Conceptual and terminological systems are established and maintained by the
communities who use them. This paper reports experiments which investigate
the role of communication and interaction in the process. The experiments
show that isolated pairs of communicators and virtual communities of intera
cting pairs naturally converge on their own conceptual and terminological s
ystems when confronted with a common task. The results also indicate that t
he system converged on is optimal for that particular group engaged in that
particular task. These findings are discussed in relation to the increasin
g use of tightly coordinated medical teams and its implications for getting
them to adopt standardized medical terminologies.