created 2025-02-25, & modified, =this.modified
rel: Alphabet Evolution Love knot language
Abstract: Abstract symbolic writing systems are semiotic codes that are ubiquitous in modern society but are otherwise absent in the animal kingdom. Anthropological evidence suggests that the earliest forms of some writing systems originally consisted of iconic pictographs, which signify their referent via visual resemblance. While previous studies have examined the emergence and, separately, the evolution of pictographic writing systems through a computational lens, most employ non-naturalistic methodologies that make it difficult to draw clear analogies to human and animal cognition. We develop a multi-agent reinforcement learning testbed for emergent communication called a Signification Game, and formulate a model of inferential communication that enables agents to leverage visual theory of mind to communicate actions using pictographs. Our model, which is situated within a broader formalism for animal communication, sheds light on the cognitive and cultural processes that led to the development of early writing systems.
Spontaneous invention of natural language is unique to humans, but capacity for signification exists in the broader animal kingdom to some extent. Acoustic signaling is present in chickadees and whales.
Symbolic writing systems are not found elsewhere. Our earliest writings were iconic pictographs, which share a visual resemblance to the referent, in contrast to our abstract symbolic signs which rely on codified meanings.
Signification Game - a naturalistic communication testbed inspired by referential and signaling games in which agents engaged in decision making process communicate by painting splines on a canvas, an action space designed to mimic the limitations of early human writing tools.
One plausible origin story for early animal communication is that primitive communicative acts constituted the use of signals to induce behavior in others that conferred an advantage to speakers. For example, an animal that has associated a screeching noise with the presence of a predator may have learned to reliably take a fleeing action, a behavior that could be exploited by another animal who screeches so that it may selfishly engorge itself on scarce food without competition.
They “exploit other animals as tools” rel:Ground Truth
The capacity for symbolic communication alone is likely not sufficient for the invention of writing systems, which differ in form from the signaling systems used by many communicative animals.
The presence of visually-recognizable features in the earliest forms of human writing suggest that abstract visual resemblance played a critical bootstrapping role in the adoption and invention of writing systems.
Altogether, our results suggest that behaviorist models of communication are insufficient at explaining the emergence of writing systems, and that visual theory of mind may have played a crucial role in the invention of the first pictographic sign systems.