But what kind of structure actually helps people communicate better?

Only systematicity (and how well partners’ systems aligned with each other) robustly predicted communicative success. (5/8)

We found that participants developed communication systems that displayed both discreteness (clustering of whistled signals into distinct word-like groups), and systematicity (the signals are predictably organized, in a way that corresponds to what they refer to in the world). (4/8)

After learning five whistle-color pairings as "common ground," they had to generalize this common ground to communicate about 40 colors. This setup lets us look at what kinds of strategies people develop, under communicative pressure. (3/8)

We then test this model — which predicts that teachers and learners use rational inference to update their beliefs about each other in response to observed communication from their partner — in two behavioral experiments. (3/4)

Our paper, "A hierarchical Bayesian model of adaptive teaching," is now out in Cognitive Science @cogscisociety.bsky.social. With co-authors Andrew Palacci @natvelali.bsky.social @rdhawkins.bsky.social @gershbrain.bsky.social

🔓📄 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

And when we told them that the two people in the scenario are in a hierarchical relationship (i.e. a relationship where one person has more power/status/influence than the other), people’s expectations changed drastically, and they *strongly* expected repeating actions, over alternating (5/11)

I'm excited to share this new preprint with @rebeccasaxe.bsky.social: We find that knowing about an existing social relationship can drastically change people’s expectations and evaluations of generosity. (1/11)

📄 osf.io/preprints/ps...