Bootstrapping grounded symbols by minimal autonomous robots

Abstract

In this paper an experiment is presented in which two mobile robots develop a shared lexicon of which the meanings are grounded in the real world. The robots start without a lexicon nor shared meanings and play language games in which they generate new meanings and negotiate words for these meanings. The experiment tries to find the minimal conditions under which verbal communication may begin to evolve. The robots are autonomous in terms of computing and cognition, but they are otherwise far simpler than most, if not all animals. It is demonstrated that a lexicon nevertheless can be made to emerge even though there are strong limits on the size and stability of this lexicon.