Cover not available

Article published In: Computational Construction Grammar and Constructional Change
Edited by Katrien Beuls and Remi van Trijp
[Belgian Journal of Linguistics 30] 2016
► pp. 171–192

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

A gentle introduction to the minimal Naming Game

 | City University London
Published online: 10 January 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.30.08bar
Social conventions govern countless behaviors all of us engage in every day, from how we greet each other to the languages we speak. But how can shared conventions emerge spontaneously in the absence of a central coordinating authority? The Naming Game model shows that networks of locally interacting individuals can spontaneously self-organize to produce global coordination. Here, we provide a gentle introduction to the main features of the model, from the dynamics observed in homogeneously mixing populations to the role played by more complex social networks, and to how slight modifications of the basic interaction rules give origin to a richer phenomenology in which more conventions can co-exist indefinitely.
References (69)
Akyildiz, Ian F., Weilian Su, Yogesh Sankarasubramaniam, and Erdal Cayirci. 2002. “A survey on sensor networks.” IEEE communications magazine 40 (8): 102–114. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Albert, Reka and Albert-Láaszláo Barabáasi. 2002. “Statistical mechanics of complex networks.” Review of Modern Physics 741: 559–564. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barabáasi, Albert-Láaszláo and Reka Albert. 1999. “Emergence of scaling in random networks.” Science 2861: 509. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baronchelli, Andrea. 2007. Statistical mechanics approach to language games. Ph. D. thesis, Universita di Roma La Sapienza.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “Role of feedback and broadcasting in the naming game.” Physical Review E 83 (4): 046103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baronchelli, Andrea, Luca Dall’Asta, Alain Barrat, and Vittorio Loreto. 2006a. “Bootstrapping communication in language games: Strategy, topology and all that.” In The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference (EVOLANG6), ed. by Angelo Cangelosi, Andrew D.M. Smith, and Kenny Smith. World Scientific Publishing Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006b. “Topology-induced coarsening in language games.” Phys. Rev. E (Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics) 73 (1): 015102.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006c. “Topology-induced coarsening in language games.” Phys. Rev. E 73 (1): 015102. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Nonequilibrium phase transition in negotiation dynamics.” Phys. Rev. E 76 (5): 051102. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baronchelli, Andrea and Albert Diaz-Guilera. 2012. “Consensus in networks of mobile communicating agents.” Physical Review E 85 (1): 016113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baronchelli, Andrea, Maddalena Felici, Emmanuele Caglioti, V. Loreto, and Luc Steels. 2006. “Sharp Transition towards Shared Vocabularies in Multi-Agent Systems.” Journal of Statistical Mechanics P06014. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baronchelli, Andrea, Tao Gong, Andrea Puglisi, and Vittorio Loreto. 2010. “Modeling the emergence of universality in color naming patterns.” Proc. Natl. Acad. of Sci. USA 1071: 2403. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baronchelli, Andrea, Vittorio Loreto, and Andrea Puglisi. 2015. “Individual Biases, Cultural Evolution, and the Statistical Nature of Language Universals: The Case of Colour Naming Systems.” PloS one 10 (5): e0125019. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baronchelli, Andrea, Vittorio Loreto, and Luc Steels. 2008. “In-depth analysis of the Naming Game dynamics: the homogeneous mixing case.” Int. J. Mod. Phys. C 191: 785. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barrat, Alain, Marc Barthélemy, and Alessandro Vespignani. 2008. Dynamical Processes on Complex Networks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blythe, Richard A. 2009. “Generic modes of consensus formation in stochastic language dynamics.” J. Stat. Mech: P02059. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brigatti, Edgardo. 2008. “Consequence of reputation in an open-ended naming game.” Physical Review E 78 (4): 46108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brigatti, Edgardo and Itzhak Roditi. 2009. “Conventions spreading in openended systems.” New Journal of Physics 111: 023018. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caldarelli, Guido. 2007. Scale-free networks: complex webs in nature and technology. Oxford University Press, USA. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castellano, Claudio, Santo Fortunato, and Vittorio Loreto. 2009. “Statistical physics of social dynamics.” Reviews of Modern Physics 811: 591–646. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Catanzaro, Michele, Mariá Boguñá, and Romualdo Pastor-Satorras. 2005. “Generation of uncorrelated random scale-free networks.” Phys. Rev. E 71 (2): 027103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Centola, Damon and Andrea Baronchelli. 2015. “The spontaneous emergence of conventions: An experimental study of cultural evolution.” Proceedings ofthe National Academy of Sciences 112 (7): 1989–1994. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chandler, Robert E., R. Herman, and Elliott W. Montroll. 1958. “Traffic dynamics: studies in car following.” Operations Research 6 (2): 165–184. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Colaiori, Francesca, Claudio Castellano, Christine F. Cuskley, Vittorio Loreto, Martina Pugliese, and Francesca Tria. 2015. “General three-state model with biased population replacement: Analytical solution and application to language dynamics.” Physical Review E 91 (1): 012808. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuskley, Christine F., Martina Pugliese, Claudio Castellano, Francesca Colaiori, Vittorio Loreto, and Francesca Tria. 2014. “Internal and external dynamics in language: evidence from verb regularity in a historical corpus of English.” PloS one 9 (8): e102882. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dall’Asta, Luca and Andrea Baronchelli. 2006. “Microscopic activity patterns in the Naming Game.” J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 391: 14851–14867. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dall’Asta, Luca, Andrea Baronchelli, Alain Barrat, and Vittorio Loreto. 2006a. “Agreement dynamics on small-world networks.” Europhys. Lett. 73 (6): 969–975. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006b. “Non-equilibrium dynamics of language games on complex networks.” Phys. Rev. E 741: 036105. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Vylder, Bart and Kris Tuyls. 2006. “How to reach linguistic consensus: A proof of convergence for the naming game.” J. Theor. Bio. 242 (4): 818–831. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erdös, Paul and Alfréd Rényi. 1959. “On Random Graphs I.” Publ. Math. Debrecen 61: 290.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1960. “On the evolution of random graphs.” Publ. Math. Inst. Hung. Acad. Sci. 71: 17.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fu, Feng and Long Wang. 2008. “Coevolutionary dynamics of opinions and networks: From diversity to uniformity.” Physical Review E 78 (1): 16104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Glazer, Mike, Justin Wark, and Beate Schmittmann. 2002. “Statistical mechanics: a survival guide.” American Journal of Physics 701: 1274. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gonzáalez, Marta C., Cáesar A. Hidalgo, and A.L. Barabási. 2008. “Understanding individual human mobility patterns.” Nature 453 (7196): 779–782. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gosti, Giorgio. 2007. “Role of the homonymy in the Naming Game.” Undergraduate thesis, Sapienza Univ. of Rome, 2007.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huang, Kerson. 1987. Statistical Mechanics. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaeger, Herbert, Luc Steels, Andrea Baronchelli, Ted Briscoe, Christiansen Morten H., Thomas Griffiths, Gerhard Jäger, Simon Kirby, Natalia L. Komarova, Peter J. Richerson, and Jochen Triesch. 2009. “What can Mathematical, Computational and Robotic Models Tell us About the Origins of Syntax?.” In Biological Foundations and Origin of Syntax, ed. by Bickerton Derek and Eörs Száthmary, 385–410. Strungmann Forum Reports, vol. 31. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Komarova, Natalia and Partha Niyogi. 2004. “Optimizing the mutual intelligibility of linguistic agents in a shared world.” Artif. Intell. 154 (1–2): 1–42. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lei, Chuang, Te Wu, Long Wang, and Jian-Yuan Jia. 2010. “Fast convergence in language games induced by majority rule.” Physica A 389 (19): 4046–4051. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lenaerts, Tom, Bart Jansen, Karl Tuyls, and Bart De Vylder. 2005. “The evolutionary language game: An orthogonal approach.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 235 (4): 566–582. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lipowski, Adam and D. Lipowska. 2008. “Bio-linguistic transition and Baldwin effect in an evolutionary naming-game model.” Int. J. of Mod. Phys. C 19 (3): 399–408. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lipowski, Adam and Dorota Lipowska. 2009. “Language structure in the n-object naming game.” Physical Review E 80 (5): 56107. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, Run-Ran, Chun-Xiao Jia, Han-Xin Yang, and Bing-Hong Wang. 2009. “Naming game on small-world networks with geographical effects.” Physica A 388 (17): 3615–3620. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Loreto, Vittorio, Animesh Mukherjee, and Francesca Tria. 2012. “On the origin of the hierarchy of color names.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (18): 6819–6824. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Loreto, Vittorio and Luc Steels. 2007. “Social dynamics: the emergence of language.” Nat. Phys. 31: 758–760. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lu, Qiming, Gyorgy Korniss, and BK Szymanski. 2008. “Naming games in two-dimensional and small-world-connected random geometric networks.” Physical Review E 77 (1): 16111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lu, Qiming, Gyorgy Korniss, and Boleslaw K. Szymanski. 2006. “Naming games in spatially-embedded random networks.” In Proceedings of the 2006 American Association for Artificial Intelligence Fall Symposium Series, Interaction and Emergent Phenomena in Societies of Agents (AAAI Press, Menlo Park, CA 2006), 148–155.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. “The Naming Game in social networks: community formation and consensus engineering.” Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination 4 (2): 221235. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marro, Joaquín and Ronald Dickman. 1999. Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions in Lattice Models. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mistry, Dina, Qian Zhang, Nicola Perra, and Andrea Baronchelli. 2015. “Committed activists and the reshaping of status-qRoditi, Itzhakuo social consensus.” Physical Review E 92 (4): 042805. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molloy, Michael and Bruce Reed. 1995. “A critical point for random graphs with a given degree sequence.” Random Struct. Algor. 61: 161–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nardini, Cecilia, Balázs Kozma, and Alain Barrat. 2008. “Who’s talking first? Consensus or lack thereof in coevolving opinion formation models.” Physical review letters 100 (15): 158701. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pastor-Satorras, Romualdo and Alessandro Vespignani. 2001. “Epidemic spreading in scale-free networks.” Physical review letters 86 (14): 32003203. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Evolution and Structure of the Internet: A Statistical Physics Approach. Cambridge (USA): Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Puglisi, Andrea, Andrea Baronchelli, and Vittorio Loreto. 2008. “Cultural route to the emergence of linguistic categories.” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105 (23): 7936. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roberts, Gareth, Jirka Lewandowski, and Bruno Galantucci. 2015. “How communication changes when we cannot mime the world: Experimental evidence for the effect of iconicity on combinatoriality.” Cognition 1411: 52–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sethna, James P. 2006. Statistical mechanics: entropy, order parameters, and complexity. Oxford University Press, USA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steels, Luc. 1995. “A self-organizing spatial vocabulary.” Artificial Life 2 (3): 319–332. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. The Talking Heads Experiment. Volume 1. Words and Meanings. Antwerpen (Belgium): Laboratorium.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tria, Francesca, Bruno Galantucci, and Vittorio Loreto. 2012. “Naming a structured world: a cultural route to duality of patterning.” PloS one 7 (6): e37744. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trianni, Vito, Daniele De Simone, Andreagiovanni Reina, and Andrea Baronchelli. 2016. “Emergence of Consensus in a Multi-Robot Network: from Abstract Models to Empirical Validation.” IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 1 (1): 348–353. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, W.X., B.Y. Lin, C.L. Tang, and G.R. Chen. 2007. “Agreement dynamics of finite-memory language games on networks.” Eur. Phys. J. B 60 (4): 529–536. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Watts, Duncan J. 1999. Small-worlds: The Dynamics of Networks between Order and Randomness. Princeton, NJ (USA): Princeton University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Watts, Duncan J. and Steven H. Strogatz. 1998. “Collective dynamics of ‘small world’ networks.” Nature 3931: 440. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophical Investigations. (Translated by Anscombe, G.E.M.). Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Xie, Jierui, Jeffrey Emenheiser, Matthew Kirby, Sameet Sreenivasan, Boleslaw K Szymanski, and Gyorgy Korniss. 2012. “Evolution of opinions on social networks in the presence of competing committed groups.” PLoS One 7 (3): e33215. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Xie, Jierui, Sameet Sreenivasan, Gyorgy Korniss, Weituo Zhang, Chjan Lim, and Boleslaw K Szymanski. 2011. “Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities.” Physical Review E 84 (1): 011130. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yang, Han-Xin, Wen-Xu Wang, and Bing-Hong Wang. 2008. “Asymmetric negotiation in structured language games.” Phys. Rev. E 77 (2): 027103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Weituo and Chjan C. Lim. 2010. “Noise in Naming Games, partial synchronization and community detection in social networks.” Arxiv preprint ar Xiv: 1008.4115.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (30)

Cited by 30 other publications

Cencetti, Giulia & Alain Barrat
2025. Generating surrogate temporal networks from mesoscale building blocks. Communications Physics 8:1 DOI logo
Guerrero Montero, Juan
2025. Evolutionary Modeling in Linguistics. In Reference Module in Social Sciences, DOI logo
Lipowska, Dorota, Adam Lipowski, António L. Ferreira & Viacheslav Kovtun
2025. Homonyms and context in signalling game with reinforcement learning. PLOS One 20:5 ► pp. e0322743 ff. DOI logo
Gu, Hongyu, Xinyue Qi, Liang Sun & Yang Zhang
2024. 2024 International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (IWCMC), ► pp. 525 ff. DOI logo
Marchetti, Gionni
2024. Generalized naming game and Bayesian naming game as dynamical systems. Physical Review E 109:6 DOI logo
Wen, Tao, Yu-wang Chen & Renaud Lambiotte
2024. Collective effect of self-learning and social learning on language dynamics: a naming game approach in social networks. Journal of The Royal Society Interface 21:221 DOI logo
Zhao, Chao, Ali Al-Bashabsheh & Chung Chan
2024. Game Theoretic Clustering for Finding Strong Communities. Entropy 26:3 ► pp. 268 ff. DOI logo
Mancastroppa, Marco, Iacopo Iacopini, Giovanni Petri & Alain Barrat
2023. Hyper-cores promote localization and efficient seeding in higher-order processes. Nature Communications 14:1 DOI logo
Reagans, Ray E, Hagay Volvovsky & Ronald S Burt
2023. Shared language in the team network-performance association: Reconciling conflicting views of the network centralization effect on team performance. Collective Intelligence 2:3 DOI logo
Scialla, Stefano, Jens-Kristjan Liivand, Marco Patriarca & Els Heinsalu
2023. A three-state language competition model including language learning and attrition. Frontiers in Complex Systems 1 DOI logo
Danovski, Kaloyan & Markus Brede
2022. Effects of Population Structure on the Evolution of Linguistic Convention. In Complex Networks & Their Applications X [Studies in Computational Intelligence, 1072], ► pp. 693 ff. DOI logo
Danovski, Kaloyan, Markus Brede & Jun Tanimoto
2022. On the evolutionary language game in structured and adaptive populations. PLOS ONE 17:8 ► pp. e0273608 ff. DOI logo
Falk, Johannes, Edwin Eichler, Katja Windt & Marc-Thorsten Hütt
2022. Collective patterns and stable misunderstandings in networks striving for consensus without a common value system. Scientific Reports 12:1 DOI logo
Reagans, Ray E.
2022. Mutual learning in networks: Building theory by piecing together puzzling facts. Research in Organizational Behavior 42 ► pp. 100175 ff. DOI logo
Soni, Aradhana, Kalyan S. Perumalla & Xueping Li
2022. 2022 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC), ► pp. 298 ff. DOI logo
Ilyinsky, Alexander Ioilyevich, Galina Vladimirovna Klimova, Evgeniy Sergeevich Smakhtin, Marina Aleksandrovna Amurskaya, Ekaterina Yurievna Rozhina, I. Klimova & M. Konurbaev
2021. Agent-based modelling using naming game for language evolution studies. SHS Web of Conferences 127 ► pp. 01014 ff. DOI logo
Lipowska, Dorota & Adam Lipowski
2021. Evolution towards Linguistic Coherence in Naming Game with Migrating Agents. Entropy 23:3 ► pp. 299 ff. DOI logo
Lipowska, Dorota & Adam Lipowski
2022. Emergence and evolution of language in multi-agent systems. Lingua 272 ► pp. 103331 ff. DOI logo
Cambier, Nicolas, Roman Miletitch, Vincent Frémont, Marco Dorigo, Eliseo Ferrante & Vito Trianni
2020. Language Evolution in Swarm Robotics: A Perspective. Frontiers in Robotics and AI 7 DOI logo
Marchetti, Gionni, Marco Patriarca & Els Heinsalu
2020. A bird’s-eye view of naming game dynamics: From trait competition to Bayesian inference. Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science 30:6 DOI logo
Marchetti, Gionni, Marco Patriarca & Els Heinsalu
2020. A Bayesian Approach to the Naming Game Model. Frontiers in Physics 8 DOI logo
Marchetti, Gionni, Marco Patriarca & Els Heinsalu
2021. The role of bilinguals in the Bayesian naming game. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 428 ► pp. 133062 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Guanrong & Yang Lou
2019. Naming Game with Multi-Hearers or Group Discussions. In Naming Game [Emergence, Complexity and Computation, 34], ► pp. 43 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Guanrong & Yang Lou
2019. Communications with Learning Errors. In Naming Game [Emergence, Complexity and Computation, 34], ► pp. 71 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Guanrong & Yang Lou
2019. Introduction. In Naming Game [Emergence, Complexity and Computation, 34], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Guanrong & Yang Lou
2019. Preliminaries. In Naming Game [Emergence, Complexity and Computation, 34], ► pp. 11 ff. DOI logo
Zhou, Jianfeng, Yang Lou, Guanrong Chen & Wallace K.S. Tang
2018. Multi-language naming game. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 496 ► pp. 620 ff. DOI logo
Palombi, Filippo, Stefano Ferriani & Simona Toti
2017. Influence of periodic external fields in multiagent models with language dynamics. Physical Review E 96:6 DOI logo
Perumalla, Kalyan S.
2017. 2017 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC), ► pp. 1037 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Bibliography. In Languages in Space and Time, ► pp. 179 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue