Natural Language Acquisition: State Inferring and Thinking

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (04) ◽  
pp. 1650022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongshu Wang ◽  
Yihai Duan
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Finite Automaton ◽  
Internal Representation ◽  
Training Sequence ◽  
Operational Experience ◽  
Developmental Network ◽  
Symbolic Method ◽  
Complex Training ◽  
The Brain

Natural language understanding plays an important role in our daily life. It is very significant to study how to make the computer understand the human language and produce the corresponding action or response. Most of the prior language acquisition models adopt handcrafted internal representation, and they are not sufficiently brain-based and not sufficiently comprehensive to account for all branches in psychology and cognitive science. An emergent developmental network (DN) is used to learn, infer and think a knowledge base represented as a finite automaton, from sensory and motor experience grounded in this operational environments. This work is different in the sense that we emphasize on the mechanism that enable a system to develop its emergent representations from its operational experience. By emergent, we mean a pattern of responses of multiple elements that corresponds to an event outside the closed skull but each element (e.g. pixel, muscle, neuron) of the pattern typically does not have a meaning. In this work, internal unsupervised neurons of the DN are used to represent short contexts, and the competitions among internal neurons enable them to represent different short contexts. By internal, we mean that all the neurons inside a brain are not directly supervised by the external environment — outside the brain skull. In this work, we analyze how internal neurons represent temporal contexts and how the feature neurons of the DN represent earlier contexts. Accuracy of Z state inferring and $X$ thinking of a relative complex training sequence (denoted as DN-2 in this work) can reach 100% and 75%, respectively. Comparative experiment results between this emergent method and the symbolic method, their corresponding Z state inferring and $X$ thinking accuracy are 100% and 82.1%, 85.7% and 75%, respectively (taking DN-6 in this work as the example), demonstrate the efficiency of the DN on natural language inferring and thinking. Complexity of the finite automaton is low and so is the temporal contexts, but the same principle is potentially applicable to more complex cases.

scholarly journals Early acquisition of sign language

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evie Malaia ◽  
Ronnie B. Wilbur
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Brain Region ◽  
First Language ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Brain Functions ◽  
Early Acquisition ◽  
The Brain

Early acquisition of a natural language, signed or spoken, has been shown to fundamentally impact both one’s ability to use the first language, and the ability to learn subsequent languages later in life (Mayberry 2007, 2009). This review summarizes a number of recent neuroimaging studies in order to detail the neural bases of sign language acquisition. The logic of this review is to present research reports that contribute to the bigger picture showing that people who acquire a natural language, spoken or signed, in the normal way possess specialized linguistic abilities and brain functions that are missing or deficient in people whose exposure to natural language is delayed or absent. Comparing the function of each brain region with regards to the processing of spoken and sign languages, we attempt to clarify the role each region plays in language processing in general, and to outline the challenges and remaining questions in understanding language processing in the brain.

Infant-Directed Speech Effects in Adult Artificial Grammar Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krisztina Sára Lukics ◽  
Ágnes Lukács
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Artificial Grammar ◽  
Combined Effect ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Grammar Learning ◽  
Learning Rates

First language acquisition is facilitated by several characteristics of infant-directed speech, but we know little about their relative contribution to learning different aspects of language. We investigated infant-directed speech effects on the acquisition of a linear artificial grammar in two experiments. We examined the effect of incremental presentation of strings (starting small) and prosody (comparing monotonous, arbitrary and phrase prosody). Presenting shorter strings before longer ones led to higher learning rates compared to random presentation. Prosody marking phrases had a similar effect, yet, prosody without marking syntactic units did not facilitate learning. These studies were the first to test the starting small effect with a linear artificial grammar, and also the first to investigate the combined effect of starting small and prosody. Our results suggest that starting small and prosody facilitate the extraction of regularities from artificial linguistic stimuli, indicating they may play an important role in natural language acquisition.

scholarly journals ANALISIS GANGGUAN BERBAHASA PADA ANAK DI KECAMATAN PAHAE JULU

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Sales Sitompul
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Research Method ◽  
Language Disorders ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Acquisition Device ◽  
The Brain

This study originated from cases of language disorders that occur in society in Pahae Julu district. Language is a need to interact, and humans have been blessed with Language Acquisition Device (LAD) or any language by god. However, if when speaking of someone impaired both LAD and language processing part of the brain, then the communication will not be smooth. The language disorders can happen to anyone. The purpose of this study is to reveal some kinds of language disorders, cases of language disorders and to find out the causes of language disorders experienced by the community in Pahae Julu. The method used in this research is descriptive research method type of case studies.

LANGUAGE CREATION AND LANGUAGE CHANGE: CREOLIZATION, DIACHRONY, AND DEVELOPMENT. Michel DeGraff (Ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Pp. 586. $65.00 cloth.

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-125
Author(s):  
J. Clancy Clements
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Language Change ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Narrow Definition ◽  
The Right ◽  
Underlying Theme

Editor Michel DeGraff provides us with a thought-provoking collection of studies that address topics involving language acquisition, creole formation, language change, and the connections between the three phenomena. One of the main goals of the volume is to arrive at a better understanding of the interaction between the “extraordinary external factors” surrounding the formation of pidgins and creoles and the “ordinary internal factors” involving U(niversal) G(rammar)–constrained language invention (p. 11), a UG-type repackaging of Thomason's ordinary-processes–extraordinary-results take on language mixture. The underlying theme DeGraff uses to connect the varied contributions is, in fact, UG: “This volume is seeking the right ‘version of universalist influence interpreted as constraints on the formal structure of creoles, in fact of natural language'” (p. 17). In characterizing the processes of pidginization and creolization, DeGraff chooses a narrow definition, that of the plantation situation (p. 2), thus disregarding interethnic pidgins and creoles (e.g., Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea) and fort creoles (e.g., many of the Portuguese-based creoles). Although DeGraff does not point this out, he does mention other biases of the book: (a) it focuses only on morphosyntax from a generative UG-like focus; (b) it largely neglects variationist and quantitative approaches; (c) it does not explore the connection between UG and all-purpose cognitive structures (except Newport; see below); and (d) it considers only a subset of creoles that emerged from contact with European colonizers.

Reaction Time for Object Categorization Is Predicted by Representational Distance

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Carlson ◽  
J. Brendan Ritchie ◽  
Nikolaus Kriegeskorte ◽  
Samir Durvasula ◽  
Junsheng Ma
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Internal Representation ◽  
Inferior Temporal Cortex ◽  
Object Categorization ◽  
Object Representations ◽  
Multivariate Pattern Analysis ◽  
Individual Object ◽  
Multivariate Pattern ◽  
The Brain

How does the brain translate an internal representation of an object into a decision about the object's category? Recent studies have uncovered the structure of object representations in inferior temporal cortex (IT) using multivariate pattern analysis methods. These studies have shown that representations of individual object exemplars in IT occupy distinct locations in a high-dimensional activation space, with object exemplar representations clustering into distinguishable regions based on category (e.g., animate vs. inanimate objects). In this study, we hypothesized that a representational boundary between category representations in this activation space also constitutes a decision boundary for categorization. We show that behavioral RTs for categorizing objects are well described by our activation space hypothesis. Interpreted in terms of classical and contemporary models of decision-making, our results suggest that the process of settling on an internal representation of a stimulus is itself partially constitutive of decision-making for object categorization.

scholarly journals Autonomous Development of Algorithmic Concepts for Program Comprehension

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Guojin Zhu ◽  
Kai Zhang ◽  
Jiyun Li
Keyword(s):  
Concept Formation ◽  
Internal Representation ◽  
Program Comprehension ◽  
Developmental Model ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Source Codes ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
Autonomous Development ◽  
The Brain

A developmental model of algorithmic concepts is proposed here for program comprehension. Unlike traditional approaches that cannot do anything beyond their predesigned representation, this model can develop its internal representation autonomously from chaos into algorithmic concepts by mimicking concept formation in the brain under an uncontrollable environment that consists of program source codes from the Internet. The developed concepts can be employed to identify what algorithm a program performs. The accuracy of such identification reached 97.15% in a given experiment.

scholarly journals Parental Speech as Linguistic Input for Children

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riana Agustin Tindjabate
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Child Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Family Factors ◽  
Child Language Acquisition ◽  
Linguistic Input ◽  
The Brain

Child language acquisition is influenced by many factors including family factors. Chomsky theories on child language acquisition say that a child born with language skills that are hardwired in the brain. The system will work optimally with the development age of the child so that the child does not need others to help his language development. It is not fully accepted by other linguists because some people think that the parents are very instrumental factor in the development of children's language. This study focuses on the input of parents were given to children in linguistic through interaction and methods of reading the story.

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