Grey Parrots Do Not Always ‘Parrot’: The Roles of Imitation and Phonological Awareness in the Creation of New Labels from Existing Vocalizations

Evidence exists for a form of imitation, vocal segmentation, by a Grey parrot. Data show that the bird understands that his labels are comprised of individual units that can be recombined in novel ways to create a novel referential vocalization; that is, a novel act. Previous data suggested, but could not substantiate, this behaviour. Such evidence implies that a parrot not only has phonological awareness but also demonstrates true imitation rather than mimicry, and has implications for the studies of both the evolution of communicative competence and the development of robotic speech

Intonation in Language Acquisition - Evidence from German

This dissertation studies the role of intonation in language acquisition. After a general introduction about the phonetic and phonological aspects of intonation and its different forms and functions within language, two different models of language acquisition and the role of intonation within these two models will be presented. Following this, I will present and discuss empirical data on the question, whether young German learning children use intonation in order to acquire language. Two comprehension studies will be presented. Here, I concentrate on the question whether children understand the referential function of intonation and whether they can use this knowledge in order to learn new words. Additionally, I will present empirical evidence that focuses on the question whether children use intonation in resolving participant roles in complex syntactic constructions as well as in resolving syntactic ambiguities development. Finally, I will present two production studies that investigate the prosodic realization of target referents that have different informational statuses within a discourse from both young children and parents, talking to their children. Overall, the data from these studies suggest that language learning children do use the intonational form of an utterance from early on in order to understand another´s intention. Young language learning children do understand that a certain intonational form conveys a function. Additionally, the studies presented in this thesis suggest that children also use intonation in order to convey their own communicative intentions. Thus, intonation is an important instrument for young children‘s language acquisition as they use the information that is provided by intonation, not only to learn words and to combine them to syntactic constructions, but also for the understanding of paralinguistic properties of language. The findings of the studies presented in this thesis are discussed with regard to different theories of language acquisition. Additionally, I will give insight into the understanding of the development of young children´s use of intonation

Physical mechanisms may be as important as brain mechanisms in evolution of speech [Commentary on Ackerman, Hage, & Ziegler. Brain Mechanisms of acoustic communication in humans and nonhuman primates: an evolutionary perspective]

We present two arguments why physical adaptations for vocalization may be as important as neural adaptations. First, fine control over vocalization is not easy for physical reasons, and modern humans may be exceptional. Second, we present an example of a gorilla that shows rudimentary voluntary control over vocalization, indicating that some neural control is already shared with great apes

Brain mechanisms of acoustic communication in humans and nonhuman primates: An evolutionary perspective

Any account of “what is special about the human brain” (Passingham 2008) must specify the neural basis of our unique ability to produce speech and delineate how these remarkable motor capabilities could have emerged in our hominin ancestors. Clinical data suggest that the basal ganglia provide a platform for the integration of primate-general mechanisms of acoustic communication with the faculty of articulate speech in humans. Furthermore, neurobiological and paleoanthropological data point at a two-stage model of the phylogenetic evolution of this crucial prerequisite of spoken language: (i) monosynaptic refinement of the projections of motor cortex to the brainstem nuclei that steer laryngeal muscles, presumably, as part of a “phylogenetic trend” associated with increasing brain size during hominin evolution; (ii) subsequent vocal-laryngeal elaboration of cortico-basal ganglia circuitries, driven by human-specific FOXP2 mutations.;>This concept implies vocal continuity of spoken language evolution at the motor level, elucidating the deep entrenchment of articulate speech into a “nonverbal matrix” (Ingold 1994), which is not accounted for by gestural-origin theories. Moreover, it provides a solution to the question for the adaptive value of the “first word” (Bickerton 2009) since even the earliest and most simple verbal utterances must have increased the versatility of vocal displays afforded by the preceding elaboration of monosynaptic corticobulbar tracts, giving rise to enhanced social cooperation and prestige. At the ontogenetic level, the proposed model assumes age-dependent interactions between the basal ganglia and their cortical targets, similar to vocal learning in some songbirds. In this view, the emergence of articulate speech builds on the “renaissance” of an ancient organizational principle and, hence, may represent an example of “evolutionary tinkering” (Jacob 1977)

A Neuroeducation Description of a Paradigm Shift in Identification, Assessment, and Treatment of Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech with Supporting Evidence Through Interview and Artifact Analysis Provided by Speech Language Pathologists and Educators

The purpose of this study was twofold. First, the study explored the pertinent cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and language literature that surrounds the diagnosis and treatment of children with Suspected Childhood Apraxia of Speech (sCAS) with the intent of finding a translational neuroeducation approach to the treatment of sCAS. The results of this literature suggest that the surface problems-phonology, morphology, syntax- are mapped onto a semantic basis. This semantic basis is feature based and people with speech sound disorders are likely to use a visual semantic feature basis. So, the literature supports a shift to a new lens that aligns with the Neurosemantic Language Learning Theory (NLLT) and that could be the basis for intervention in sCAS. Second, while traditional treatment is aimed at the acoustic motor patterns of phonological processes, this study sought to uncover what professionals who have some neuroeducation training say they do when they treat children with sCAS. Interviews were conducted with sixteen Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) and Educators currently using principles of neuroeducation to treat children with sCAS in order to uncover the methods that they report having used in interventions with this population. It was found that both SLPs and educators who use methods of assessment and intervention based on the NLLT reported positive outcomes for intelligibility and language function. The respondents also reported using intervention methods that align with the NLLT to a high degree. The interviews, along with artifacts provided by interview participants, served as confirmatory evidence to the findings from the literature review by demonstrating the reported change in children over time as a result of the intervention. Additional themes were found around definitions of sCAS, intervention methods and alignment of diagnostic criterion, philosophy and intervention methods among interviewees

The Analysis of the Phonological Systems of Arabic Speaking Children with Cleft Palate in Saudi Arabia

Cleft palate is a congenital defect which can affect speech intellgibility, giving rise to delayed and deviant articulatory patterns. Cleft palate speech has universal characteristics so that knowledge acquired about one language can be applied to another. Thus a hypothesis was postulated that cleft palate may affect the intelligibility of Arabic speaking children in a way similar to English speaking. Despite limited information on Arabic phonology, particularly in children, this study was designed to examine the phonetic and phonologic skills of sixteen children, eight children with surgically repaired cleft palate (subjects) and eight non-cleft children (control) within the age range of 3.3 to 6.9 years of age. Speech samples were audio-taped then subjected to a number of phonetic and phonological analyses. The results revealed that the cleft palate subjects were a homogenous group. They were similar to one another with respect to their phonetic inventories, frequency and types of phonological processes used. In comparison to the controls, the homogenous group of the subjects were similar only to the four youngest control and not to the oldest four controls. Some processes were identified in the analysis of subjects only that were the same published for English speaking children with cleft palate. The data has suggested that there is a loss of contrastivity in the cleft palate subjects' speech which could affect their speech intelligibility, but not all of the articulatory problems among subjects can be explained solely on the basis of past structural deficits but there may be other factors that have an implication

Functional neuroimaging of human vocalizations and affective speech

Neuroimaging studies have verified the important integrative role of the basal ganglia during affective vocalizations. They, however, also point to additional regions supporting vocal monitoring, auditory-motor feedback processing, and online adjustments of vocal motor responses. For the case of affective vocalizations, we suggest partly extending the model to fully consider the link between primate-general and human-specific neural component

Expressive social exchange between humans and robots

Thesis (Sc.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-264).Sociable humanoid robots are natural and intuitive for people to communicate with and to teach. We present recent advances in building an autonomous humanoid robot, Kismet, that can engage humans in expressive social interaction. We outline a set of design issues and a framework that we have found to be of particular importance for sociable robots. Having a human-in-the-loop places significant social constraints on how the robot aesthetically appears, how its sensors are configured, its quality of movement, and its behavior. Inspired by infant social development, psychology, ethology, and evolutionary perspectives, this work integrates theories and concepts from these diverse viewpoints to enable Kismet to enter into natural and intuitive social interaction with a human caregiver, reminiscent of parent-infant exchanges. Kismet perceives a variety of natural social cues from visual and auditory channels, and delivers social signals to people through gaze direction, facial expression, body posture, and vocalizations. We present the implementation of Kismet's social competencies and evaluate each with respect to: 1) the ability of naive subjects to read and interpret the robot's social cues, 2) the robot's ability to perceive and appropriately respond to naturally offered social cues, 3) the robot's ability to elicit interaction scenarios that afford rich learning potential, and 4) how this produces a rich, flexible, dynamic interaction that is physical, affective, and social. Numerous studies with naive human subjects are described that provide the data upon which we base our evaluations.by Cynthia L. Breazeal.Sc.D