AUTHOR=Tilsen Sam 

TITLE=Relaxation, Percolation, and Non-Spontaneous Fluctuation of Linguistic Behavior in a Quasi-Isolated System

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physics

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2022.801740

DOI=10.3389/fphy.2022.801740

ISSN=2296-424X

ABSTRACT=<p>Linguistic behaviors arise from strongly interacting, non-equilibrium systems. There is a wide range of spatial and temporal scales that are relevant for the analysis of speech. This makes it challenging to study language from a physical perspective. This paper reports on a longitudinal experiment designed to address some of the challenges. Linguistic and social preference behavior were observed in an ad-hoc social network over time. Eight people participated in weekly sessions for 10 weeks, playing a total of 535 map-navigation games. Analyses of the degree of order in social and linguistic behaviors revealed a global relaxation toward more ordered states. Fluctuations in linguistic behavior were associated with social preferences and with individual interactions.</p>