Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-31T02:38:42.874Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Common Interest and Signaling Games: A Dynamic Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Manolo Martínez  and
Peter Godfrey-Smith
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We present a dynamic model of the evolution of communication in a Lewis signaling game while systematically varying the degree of common interest between sender and receiver. We show that the level of common interest between sender and receiver is strongly predictive of the amount of information transferred between them. We also discuss a set of rare but interesting cases in which common interest is almost entirely absent, yet substantial information transfer persists in a “cheap talk” regime, and offer a diagnosis of how this may arise.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 3 , July 2016 , pp. 371 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bendor, Jonathan, and Swistak, Piotr. 1998. “Evolutionary Equilibria: Characterization Theorems and Their Implications.” Theory and Decision 45 (2): 99–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, Vincent P., and Sobel, Joel. 1982. “Strategic Information Transmission.” Econometrica 50:1431–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dormand, John R., and Prince, P. J.. 1980. “A Family of Embedded Runge-Kutta Formulae.” Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics 6 (1): 19–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 2013. “Information and Influence in Sender-Receiver Models, with Applications to Animal Communication.” In Animal Communication Theory: Information and Influence, ed. Stegmann, Ulrich, 377–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter, and Martínez, Manolo. 2013. “Communication and Common Interest.” PLOS Computational Biology 9 (11): e1003282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grafen, Alan. 1990a. “Biological Signals as Handicaps.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 144:517–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grafen, Alan 1990b. “Sexual Selection Unhandicapped by the Fisher Process.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 144:473–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, Paul. 1957. “Meaning.” Philosophical Review 66:377–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofbauer, Josef, and Sigmund, Karl. 1998. Evolutionary Games and Population Dynamics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huttegger, Simon M. 2007. “Evolutionary Explanations of Indicatives and Imperatives.” Erkenntnis 66 (3): 409–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lachmann, Michael, Szamado, Szabolcs, and Bergstrom, Carl T.. 2001. “Cost and Conflict in Animal Signals and Human Language.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98 (23): 13189–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewis, David. 1969/1969. Convention. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Martínez, Manolo. 2015. “Deception in Sender-Receiver Games.” Erkenntnis 80 (1): 215–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard-Smith, John, and Harper, David. 2003. Animal Signals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Millikan, Ruth G. 1984. Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
O’Connor, Cailin. 2014. “The Evolution of Vagueness.” Erkenntnis 79 (4): 707–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandholm, William H. 2010. Population Games and Evolutionary Dynamics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Shannon, Claude E., and Weaver, Warren. 1949. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Skyrms, Brian. 1996. Evolution of the Social Contract. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skyrms, Brian 2010. Signals: Evolution, Learning and Information. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spence, Michael. 1973. “Job Market Signaling.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 87 (3): 355–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterelny, Kim. 2012. The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Us Unique. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael. 2008. Origins of Human Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Elliott O. 2012. “Deterministic Chaos and the Evolution of Meaning.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63:547–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Elliott O. 2015. “Conventional Semantic Meaning in Signalling Games with Conflicting Interests.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (4): 751–73.. doi:10.1093/bjps/axu006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahavi, Amotz. 1975. “Mate Selection: A Selection for a Handicap.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 53:205–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zollman, Kevin. 2011. “Separating Directives and Assertions Using Simple Signaling Games.” Journal of Philosophy 108 (3): 158–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zollman, Kevin, Bergstrom, Carl T., and Huttegger, Simon M.. 2013. “Between Cheap and Costly Signals: The Evolution of Partial Honest Communication.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 280 (1750). doi.10.1098/rspb.2012.1878.Google Scholar