Simon Kirby - Publications


Verhoef, T., Kirby, S., and Padden, C. (in press). Cultural emergence of combinatorial structure in an artificial whistled language. Proceedings of Cognitive Science Society Conference, 2011.

Theisen-White, C., Kirby, S. and Oberlander, J. (in press). Integrating the horizontal and vertical cultural transmission of novel communication systems. Proceedings of Cognitive Science Society Conference, 2011.

Kirby. S. (in press). The Evolution of Linguistic Replicators. In Smith, K. and Binder, P. eds. The Language Phenomenon. Springer.

Kirby, S. (in press). Language is an Adaptive System: the role of cultural evolution in the origins of structure. In Tallerman, M. ed., Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution. Oxford University Press.

Kirby, S. (in press). Darwin’s Musical Protolanguage: an increasingly compelling picture. In Rebuschat, P., Hawkins, J., Cross, I, and Rohrmeier, M. (eds). Language and Music as Cognitive Systems. Oxford University Press.

Smith, K., and Kirby, S. (in press). Compositionality and Language Evolution. In Hinzen, W., Machery, E., and Werning, M. (eds). Oxford Handbook of Compositionality. Oxford University Press.

Scott-Phillips, T. C., and Kirby, S. (2010). Language evolution in the laboratory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Simner, J., Cuskley, C., and Kirby, S. (2010). What Sound does that Taste? Cross-modal Mappings across Gustation and Audition. Perception, 39(4) 553–569.

Theisen, C., Oberlander, J. and Kirby, S. (2010). Systematicity and arbitrariness in novel communication systems. Interaction Studies, 11(1):14-32

Cornish, H., Tamariz, M. and Kirby, S. (2010). Complex adaptive systems and the origins of adaptive structure: what experiments can tell us. Special issue on Language as a complex Adaptive System. Language Learning: 59:4S1.

Scott-Phillips, T. C., Kirby, S., and Ritchie, G. R. S. (2009) Signalling signalhood and the emergence of communication. Cognition, 113(2):226--233.

Christiansen, M. H., Chater, N., Griffiths, T., and Kirby, S. (2009) Cultural Evolution of Language: Implications for Cognitive Science. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

Theisen, C., Oberlander, J. and Kirby, S. (2009). Systematicity and arbitrariness in novel communication systems. In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

Jäger, H., Baronchelli, A., Briscoe, E., Christiansen, M., Griffiths, T., Jäger, G., Kirby, S., Komarova, N., Richerson, P., Steels, L. and Triesch, J. (2009). What can mathematical, computational and robotic models tell us about the origins of syntax? In D. Bickerton and E. Szathmáry. (eds.), Biological Foundations and Origin of Syntax, Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 3. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kirby, S., Christiansen, M. and Chater, N. (2009). Syntax as an adaptation to the learner. In D. Bickerton and E. Szathmáry. (eds.), Biological Foundations and Origin of Syntax, Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 3. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kirby, S., Smith, K. and Cornish, H. (2008). Language, Learning and Cultural Evolution: How Linguistic Transmission Leads to Cumulative Adaptation. In Cooper, R. and Kempson, R., eds., Language In Flux: Dialogue Coordination, Language Variation, Change and Evolution. College Publications.

Smith, K., and Kirby, S. (2008). Cultural evolution: implications for understanding the human language faculty and its evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 363(1509):3591-3603.

Kirby, S., Cornish, H., and Smith, K. (2008). Cumulative Cultural Evolution in the Laboratory: an experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(31):10681-10686.

Ritchie, G., Kirby, S., and Hawkey, D. (2008). Song learning as an indicator mechanism: Modelling the developmental stress hypothesis. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 251:570–583.

Kirby, S., Dowman, M. and Griffiths, T. (2007) Innateness and culture in the evolution of language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(12):5241-5245.

Kirby, S. (2007). The evolution of language. In Dunbar, R. and Barrett, L., editors, Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, pages 669-681. Oxford University Press.

Kirby, S. (2007). The evolution of meaning-space structure through iterated learning. In Lyon, C., Nehaniv, C., and Cangelosi, A., editors, Emergence of Communication and Language, pages 253–268. Springer Verlag.

Ritchie, G. and Kirby, S. (2007). A possible role for selective masking in the evolution of complex, learned communication systems. In Lyon, C., Nehaniv, C., and Cangelosi, A., editors, Emergence of Communication and Language, pages 387-402. Springer Verlag.

Brighton, H. and Kirby, S. (2006). Understanding linguistic evolution by visualizing the emergence of topographic mappings. Artificial Life, 12(2):229-242.

Dowman, M., Kirby, S., and Griffiths, T. L. (2006). Innateness and culture in the evolution of language. In Cangelosi, A., Smith, A., and Smith, K., editors, The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language. World Scientific Press.

Ellison, M. and Kirby, S. (2006). Measuring language divergence by intra-lexical comparison. In Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Computational Linguistics and 44th Annual Meeting of the ACL, pages 273-280. Association for Computational Linguistics.

Levy, S. D. and Kirby, S. (2006). Evolving distributed representations for language with self-organizing maps. In Vogt, P., editor, Symbol Grounding and Beyond: Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication, pages 57-71. Springer.

Ritchie, G. and Kirby, S. (2006). Modelling the transititon to learned communication: an initial investigation into the ecological conditions favouring cultural transmission. In Cangelosi, A., Smith, A., and Smith, K., editors, The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on the Evolution of Language. World Scientific Press.

Kirby, S. (2005). The evolution of meaning-space structure through iterated learning. In Second International Symposium on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication.

Brighton, H., Kirby, S., and Smith, K. (2005a). Cultural selection for learnability: Three principles underlying the view that language adapts to be learnable. In Tallerman, M., editor, Language Origins: Perspectives on Evolution, chapter 13. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brighton, H., Smith, K., and Kirby, S. (2005b). Language as evolutionary system. Physics of Life Reviews, 2:177-226.

Ritchie, G. and Kirby, S. (2005). Selection, domestication, and the emergence of learned communication systems. In Second International Symposium on the Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Communication.

Kirby, S. (2004). Bias, innateness and domain specificity. Journal of Child Language, 31:927-930.

Kirby, S., Smith, K., and Brighton, H. (2004). From UG to universals: linguistic adaptation through iterated learning. Studies in Language, 28(3):587-607.

Kirby, S. and Christiansen, M. H. (2003). From language learning to language evolution. In Christiansen, M. and Kirby, S., editors, Language Evolution, pages 272-294. Oxford University Press.

Brighton, H., Kirby, S., and Smith, K. (2003). Situated cognition and the role of multi-agent models in explaining language structure. In Kudenko, D., Alonso, E., and Kazakov, D., editors, Adaptive Agents and Multi-Agent Systems: Adaptation and Multi-Agent Learning, pages 88-109. Springer.

Christiansen, M. and Kirby, S. (2003a). Language Evolution. Oxford University Press.

Christiansen, M. and Kirby, S. (2003b). Language evolution: The hardest problem in science? In Christiansen, M. and Kirby, S., editors, Language Evolution, pages 1-15. Oxford University Press.

Christiansen, M. H. and Kirby, S. (2003c). Language evolution: Consensus and controversies. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(7):300-307.

Miranda, E. R., Kirby, S., and Todd, P. M. (2003). On computational models of the evolution of music: From the origins of musical taste to the emergence of grammars. Contemporary Music Review, 22(3):91-111.

Smith, K., Brighton, H., and Kirby, S. (2003a). Complex systems in language evolution: the cultural emergence of compositional structure. Advances in Complex Systems, 6(4):537-558.

Smith, K., Kirby, S., and Brighton, H. (2003b). Iterated learning: a framework for the emergence of language. Artificial Life, 9(4):371-386.

Kirby, S. (2002a). Learning, bottlenecks and the evolution of recursive syntax. In Briscoe, T., editor, Linguistic Evolution through Language Acquisition: Formal and Computational Models, chapter 6, pages 173-204. Cambridge University Press.

Kirby, S. (2002b). Natural language from artificial life. Artificial Life, 8(2):185-215.

Kirby, S. and Hurford, J. (2002). The emergence of linguistic structure: An overview of the iterated learning model. In Cangelosi, A. and Parisi, D., editors, Simulating the Evolution of Language, chapter 6, pages 121-148. Springer Verlag, London.

Wheeler, M., Bullock, S., Paolo, E. A. D., Noble, J., Bedau, M., Husbands, P., Kirby, S., and Seth, A. (2002). The view from elsewhere: Perspectives on Alife modeling. Artificial Life, 8(1):97-100.

Kirby, S. (2001). Spontaneous evolution of linguistic structure: an iterated learning model of the emergence of regularity and irregularity. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 5(2):102-110.

Brighton, H. and Kirby, S. (2001a). Meaning space structure determines the stability of culturally evolved compositional language. Technical report, Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, The University of Edinburgh.

Brighton, H. and Kirby, S. (2001b). The survival of the smallest: Stability conditions for the cultural evolution of compositional language. In Kelemen, J. and Sosik, P., editors, ECAL01, pages 592-601. Springer-Verlag.

Shillcock, R., Kirby, S., McDonald, S., and Brew, C. (2001). Filled pauses and their status in the mental lexicon. In Proceedings of the 2001 conference on Disfluency in Spontaneous Speech.

Todd, P. and Kirby, S. (2001). I like what I know: How recognition-based decisions can structure the environment. In Kelemen, J. and Sosik, P., editors, Advances in Artificial Life. Springer.

Kirby, S. (2000a). Review of "Apes, Language and the Human Mind", by Savage-Rumbaugh, Shanker and Taylor. Journal of Linguistics, 36(1):190-195.

Kirby, S. (2000b). The role of I-language in diachronic adaptation. Zeitschrift fuer Sprachwissenschaft, 18(2).

Kirby, S. (2000c). Syntax without natural selection: How compositionality emerges from vocabulary in a population of learners. In Knight, C., editor, The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form, pages 303-323. Cambridge University Press.

Kirby, S. (1999a). Function, Selection and Innateness: the Emergence of Language Universals. Oxford University Press.

Kirby, S. (1999b). Learning, bottlenecks and infinity: a working model of the evolution of syntactic communication. In Dautenhahn, K. and Nehaniv, C., editors, Proceedings of the AISB'99 Symposium on Imitation in Animals and Artifacts.

Kirby, S. (1999c). Syntax out of learning: the cultural evolution of structured communication in a population of induction algorithms. In Floreano, D., Nicoud, J.-D., and Mondada, F., editors, ECAL99, pages 694-703.

Kirby, S. (1999d). Constraints on constraints, or the limits of functional adaptation. In Darnell, M., Moravcsik, E., Newmeyer, F., Noonan, M., and Wheatley, K., editors, Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics, Volume II: Case Studies, pages 151–174. John Benjamins.

Hurford, J. and Kirby, S. (1999). Co-evolution of language size and the critical period. In Birdsong, D., editor, Second Language Acquisition and the Critical Period Hypothesis, pages 39-63. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Kirby, S. (1998a). Fitness and the selective adaptation of language. In Hurford, J. R., Studdert-Kennedy, M., and Knight, C., editors, Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Kirby, S. (1998b). Language evolution without natural selection: From vocabulary to syntax in a population of learners. Technical report, Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, University of Edinburgh.

Kirby, S. (1998c). Motivations concurrentes et emergence comme explications des hierarchies implicationnelles. Verbum, XX(3):309-336.

Kirby, S. and Hurford, J. (1998). The evolution of incremental learning. In Sorace, A., Heycock, C., and Shillcock, R., editors, Proceedings of the GALA '97 Conference on Language Acquisition. HCRC, University of Edinburgh.

Hurford, J., Joseph, S., Kirby, S., and Reid, A. (1997). Evolution might select constructivism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20:567-568.

Kirby, S. (1997). Competing motivations and emergence: explaining implicational hierarchies. Language Typology, 1(1):5-32.

Kirby, S. and Hurford, J. (1997a). The evolution of incremental learning: language, development and critical periods. Technical report, Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, University of Edinburgh.

Kirby, S. and Hurford, J. (1997b). Learning, culture and evolution in the origin of linguistic constraints. In Husbands, P. and Harvey, I., editors, ECAL97, pages 493-502. MIT Press.

Kirby, S. (1996). Function, Selection and Innateness: the Emergence of Language Universals. PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh.

Kirby, S. and Hurford, J. (1995). Neural preconditions for proto-language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 18(1):193-194.

Kirby, S. (1994). Adaptive explanations for language universals: a model of Hawkins' performance theory. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung, 47:186-210.


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