Sep 2026· Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Abstract
Code, pre-registrations with frozen thresholds, result summaries and manuscript for a minimal controlled model of cultural transmission in a Lewis referential game. Two small neural agents invent a language over 64 objects; each generation is a fresh pair that first learns a limited set of its parent's (object, message) pairs from a persistent record and then trains on the game. A limited transmitted record breaks symmetry among comparably structured reconstructions available to independent learners, and carries the developmental state in which it was captured (the Snapshot Effect). CPU-only PyTorch; one-command replication of the pre-registered tests on fresh seeds (replicate.py). Every pre-registered outcome, including failed predictions, is reported. Designed, coded, run and written with generative AI tools under the direction of the author, who takes full responsibility for the result. Code: MIT. Text and figures: CC BY 4.0. The manuscript is also published as a separate preprint record (see Related works).
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