The Impact of Non-verbal Communication on Lexicon Formation

Abstract

This paper presents a series of experiments in which two mobile robots develop a shared lexicon of which the meaning is grounded in the real world. The experiments investigate the impact of non-verbal communication on lexicon formation. Non-verbal communication is used to establish joint attention or to evaluate feedback. The experiments implement adaptive language games in which two agents try to communicate some real world object. When the agents fail, they can adapt their memory in order to improve performance on future occasions. As the experimental results show, the quality of the evolved lexicon is better when feedback is used rather than joint attention. 1