Explores a new approach to studying language as a complex adaptive system, illustrating its commonalities across many areas of language research Brings together a team of leading researchers in linguistics, psychology, and complex systems to discuss the groundbreaking significance of this perspective for their work Illustrates its application across a variety of subfields, including languages usage, language evolution, language structure, and first and second language acquisition "What a breath of fresh air! As interesting a collection of papers as you are likely to find on the evolution, learning, and use of language from the point of view of both cognitive underpinnings and communicative functions." Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN VI, held in Paris, France in September 2000. The 87 revised full papers presented together with two invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 168 submissions. The presentations are organized in topical sections on analysis and theory of evolutionary algorithms, genetic programming, scheduling, representations and operators, co-evolution, constraint handling techniques, noisy and non-stationary environments, combinatorial optimization, applications, machine learning and classifier systems, new algorithms and metaphors, and multiobjective optimization.

​This book emerged out of international conferences organized as part of the AAAI Fall Symposia series, and the Swarmfest 2017 conference. It brings together researchers from diverse fields studying these complex systems using CAS and agent-based modeling tools and techniques. In the past, the knowledge gained in each domain has largely remained exclusive to that domain. By bringing together scholars who study these phenomena, the book takes knowledge from one domain to provide insight into others. Most interesting phenomena in natural and social systems include constant transitions and oscillations among their various phases – wars, companies, societies, markets, and humans rarely stay in a stable, predictable state for long. Randomness, power laws, and human behavior ensure that the future is both unknown and challenging. How do events unfold? When do they take hold? Why do some initial events cause an avalanche while others do not? What characterizes these events? What are the thresholds that differentiate a sea change from a non-event? Complex adaptive systems (CAS) have proven to be a powerful tool for exploring these and other related phenomena. The authors characterize a general CAS model as having a large number of self-similar agents that: 1) utilize one or more levels of feedback; 2) exhibit emergent properties and self-organization; and 3) produce non-linear dynamic behavior. Advances in modeling and computing technology have led not only to a deeper understanding of complex systems in many areas, but they have also raised the possibility that similar fundamental principles may be at work across these systems, even though the underlying principles may manifest themselves differently.

An overarching framework for comparing and steering complex adaptive systems is developed through understanding the mechanisms that generate their intricate signal/boundary hierarchies.

"This book provides an estimable global view of the most up-to-date research on the strategies, applications, practice, and implications of complex adaptive systems, to better understand the various critical systems that surround human life. Researchers will find this book an indispensable state-of-art reference"--Provided by publisher.

This book provides the first clear, comprehensive, and accessible account of complex adaptive social systems, by two of the field's leading authorities. Such systems--whether political parties, stock markets, or ant colonies--present some of the most intriguing theoretical and practical challenges confronting the social sciences. Engagingly written, and balancing technical detail with intuitive explanations, Complex Adaptive Systems focuses on the key tools and ideas that have emerged in the field since the mid-1990s, as well as the techniques needed to investigate such systems. It provides a detailed introduction to concepts such as emergence, self-organized criticality, automata, networks, diversity, adaptation, and feedback. It also demonstrates how complex adaptive systems can be explored using methods ranging from mathematics to computational models of adaptive agents. John Miller and Scott Page show how to combine ideas from economics, political science, biology, physics, and computer science to illuminate topics in organization, adaptation, decentralization, and robustness. They also demonstrate how the usual extremes used in modeling can be fruitfully transcended.

A novel, integrated approach to understanding long-term human history, viewing it as the long-term evolution of human information-processing. This title is also available as Open Access.

Based upon a conference held in May 1993, this book discusses the intersection of neurobiology, cognitive psychology and computational approaches to cognition.

The Interactional Instinct explores the evolution of language from the theoretical view that language could have emerged without a biologically instantiated Universal Grammar. In the first part of the book, the authors speculate that a hominid group with a lexicon of about 600 words could combine these items to make larger meanings. Combinations that are successfully produced, comprehended, and learned become part of the language. Any combination that is incompatible with human mental capacities is abandoned. The authors argue for the emergence of language structure through interaction constrained by human psychology and physiology. In the second part of the book, the authors argue that language acquisition is based on an "interactional instinct" that emotionally entrains the infant on caregivers. This relationship provides children with a motivational and attentional mechanism that ensures their acquisition of language. In adult second language acquisition, the interactional instinct is no longer operating, but in some individuals with sufficient aptitude and motivation, successful second-language acquisition can be achieved. The Interactional Instinct presents a theory of language based on linguistic, evolutionary, and biological evidence indicating that language is a culturally inherited artifact that requires no a priori hard wiring of linguistic knowledge.

This volume is both a state-of-the-art display of current thinking on second language development as a complex system. It is also a tribute to Diane Larsen-Freeman for her decades of intellectual leadership in the academic disciplines of applied linguistics and second language acquisition. The chapters therein range from theoretical expositions to methodological analyses, pedagogical proposals, and conceptual frameworks for future research. In a balanced and in-depth manner, the authors provide a comprehensive and interdisciplinary understanding of second language development, with a wealth of insights that promise to break the status-quo of current research and take it to exciting new territory. The book will appeal to both seasoned and novice researchers in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, bilingualism, cognitive psychology, and education, as well as to practitioners in second or foreign language teaching of any language.