Title:
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Vagueness in competitive and cooperative language games
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The category game models the communication protocols between two
agents who aim to match category labels with elements encountered in
a simulated ()r real world. In the language games community the expressions
available to an agent has traditionally centered on category
label assertions. This thesis presents a new representation for category
labels, in which category definitions explicitly Incorporate semantic uncertainty
and typicality. More specifically, a conceptual model based on
prototype and random set theory is proposed, in which categories are defined
within a metric conceptual space. It is argued that this conceptual
framework is both expressive and naturally generates robust assertion
and concept updating models. This is demonstrated by the development
of assertion and updating rules which allow compound logical expressions
of category labels to be used in agent interaction. In particular,
in multi-agent simulations of the category game under this framework,
agents use a mixture of category labels and negated labels.
The results of these simulations are presented, where a multi-agent system
evolves through pairwise language games, implementing several different
assertion and updating algorithms. The performance is measured
in terms of the average distance between agents' conceptual interpretations,
and results suggest that, within this framework, a mixture of both
positive and negative assertions are required in order for the multi-agent
systems to evolve so that agents share sufficiently similar interpretations
covering the space, which are also able to discriminate between different
cases. These results are supported in subsequent chapters where two further
language games are implemented, suggesting that using a mixture
of assertions shows the best possible communication success between
agents.
An investigation into the role of feedback in the category game compares
simulations in which agents use feedback with the results of simulations
without feedback. All results presented suggest that using feedback allows
agents to develop a set of interpretations which are more similar
than if feedback was not being implemented, and also allows agents to
obtain a higher value for average communication success. Finally, we
introduce a bipolar mode~ of assertion. This allows agents to make an
assertion with two degrees of celtainty, and may be used as a strategy
to gain higher reward and lower punishment in a category game implementing
a feedback model.
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