Alien forms for alien language: investigating novel form spaces in cultural evolution
- Submitting institution
-
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
- Unit of assessment
- 26 - Modern Languages and Linguistics
- Output identifier
- 259490-258248-1281
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
-
10.1057/s41599-019-0299-5
- Title of journal
- Palgrave Communications
- Article number
- 87
- First page
- -
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- -
- ISSN
- 2055-1045
- Open access status
- Compliant
- Month of publication
- August
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
-
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0299-5
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
C - English Language and Linguistics
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This output disseminates significant primary research undertaken during a 3-year BA Postdoctoral Fellowship. Artificial language learning studies are at the core of the empirical evidence required to understand language evolution. However, the form learning tasks underpinning them are already familiar to participants. For that reason, this study used a completely novel ‘form space’ task developed from a custom-made palette of 138 ‘alien’ characters. While prior research suggested that learners tend to simplify forms, this study showed that, given such a rich, novel space, learners maintained redundant complexity. The output also includes extensive open source code for future researchers to adapt.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- -
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
