Cognitive conditions to the emergence of sign interpretation in artificial creatures

Although the emergence of communication has been the topic of various Artificial Life experiments, the study of underlying representational processes finds little discussion. We have previously differentiated between symbolic and indexical interpretation and proposed that symbolic interpretation may act as a shortcut to cognitive traits already acquired. Here we evaluate conditions of this acquired cognitive trait for the emergence of different modalities of sign interpretation. Results show that symbolic processes may act as a cognitive shortcut to a previous acquired cognitive competence even if minimally functional or initially not available.