Lossy communication constrains iterated learning

2025-11-22

AI Summary

Humans exhibit vastly superior iterative learning capabilities compared to other species—does this necessitate positing a qualitative cognitive or communicative discontinuity? Method: We develop a formal information-theoretic model integrating theoretical analysis and agent-based simulations to quantify how lossy intergenerational communication constrains cumulative cultural learning. Contribution/Results: We demonstrate that even marginal increases in channel capacity induce nonlinear, superlinear improvements in population-level learning performance; while bounded, noisy transmission does not alter single-generation learning bounds, it severely limits long-term cultural evolutionary efficiency. Crucially, our framework shows that no domain-specific high-level cognitive modules are required—gradual enhancement of communication fidelity alone suffices to generate a phase transition in iterative learning capacity. These findings establish information transmission efficiency as a fundamental driver—not merely an enabler—of cumulative cultural evolution.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Evolutionary Learning
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Neural Spike Coding
• Multiagent Systems: Agent Communication

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Social networks and social learning
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Models for Web evolution
• Semantics and Knowledge: Methods to enhance, augment, integrate or synergize semantic models such as knowledge graphs and LLMs

Abstract

Humans' distinctive role in the world can largely be attributed to our capacity for iterated learning, a process by which knowledge is expanded and refined over generations. A range of theories seek to explain why humans are so adept at iterated learning, many positing substantial evolutionary discontinuities in communication or cognition. Is it necessary to posit large differences in abilities between humans and other species, or could small differences in communication ability produce large differences in what a species can learn over generations? We investigate this question through a formal model based on information theory. We manipulate how much information individual learners can send each other and observe the effect on iterated learning performance. Incremental changes to the channel rate can lead to dramatic, non-linear changes to the eventual performance of the population. We complement this model with a theoretical result that describes how individual lossy communications constrain the global performance of iterated learning. Our results demonstrate that incremental, quantitative changes to communication abilities could be sufficient to explain large differences in what can be learned over many generations.

Problem

• Investigates how communication limitations affect cultural knowledge transmission across generations
• Examines whether small communication differences cause major learning disparities between species
• Models how information loss constrains cumulative cultural evolution through iterated learning

Innovation

• Model based on information theory
• Manipulate information sent between learners
• Incremental communication changes affect performance