Experimental Semiotics: past, present, and future

Abstract

Experimental Semiotics (ES) investigates how novel semiotic systems emerge by observing people ground communication in lab games, thus exposing the fundamental principles of human semiosis and the pressures through which they originate. We review the past of ES and describe its key findings. We then discuss challenges and future directions for ES, including how a tighter integration with neuroscience can enrich our understanding of the social processes exposed by ES, and how ES can in turn help neuroscience investigate human semiosis in more realistic settings. ES provides neurosemiotics with new tool to integrate the social and biological components of communication.