Welcome!
Why do languages look the way they look?
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Why are there so many different languages in the world?​
How did language evolve in our species?
And what are the social, environmental and cognitive pressures that shape human language past and present?
​​Understanding how human language evolved is one of the hardest problems in human sciences. ​In addition, the source of the astonishing linguistic diversity we see in today's languages is poorly understood. My work thus addresses two fundamental and complementary questions – one concerning the origins of any language, and one concerning the pressures that lead to differences between languages. We try to uncover and pinpoint the cognitive, social, and environmental factors that shape communication systems, from the very early stages of emergence to the ongoing change and diversification we see today.
​​We answer these questions by synthesizing cutting-edge experimental and computational methods (e.g., group communication games, virtual reality experiments, deep learning neural networks, swarm robotics) that simulate language evolution de novo and in silico, mimicking the live-formation of new languages as adaptive behaviors emerging not from a single individual, but rather from the cumulative interactions of many individuals. We systematically vary the environments in which artificial agents or humans operate in order to pinpoint the ecological pressures and shape the evolution of languages. This work thus combines elements from evolutionary theory, computer science, cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, and biology.
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I am also interested in animal cognition and communication, child development, human history, space, and data analysis.
I am currently a Research Group Leader of the
Language Evolution and Adaptation in Diverse Situations (LEADS) Group
​​I am also an Assistant Professor at the Donders Centre for Cognition (DCC)
In the Media
My work has received attention from international newspapers and science magazines, and featured in popular online linguistic podcasts. For the full list of media outlets that include my work, check out my CV. ​
Publications
Published Peer-Reviewed Papers
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Pleyer, M., & Raviv, L. (2026). Language evolution and social networks. Reference Module in Social Sciences: International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (3rd ed.). doi:10.1016/B978-0-323-95504-1.01001-2 [download PDF]
Arnon, I., Carmel, L., Claidière, N., Fitch, W.T., Goldin-Meadow, S., Kirby, S., Okanoya, K., Raviv, L., Wolters, L., & Fisher, S.E. (2025). What enables human language? A biocultural framework. Science, 390(6775), eadq8303. doi:10.1126/science.adq8303 [download PDF]
Pleyer, M., Perlman, M., Lupyan, G., de Reus, K., & Raviv, L. (2025). The ‘design features’ of language revisited. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Advance online publication. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2025.10.004 [download PDF]
Raviv, L., Blasi, D., & Kempe, V. (2025). Children are not the main agents of language change. Psychological Review. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/rev0000580 [download PDF]
Kempe, V. & Raviv, L. (2025). No Evidence for Generational Differences in the Conventionalization of Face Emojis. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 9(100750). doi:10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100750 [download PDF]
Feketova, L., & Raviv, L. (2025). The inescapable cage of a man and a woman: Experiences of non-binary people with gender identity (non-)affirmation in the context of a gendered language. International Journal of Transgender Health. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/26895269.2025.2544022. [download PDF]
Galke, L. P. A., Ram, Y., & Raviv, L. (2024). Deep neural networks and humans both benefit from compositional language structure. Nature Communications, 15: 10816. doi:10.1038/s41467-024-55158-1 [download PDF]
Josserand, M., Pellegrino, F., Grosseck, O., Dediu, D., & Raviv, L. (2024). Adapting to individual differences: An experimental study of language evolution in heterogeneous populations. Cognitive Science, 48(11), e70011. doi:10.1111/cogs.70011 [download PDF]
Tsomokos, D. I., & Raviv, L. (2024). A bidirectional association between language development and prosocial behavior in childhood: Evidence from a longitudinal birth cohort in the United Kingdom. Developmental Psychology, 61(2), 336-350. doi:10.1037/dev0001875 [download PDF]
Galke, L. P. A., & Raviv, L. (2024). Learning and communication pressures in neural networks: Lessons from emergent communication. Language Development Research, 5(1), 116-143. doi:10.34842/3vr5-5r49 [download PDF]
Zhou, H., van der Ham, S., de Boer, B., Bogaerts, L., & Raviv, L. (2024). Modality and Stimulus Effects on Distributional Statistical Learning: Sound vs. Sight, Time vs. Space. Journal of Memory and Language, 138, 104531. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2024.104531 [download PDF]
Ozaki, Y., Tierney, A., Pfordresher, P. Q., McBride, J. M., Benetos, E., … Raviv, L., … Savage, P. E. (2024). Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower, higher, and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report. Science Advances, 10(20), eadm9797. doi:10.1126/sciadv.adm9797 [download PDF]
Raghavan, R., Raviv, L., & Peeters, D. (2023). What's your point? Insights from virtual reality on the relation between intention and action in the production of pointing gestures. Cognition, 240, 105581. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105581 [download PDF]
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Raviv, L., Jacobson, S. L., Plotnik, J. M., Bowman, J., Lynch, V., & Benítez-Burraco, A. (2023). Elephants as a new animal model for self-domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(15), e2208607120. doi:10.1073/pnas.2208607120. [download PDF]
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Raviv, L., Peckre, L., & Boeckx, C (2022). What is simple is actually quite complex: a critical note on terminology in the domain of language and animal communication. Journal of Comparative Psychology. doi: 10.1037/com0000328. [download PDF]
Raviv, L., Lupyan, G., & Green, S. C. (2022). How variability shapes learning and generalization. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Advance online publication. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2022.03.007. [download PDF]
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Raviv, L., de Heer Kloots, M., & Meyer, A. (2021). What makes a language easy to learn? A preregistered study on how systematic structure and community size affect language learnability. Cognition, 210, 104620. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104620 [download PDF]
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Raviv, L., Meyer, A., & Lev-Ari, S. (2020). The role of social network structure in the emergence of linguistic structure. Cognitive Science, 44(8), e12876. doi:10.1111/cogs.12876 [download PDF]
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Raviv, L., Meyer, A., Lev-Ari, S. (2019b). Larger communities create more systematic languages. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Science, 286(1907). doi:10.1098/rspb.2019.1262 [download PDF]
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Raviv, L., Meyer, A., Lev-Ari, S. (2019a). Compositional structure can emerge without generational transmission. Cognition, 182, 151-164. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2018.09.010 [download PDF]
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Raviv, L., & Arnon, I. (2018a). Systematicity, but not compositionality: Examining the emergence of linguistic structure in children and adults using iterated learning. Cognition, 181, 160-173. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2018.08.011
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Raviv, L., & Arnon, I. (2018b). The developmental trajectory of children’s auditory and visual statistical learning abilities: Modality-based differences in the effect of age. Developmental Science. 21(4): e12593. doi:10.1111/desc.12593 [download PDF]
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Havron, N., Raviv, L., & Arnon, I. (2018). Literate and preliterate children show different learning patterns in an artificial language learning task. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 2, 21-33. doi:10.1007/s41809-018-0015-9 [download PDF]
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Published books and book chapters
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​Raviv, L., & Boeckx, C. (Eds.). (2025). The Oxford handbook of approaches to language evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN: 9780192886491.
Müller, T. F. & Raviv, L. (2025). Communication Experiments: Social Interaction in the Formation of Novel Communication Systems. Oxford Handbook of Approaches to Language Evolution (pp. 41-62). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192886491.013.4 [download PDF]
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Raviv, L., & Kirby, S. (2023). Self-Domestication and the cultural evolution of language. Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution, pp. C60S1–C60S8. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198869252.013.60. [download PDF]
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Raviv, L., (2020). Language and society: how social pressures shape grammatical structure. Doctoral Dissertation, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. ISBN: 78-94-92910-12-7. [download PDF]​​​​
