Empirical approaches for investigating the origins of structure in speech

© John Benjamins Publishing Company. In language evolution research, the use of computational and experimental methods to investigate the emergence of structure in language is exploding. In this review, we look exclusively at work exploring the emergence of structure in speech, on both a categorical level (what drives the emergence of an inventory of individual speech sounds), and a combinatorial level (how these individual speech sounds emerge and are reused as part of larger structures). We show that computational and experimental methods for investigating population-level processes can be effectively used to explore and measure the effects of learning, communication and transmission on the emergence of structure in speech. We also look at work on child language acquisition as a tool for generating and validating hypotheses for the emergence of speech categories. Further, we review the effects of noise, iconicity and production effects

A new artificial sign-space proxy for investigating the emergence of structure and categories in speech

En relación con las publicaciones presentadas en el Clabes I, donde se mencionan las nuevas estrategias implementadas para afrontar el desgranamiento, blended learning y tutorías; y Clabes II, en el que referimos a una ampliación y profundización tanto en las políticas como en las metodología a implementar desde dos niveles: Nacional desde el Rectorado de la Universidad y Local desde la Facultad Regional Resistencia; en esta oportunidad se presentan los resultados de la acción emprendida en el año 2012 en la línea de acceso e integración de alumnos a las carreras ofrecidas por la Facultad. En este sentido se puede decir que se ha reforzado la apuesta; la institución no conforme con las actividades desarrolladas al interior de la misma, organizó un ciclo de visitas a las escuelas de Nivel Medio de la Zona de influencia. La Facultad Regional Resistencia se viene desarrollando desde el año 2006 diferentes acciones tendientes a la disminución del desgranamiento de los alumnos en los primeros tramos de las carreras. Todas estas acciones, hacia adentro de la institución, es decir, saber cuáles son los motivos que llevan a los alumnos a desgranar en los primero años, realizar un seguimiento de los ingresantes a través del sistema de acción tutorial, utilizar en el seminario universitario metodologías que promuevan a la autorregulación. Todas iniciativas desarrolladas una vez que el alumno ha elegido la carrera y nuestra facultad. Si bien se han obtenido mejora en los resultados con las acciones antes mencionadas la Facultad inició un camino de articulación con el nivel medio en colaboración con las Direcciones de carrera y la Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria. Se organizaron y ejecutaron bajo el eslogan “la UTN va a las escuelas”, una serie de talleres informativos en los que participaron unos 3.000 alumnos de escuelas secundarias. Los talleres tienen como objetivos: generar un marco propicio para el ingreso y permanencia de los alumnos en la universidad, informar a los estudiantes acerca de las diferentes opciones de carrera que brinda la institución y proporcionar herramientas metodológicas que propicien una mejor inserción académica. Entendemos que estas acciones se enmarcan en la responsabilidad social que le compete a la Universidad, parafraseando a François Vallaeys (2007), la institución debe hacer una reflexión sobre sí misma de su accionar en su entorno social, un análisis de su responsabilidad y, sobre todo, de su parte de culpabilidad en los problemas crónicos de la sociedad. Los talleres se centraron en trabajar la autorregulación de los futuros estudiantes universitarios como una habilidad meta cognitiva que puede resultar clave para el éxito o el fracaso académico, según lo consideran algunos autores entre ellos Corral (2003). Si bien no se está en condiciones de afirmar cuánto influye esta habilidad en la definición de las estrategias utilizadas para la apropiación y retención de los contenidos y consecuentemente en el rendimiento academico, sin embargo los estudiantes que mayor comportamiento autorregulado demuestran obtienen un mejor rendimiento en las diferentes áreas académicas

Adults are more efficient in creating and transmitting novel signalling systems than children

Iterated language learning experiments have shown that meaningful and structured signalling systems emerge when there is pressure for signals to be both learnable and expressive. Yet such experiments have mainly been conducted with adults using language-like signals. Here we explore whether structured signalling systems can also emerge when signalling domains are unfamiliar and when the learners are children with their well-attested cognitive and pragmatic limitations. In Experiment 1, we compared iterated learning of binary auditory sequences denoting small sets of meanings in chains of adults and 5-7-year old children. Signalling systems became more learnable even though iconicity and structure did not emerge despite applying a homonymy filter designed to keep the systems expressive. When the same types of signals were used in referential communication by adult and child dyads in Experiment 2, only the adults, but not the children, were able to negotiate shared iconic and structured signals. Referential communication using their native language by 4-5-year old children in Experiment 3 showed that only interaction with adults, but not with peers resulted in informative expressions. These findings suggest that emergence and transmission of communication systems is unlikely to be driven by children, and point to the importance of cognitive maturity and pragmatic expertise of learners as well as feedback-based scaffolding of communicative effectiveness by experts during language evolution

Iterated teaching can optimise language functionality

Experimental studies of the cultural evolution of language have focused on how constraints on learning and communication drive emergence of linguistic structure. Yet language is typically transmitted by experts who adjust the input in ways that facilitates learning by novices, e.g. through child-directed speech. Using iterated language learning of binary auditory sequences, we explored how language change is affected by experts’ intention to teach the language to novices. Comparison between teaching chains and simple transmission chains revealed that teaching was associated with a greater rate of innovation which led to emergence of more expressive languages consisting of shorter signals. This is the first study to show that during cultural transmission, teaching can modify, and potentially optimise, functional characteristics of language

Amount of learning and signal stability modulate emergence of structure and iconicity in novel signaling systems

Iterated language learning experiments that explore the emergence of linguistic structure in the laboratory vary considerably in methodological implementation, limiting the generalizability of findings. Most studies also restrict themselves to exploring the emergence of combinatorial and compositional structure in isolation. Here, we use a novel signal space comprising binary auditory and visual sequences and manipulate the amount of learning and temporal stability of these signals. Participants had to learn signals for meanings differing in size, shape, and brightness; their productions in the test phase were transmitted to the next participant. Across transmission chains of 10 generations each, Experiment 1 varied how much learning of auditory signals took place, and Experiment 2 varied temporal stability of visual signals. We found that combinatorial structure emerged only for auditory signals, and iconicity emerged when the amount of learning was reduced, as an opportunity for rote-memorization hampers the exploration of the iconic affordances of the signal space. In addition, compositionality followed an inverted u-shaped trajectory raising across several generations before declining again toward the end of the transmission chains. This suggests that detection of systematic form-meaning linkages requires stable combinatorial units that can guide learners toward the structural properties of signals, but these combinatorial units had not yet emerged in these unfamiliar systems. Our findings underscore the importance of systematically manipulating training conditions and signal characteristics in iterated language learning experiments to study the interactions between the emergence of iconicity, combinatorial and compositional structure in novel signaling systems.</p

Emergence of signal structure: Effects of duration constraints

Recent work has investigated the emergence of structure in speech using experiments which use artificial continuous signals. Some experiments have had no limit on the duration which signals can have (e.g. Verhoef et al., 2014), and others have had time limitations (e.g. Verhoef et al., 2015). However, the effect of time constraints on the structure in signals has never been experimentally investigated