'What did You Say?' Emergent Communication in a Multi-Agent Spatial Configuration

This paper reports the results of a multi-agent simulation designed to study the emergence and evolution of symbolic communication. The novelty of this model is that it considers some interactional and spatial constraints to this process that have been disregarded by previous research. The model is used to give an account of the implications of differences in the agents’ behavior, which are embodied in a spatial environment. Two communicational dimensions are identified: the frequency with which agents refer to different topics over time and the spatial limitations on reaching recipients. We use the model to point out some interesting emergent communicational properties when the agents’ behavior is altered by considering those two dimensions. We show the group of agents able to reach more recipients and less prone to changing the topic have the highest likelihood of driving the emergence and evolution of symbolic communication.