David Lewis in the lab

experimental results on the emergence of meaning

Justin P. Bruner

Cailin O'Connor

Hannah Rubin

Simon M. Huttegger

pp. 603-621

in: Justine Jacot, Philip Pärnamets (eds), Games, interactive rationality, and learning, Synthese 195 (2), 2018.

Abstract

In this paper we use an experimental approach to investigate how linguistic conventions can emerge in a society without explicit agreement. As a starting point we consider the signaling game introduced by Lewis (Convention 1969). We find that in experimental settings, small groups can quickly develop conventions of signal meaning in these games. We also investigate versions of the game where the theoretical literature indicates that meaning will be less likely to arise—when there are more than two states for actors to transfer meaning about and when some states are more likely than others. In these cases, we find that actors are less likely to arrive at strategies where signals have clear conventional meaning. We conclude with a proposal for extending the use of the methodology of experimental economics in experimental philosophy.

Cited authors

Lewis David