Mathematical Physics
Seminar
January Schedule
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Speaker-
N. Komarova, Rutgers University
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Time/Place-
Thursday 1/29/04, 11:30am in Hill 705
- Title-
Communicating agents in a shared world
- Abstract-
We consider the problem of linguistic agents that
communicate with each other about a shared world. We develop a formal
notion of a language as a set of probabilistic associations between
form (lexical or syntactic) and meaning (semantic) that has general
applicability. Using this notion, we define a natural measure of the
mutual intelligibility, F(L,L'), between two agents, one using the
language L and the other using L'. A natural question is this: Given a
language L, what language L' maximizes mutual intelligibility with L?
We find surprisingly that L' need not be the same as L, and present
algorithms for finding L'. Next, we consider a population of
linguistic agents that learn from each other and evolve over time.
Will the community converge to a shared language and what is the
nature of such a language? We find Nash equilibria of this system, and
discuss this analysis in relation with observations about synonyms and
homonyms in natural languages.