in whale song. By doing so\, we demonstrate a deep comm
 onality between two species separated by tens of millions of years of evol
 ution but united by both having culture. Throughout\, I will highlight ope
 n questions at the intersection of developmental psychology\, language evo
 lution\, and comparative cognition\, and point to ways in which cross-spec
 ies and cross-method collaborations could promote our understanding of the
  origin of complex communication.\n\nHost: Prof Nicky Clayton \n\nThis tal
 k will be recorded and uploaded to the Zangwill Club "Youtube channel":htt
 ps://www.youtube.com/@zangwill_club in due course.
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of  Psychology
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR