Hot or Cold? Modelling convention-formation in reference games using back channel-motivated feedback

Abstract

Many statements uttered in daily situations feature a measure of ambiguity. One person may refer to a dog-shaped cloud as "a dog", or to a loved one as a \ray of sunshine". Conventions may be thought of as implicit, unstated information in such statements (Lewis, 1969). Research on the cognitive processes underlying the conventions has been performed in the context of reference games (Clark & Wilkes- Gibbs, 1986; Krauss & Weinheimer, 1964). A formal model of these reference games is described by Hawkins et al. (2017b). Here we address one element of this model, whose cognitive equivalent we perceive as ambiguous. We propose a modi cation of the model by Hawkins et al. (2017b) based on meta-communication, `communication in communication', and analyse the results of digital simulations we performed for each model.