Self-Organization in the Evolution of Speech (Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language)

What is the origins of speech? How speech systems of languages form and evolve? How a child learns speech?

Can robots invent and learn their own vocalisation system? How constructing robot can help us understand better humans?

This book studies these questions, following a systemic approach, where the problem is approached globally. It gather human sciences, natural sciences and computational sciences within the same laboratory of ideas to explore the origins of language.

It draws some parallels with the formation of biological structures like bee hives and shell shapes, and explore how self-organisation, in interaction with natural selection, can explain important aspects of the morphogenesis of speech.

In particular, it presents robotic experiments in which a population of individuals, with models of the vocal tract and the auditory system, invent, form and negotiate its own system of combinatorial vocalisations, through local peer-to-peer interactions. It compares the emergent systems with human sound systems, and show that strong similarities can be observed.

In this context, and from new perspectives on artificial intelligence, new scientific maps appear, and show us stimulating paths to the origins of speech.