Kirby et al. [19••] emphasise the applicability of this method to language, which they argue undergoes a process they call iterated learning [20, 21, 22, 23], emphasising the way in which individuals learn from other learners during transmission and usage.
We will focus in this review on experimental approaches to cultural evolution as they have been applied to language (Table 1). There is a long history of using transmission chain experiments to look at how behaviour evolves culturally [14, 15, 16, 17, 18], see also Whiten et al., this volume. Kirby et al. [19••] emphasise the applicability of this method to language, which they argue undergoes a process they call iterated learning [20, 21, 22, 23], emphasising the way in which individuals learn from other learners during transmission and usage. Figure 3 gives various different ways in which iterated learning of language has been explored experimentally.