The optimality of attaching unlinked labels to unlinked objects

Vocabulary learning by children is characterized by many biases. When encountering a new word, children as well as adults, are biased towards assuming that it means something totally different from the words that they already know. To the best of our knowledge, the 1st mathematical proof of the optimality of this bias is presented here. First, it is shown that this bias is a particular case of the maximization of mutual information between words and meanings. However, this is not the only information theoretic principle constraining communication. Second, the optimality is proven within a more general information theoretic framework where mutual information maximization competes with other information theoretic principles. The bias is a prediction from modern information theory.