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{
    "pk": 26340,
    "title": "Language Evolution in the Lab: The Case of Child Learners",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "Recent work suggests that cultural transmission can lead to\nthe emergence of linguistic structure as speakers’ weak\nindividual biases become amplified through iterated learning.\nHowever, to date, no published study has demonstrated a\nsimilar emergence of linguistic structure in children. This gap\nis problematic given that languages are mainly learned by\nchildren and that adults may bring existing linguistic biases to\nthe task. Here, we conduct a large-scale study of iterated\nlanguage learning in both children and adults, using a novel,\nchild-friendly paradigm. The results show that while children\nmake more mistakes overall, their languages become more\nlearnable and show learnability biases similar to those of\nadults. Child languages did not show a significant increase in\nlinguistic structure over time, but consistent mappings\nbetween meanings and signals did emerge on many\noccasions, as found with adults. This provides the first\ndemonstration that cultural transmission affects the languages\nchildren and adults produce similarly.",
    "language": "eng",
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": ""
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "language evolution; cultural transmission;\niterated learning; developmental differences"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Papers",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6gk76070",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Limor",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Raviv",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "Hebrew University",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": null,
    "date_accepted": null,
    "date_published": "2016-01-01T18:00:00Z",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
        {
            "label": "PDF",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/26340/galley/15976/download/"
        }
    ]
}