Language Evolution and Computation Bibliography

Chicken-Hawk is a social-dilemma game that distinguishes uncoordinated from coordinated cooperation. In tests with players belonging to a culturally homogeneous population, natural-language ``cheap talk'' led to efficient coordination, while nonlinguistic signaling yielded uncoordinated altruism. In a subsequent test with players from a moderately more heterogeneous population nearby, the ``cheap talk'' condition still produced better coordination than other signaling conditions, but at a lower level and with fewer acts of altruism overall. Implications are: (1) without language, even willing cooperators coordinate poorly; (2) given a sufficiently homogeneous social group, language can coordinate cooperation in the face of opportunities for anonymous defection; (3) coordination therefore depends not on merely a general propensity to cooperate but on the overlap of social identities, which are always costly to acquire and maintain. So far as linguistic variation establishes how much social identities overlap, natural-language ``cheap talk'' is self-insuring, suggesting that linguistic variation is itself adaptive.

ChickenHawk is a social-dilemma game in which the only way to win is to play ''Hawk'' against ''Chicken.'' The purpose of the game is to distinguish between uncoordinated and coordinated self-sacrifice. In a test of four signaling conditions with players who belong to a culturally homogeneous population, a 'cheap talk' condition led to efficient coordination, whereas signaling opportunities engaging social reputation and allowing eye-contact without speech yielded poorly coordinated altruistic behavior. The implications are: (1) without language, mere willingness to cooperate on a social dilemma is insufficient for coordinating intentions, and (2) given a sufficiently cohesive social group, language can coordinate inequitable, altruistic sacrifices of modest but real material incentives, even where fully anonymous defection is an option.