Thematic Roles in Image Schemas: A Missing Link Between Mind and Language

As early as 1968, Fillmore suggested that deep cases could be sets “of universal, presumably innate, concepts” human beings form to describe reality. Langacker’s (1991) role archetypes highlight the “primal status and nonlinguistic origin” of Thematic roles. I argue that Thematic roles have their “nonlinguistic” origin in image schemas and link the image schemas with language structures. The thesis is based on my description of the object schema (Szwedek, 2018), the definition of the image schema (Szwedek, 2019), and major works on Thematic roles. The object schema is fundamental in that all physical objects are experienceable by the senses (Szwedek, 2011, 2018). In contrast to relational schemas, it is also conceptually independent, while “[r]elations are conceptually dependent, i.e. one cannot conceptualize interconnections without conceptualizing the entities they interconnect” (Langacker, 1987). I posit that Thematic roles are a link between image schemas (mind) and language, constituting a stable scaffolding for various syntactic structures

Verbs in mothers’ input to six-month-olds:synchrony between presentation, meaning, and actions is related to later verb acquisition

In embodied theories on language, it is widely accepted that experience in acting generates an expectation of this action when hearing the word for it. However, how this expectation emerges during language acquisition is still not well understood. Assuming that the intermodal presentation of information facilitates perception, prior research had suggested that early in infancy, mothers perform their actions in temporal synchrony with language. Further research revealed that this synchrony is a form of multimodal responsive behavior related to the child’s later language development. Expanding on these findings, this article explores the relationship between action–language synchrony and the acquisition of verbs. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, we analyzed the coordination of verbs and action in mothers’ input to six-month-old infants and related these maternal strategies to the infants’ later production of verbs. We found that the verbs used by mothers in these early interactions were tightly coordinated with the ongoing action and very frequently responsive to infant actions. It is concluded that use of these multimodal strategies could significantly predict the number of spoken verbs in infants’ vocabulary at 24 months

The evolutionary map of the seasons

Los mapas evolutivos son estructuras que representan la red de itinerarios que pueden seguir los niños en la conceptualización de temas específicos (en el ámbito del pensamiento concreto). Están constituidos por el conjunto de integraciones posibilitadas por la sucesión de diferenciaciones que realiza el sujeto de un aspecto de su realidad observacional (a partir de la percepción). En este escrito presentamos su aplicación a un nuevo tema (el ciclo anual del movimiento del Sol en el cielo), incluida la contrastación experimental, lo que ha revelado una panoplia de concepciones infantiles, reforzado la validez y versatilidad de la metodología, sugerido un mecanismo cognitivo de relevancia didáctica (los modelos observacionales deducidos) y proporcionado apoyo adicional a la necesidad de cimentar el aprendizaje infantil en la realidad empírica. Además, como todo mapa evolutivo, posibilita el diseño de objetivos y criterios de evaluación secuenciales coherentes con el desarrollo cognitivo, así como la identificación de la arquitectura precisa del cambio conceptual necesario en cada aprendiz.Evolutionary maps (emaps) are structures that represent the network of itineraries that children may follow in the conceptualization of specific topics (within concrete thought). They consist of the set of integrations that are made possible by the succession of differentiations that subjects make from perceptual reality. In this paper, we present its application to a new topic (the annual cycle of the motion of the Sun in the sky), including the experimental test, which has revealed a panoply of children’s conceptions, strengthened the validity and versatility of the methodology, suggested a cognitive mechanism of pedagogical relevance (deduced observational models) and provided additional support to the need for basing children’s learning in empirical reality. In addition, as all emaps, it enables the design of sequential objectives and evaluation criteria consistent with cognitive development, as well as the identification of the precise architecture of the conceptual change necessary in each student

El mapa evolutivo de las estaciones del año

Els mapes evolutius són estructures que representen la xarxa d'itineraris que poden seguir els nens en la conceptualització de temes específics (en l'àmbit del pensament concret). Estan constituïts pel conjunt d'integracions possibilitades per la successió de diferenciacions que realitza el subjecte d'un aspecte de la seva realitat observacional (a partir de la percepció). En aquest escrit presentem la seva aplicació a un nou tema (el cicle anual del moviment del Sol en el cel), inclosa la contrastació experimental, la qual cosa ha revelat una panoplia de concepcions infantils, reforçat la validesa i versatilitat de la metodologia, suggerit un mecanisme cognitiu de rellevància didàctica (els models observacionals deduïts) i proporcionat suport addicional a la necessitat de cimentar l'aprenentatge infantil en la realitat empírica. A més, com tot mapa evolutiu, possibilita el disseny d'objectius i criteris d'avaluació seqüencials coherents amb el desenvolupament cognitiu, així com la identificació de l'arquitectura precisa del canvi conceptual necessari en cada aprenent.Evolutionary maps (emaps) are structures that represent the network of itineraries that children may follow in the conceptualization of specific topics (within concrete thought). They consist of the set of integrations that are made possible by the succession of differentiations that subjects make from perceptual reality. In this paper, we present its application to a new topic (the annual cycle of the motion of the Sun in the sky), including the experimental test, which has revealed a panoply of children’s conceptions, strengthened the validity and versatility of the methodology, suggested a cognitive mechanism of didactical relevance (deduced observational models) and provided additional support to the need for cementing children’s learning in empirical reality. In addition, as all emaps, it enables the design of sequential objectives and evaluation criteria consistent with cognitive development, as well as the identification of the precise architecture of the conceptual change necessary in each student.Los mapas evolutivos son estructuras que representan la red de itinerarios que pueden seguir los niños en la conceptualización de temas específicos (en el ámbito del pensamiento concreto). Están constituidos por el conjunto de integraciones posibilitadas por la sucesión de diferenciaciones que realiza el sujeto de un aspecto de su realidad observacional (a partir de la percepción). En este escrito presentamos su aplicación a un nuevo tema (el ciclo anual del movimiento del Sol en el cielo), incluida la contrastación experimental, lo que ha revelado una panoplia de concepciones infantiles, reforzado la validez y versatilidad de la metodología, sugerido un mecanismo cognitivo de relevancia didáctica (los modelos observacionales deducidos) y proporcionado apoyo adicional a la necesidad de cimentar el aprendizaje infantil en la realidad empírica. Además, como todo mapa evolutivo, posibilita el diseño de objetivos y criterios de evaluación secuenciales coherentes con el desarrollo cognitivo, así como la identificación de la arquitectura precisa del cambio conceptual necesario en cada aprendiz

Grounding Language to Autonomously-Acquired Skills via Goal Generation

We are interested in the autonomous acquisition of repertoires of skills. Language-conditioned reinforcement learning (LC-RL) approaches are great tools in this quest, as they allow to express abstract goals as sets of constraints on the states. However, most LC-RL agents are not autonomous and cannot learn without external instructions and feedback. Besides, their direct language condition cannot account for the goal-directed behavior of pre-verbal infants and strongly limits the expression of behavioral diversity for a given language input. To resolve these issues, we propose a new conceptual approach to language-conditioned RL: the Language-Goal-Behavior architecture (LGB). LGB decouples skill learning and language grounding via an intermediate semantic representation of the world. To showcase the properties of LGB, we present a specific implementation called DECSTR. DECSTR is an intrinsically motivated learning agent endowed with an innate semantic representation describing spatial relations between physical objects. In a first stage (G -> B), it freely explores its environment and targets self-generated semantic configurations. In a second stage (L -> G), it trains a language-conditioned goal generator to generate semantic goals that match the constraints expressed in language-based inputs. We showcase the additional properties of LGB w.r.t. both an end-to-end LC-RL approach and a similar approach leveraging non-semantic, continuous intermediate representations. Intermediate semantic representations help satisfy language commands in a diversity of ways, enable strategy switching after a failure and facilitate language grounding.Comment: Published at ICLR 202

Towards robots with teleological action and language understanding

International audienceIt is generally agreed upon that in order to achieve generalizable learning capabilities of robots they need to be able to acquire compositional structures - whether in language or in action. However, in human development the capability to perceive compositional structure only evolves at a later stage. Before the capability to understand action and language in a structured, compositional way arises, infants learn in a holistic way which enables them to interact in a socially adequate way with their social and physical environment even with very limited understanding of the world, e.g. trying to take part in games without knowing the exact rules. This capability endows them with an action production advantage which elicits corrective feedback from a tutor, thus reducing the search space of possible action interpretations tremendously. In accordance with findings from developmental psychology we argue that this holistic way is in fact a teleological representation encoding a goal-directed per- ception of actions facilitated through communicational frames. This observation leads to a range of consequences which need to be verfied and analysed in further research. Here, we discuss two hypotheses how this can be made accessible for action learning in robots: (1) We explore the idea that the teleological approach allows some kind of highly reduced one shot learning enabling the learner to perform a meaningful, although only partially "correct" action which can then be further refined through compositional approaches. (2) We discuss the possibility to transfer the concept of "conversational frames" as recurring interaction patterns to the action domain, thus facilitating to understand the meaning of a new action. We conclude that these capabilities need to be combined with more analytical compositional learning methods in order to achieve human-like learning performance

Language-Conditioned Goal Generation: a New Approach to Language Grounding in RL

In the real world, linguistic agents are also embodied agents: they perceive and act in the physical world. The notion of Language Grounding questions the interactions between language and embodiment: how do learning agents connect or ground linguistic representations to the physical world? This question has recently been approached by the Reinforcement Learning community under the framework of instruction-following agents. In these agents, behavioral policies or reward functions are conditioned on the embedding of an instruction expressed in natural language. This paper proposes another approach: using language to condition goal generators. Given any goal-conditioned policy, one could train a language-conditioned goal generator to generate language-agnostic goals for the agent. This method allows to decouple sensorimotor learning from language acquisition and enable agents to demonstrate a diversity of behaviors for any given instruction. We propose a particular instantiation of this approach and demonstrate its benefits

Fachkulturen unter der Lupe: Metaphern in Reflexionen über die Lehre

Metaphern spielen Ansätzen der Kognitiven Linguistik zufolge eine wichtige Rolle dafür, sich abstrakte Sachverhalte zu erschließen. Die Autorin analysiert zwei Interviews über Fachkulturen aus einer früheren Untersuchung (Scharlau und Huber 2019) auf ihre wichtigsten lehrbezogenen Metaphern. Diese werden auf der Basis von kognitiv-linguistischen Ansätzen und Methoden interpretiert und Ansätze für eine hochschuldidaktische Nutzung eines solchen Blickwinkels skizziert.In cognitive linguistics, metaphors play an important role in understanding abstract concepts. I analyze two interviews about disciplinary cultures from a previous study (Scharlau and Huber 2019) for their most important metaphors. Teaching-related metaphors are interpreted on the basis of cognitive-linguistic approaches and methods, and ideas for a didactic use in higher education will be outlined