How Cultural Transmission and Individual Learning Shape the Emergence of Compositionality
Francijn Barbara Keur

Abstract:
This thesis examines the impact of several factors affecting cultural transmission, such as transmission mode, population size, social network structure, and rate of replacement, on the emergence of a preference for compositionality. It also investigates the impact of individual learning mechanisms, such as the impact of new evidence and the strength of a simplicity bias. Using an agent-based model with Bayesian learners, I replicate earlier findings that a preference for compositionality emerges due to a trade-off between compressibility and expressivity. When agents learn from multiple teachers, a preference for compositionality can emerge even with a relatively weak simplicity bias. Population size and network structure do not seem to impact the emergence of preference for compositionality, though this might be due to the limited possibility for input variability in the model.