Computational and Robotic Models of Early Language Development: A Review

We review computational and robotics models of early language learning and development. We first explain why and how these models are used to understand better how children learn language. We argue that they provide concrete theories of language learning as a complex dynamic system, complementing traditional methods in psychology and linguistics. We review different modeling formalisms, grounded in techniques from machine learning and artificial intelligence such as Bayesian and neural network approaches. We then discuss their role in understanding several key mechanisms of language development: cross-situational statistical learning, embodiment, situated social interaction, intrinsically motivated learning, and cultural evolution. We conclude by discussing future challenges for research, including modeling of large-scale empirical data about language acquisition in real-world environments. Keywords: Early language learning, Computational and robotic models, machine learning, development, embodiment, social interaction, intrinsic motivation, self-organization, dynamical systems, complexity.Comment: to appear in International Handbook on Language Development, ed. J. Horst and J. von Koss Torkildsen, Routledg

Narration and multimodality: The role of the human body and material objects in science teaching

This article seeks to shed light on the semiotic approach to science teaching and learning. Essentially, the mental representations of learners are also affected by the sign vehicles employed to communicate ideas in the material world. Thus, any learning object also appears as a material representation, consisting of acoustic and visual forms, which affect its content. The human body’s kinetic modalities, spatial configurations (i.e., graphs, images), material objects, prosody, as well as the written and spoken word constitute the perceptual data that encode the concepts. This particular paper deals with the possibility that the more emphatic signifiers, i.e., the human body and material objects, can create narrative spaces and produce meaning during science teaching. It also discusses alternative uses of material objects along with the multiple interpretations their visual images can evoke. As regards the human body, iconic, deictic, and ergotic gestures are analyzed as forms that produce meaning and are autonomous and dynamic when working with the other semiotic systems. Both material objects and the human body rely upon the ability of the learners’ imagination to transport them to narrative worlds located outside the classroom

Affective Sustainability. The Creation and Transmission of Affect through an Educative Process: An Instrument for the Construction of more Sustainable Citizens

Although for many years the debate on sustainability has focused on the generation of critical thinking based on the dynamic balance between the economic, social and environmental spheres, in the following text we propose to elaborate on the use of a eminently human condition, such as the capacity to love and create an emotional attachment, whether with our environment or our fellow men, as an initiator and main force for change to the building a more sustainable model of development. To do so we shall begin from the concept coined by Adriana Bisquert in the 90s, that is A ective sustainability, by analyzing it, delving into its possible definitions by means of the development of the project for Environmental Education and Development called “Educating for a more sustainable citizenship” undertaken by the Spanish NGO (non-governmental organization) or ITACA Ambiente Elegido, and developed in the locality of Paterna de Rivera, Cádiz (Spain). This is a practical and real example, which is used to establish a work educational methodology that enables us to consider this concept as the real basis for an exportable and replicable work in a painstaking search for the creation of a more sustainable city

Structuring information through gesture and intonation

Face-to-face communication is multimodal. In unscripted spoken discourse we can observe the interaction of several “semiotic layers”, modalities of information such as syntax, discourse structure, gesture, and intonation. We explore the role of gesture and intonation in structuring and aligning information in spoken discourse through a study of the co-occurrence of pitch accents and gestural apices. Metaphorical spatialization through gesture also plays a role in conveying the contextual relationships between the speaker, the government and other external forces in a naturally-occurring political speech setting

REGIONAL PUSH: TOWARDS A GEOGRAPHY OF DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES

Regional push derives from the geographic agglomeration of economic activities, and is expressed in increments to national productivity. Various pieces of statistical evidence in favor of the existence of regional push effects in low- and middle-income economies are marshalled. The origins of these effects in different sorts of externalities and increasing returns to agglomerative scale and scope are analyzed in theoretical terms. Further evidence for the existence of these effects is displayed in a brief review of published case studies of African, Asian, and Latin American regions. A number of observations are then offered on the possibilities of identifying viable developmental policies and practices directed to enhancing the productivity-boosting properties of regions in low- and middle-income economies.Agglomeration, big push, regional development, developing countries, local economic development

Early word learning through communicative inference

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-122).How do children learn their first words? Do they do it by gradually accumulating information about the co-occurrence of words and their referents over time, or are words learned via quick social inferences linking what speakers are looking at, pointing to, and talking about? Both of these conceptions of early word learning are supported by empirical data. This thesis presents a computational and theoretical framework for unifying these two different ideas by suggesting that early word learning can best be described as a process of joint inferences about speakers' referential intentions and the meanings of words. Chapter 1 describes previous empirical and computational research on "statistical learning"--the ability of learners to use distributional patterns in their language input to learn about the elements and structure of language-and argues that capturing this abifity requires models of learning that describe inferences over structured representations, not just simple statistics. Chapter 2 argues that social signals of speakers' intentions, even eye-gaze and pointing, are at best noisy markers of reference and that in order to take advantage of these signals fully, learners must integrate information across time. Chapter 3 describes the kinds of inferences that learners can make by assuming that speakers are informative with respect to their intended meaning, introducing and testing a formalization of how Grice's pragmatic maxims can be used for word learning. Chapter 4 presents a model of cross-situational intentional word learning that both learns words and infers speakers' referential intentions from labeled corpus data.by Michael C. Frank.Ph.D

Understanding user interactions in stereoscopic head-mounted displays

2022 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Interacting in stereoscopic head mounted displays can be difficult. There are not yet clear standards for how interactions in these environments should be performed. In virtual reality there are a number of well designed interaction techniques; however, augmented reality interaction techniques still need to be improved before they can be easily used. This dissertation covers work done towards understanding how users navigate and interact with virtual environments that are displayed in stereoscopic head-mounted displays. With this understanding, existing techniques from virtual reality devices can be transferred to augmented reality where appropriate, and where that is not the case, new interaction techniques can be developed. This work begins by observing how participants interact with virtual content using gesture alone, speech alone, and the combination of gesture+speech during a basic object manipulation task in augmented reality. Later, a complex 3-dimensional data-exploration environment is developed and refined. That environment is capable of being used in both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), either asynchronously or simultaneously. The process of iteratively designing that system and the design choices made during its implementation are provided for future researchers working on complex systems. This dissertation concludes with a comparison of user interactions and navigation in that complex environment when using either an augmented or virtual reality display. That comparison contributes new knowledge on how people perform object manipulations between the two devices. When viewing 3D visualizations, users will need to feel able to navigate the environment. Without careful attention to proper interaction technique design, people may struggle to use the developed system. These struggles may range from a system that is uncomfortable and not fit for long-term use, or they could be as major as causing new users to not being able to interact in these environments at all. Getting the interactions right for AR and VR environments is a step towards facilitating their widespread acceptance. This dissertation provides the groundwork needed to start designing interaction techniques around how people utilize their personal space, virtual space, body, tools, and feedback systems

Culture, worldview and transformative philosophy of mathematics education in Nepal: a cultural-philosophical inquiry

This thesis portrays my multifaceted and emergent inquiry into the protracted problem of culturally decontextualised mathematics education faced by students of Nepal, a culturally diverse country of south Asia with more than 90 language groups. I generated initial research questions on the basis of my history as a student of primary, secondary and university levels of education in Nepal, my Master’s research project, and my professional experiences as a teacher educator working in a university of Nepal between 2004 and 2006. Through an autobiographical excavation of my experiences of culturally decontextualised mathematics education, I came up with several emergent research questions, leading to six key themes of this inquiry: (i) hegemony of the unidimensional nature of mathematics as a body of pure knowledge, (ii) unhelpful dualisms in mathematics education, (iii) disempowering reductionisms in curricular and pedagogical aspects, (iv) narrowly conceived ‘logics’ that do not account for meaningful lifeworld-oriented thinking in mathematics teaching and learning, (v) uncritical attitudes towards the image of curriculum as a thing or object, and (vi) narrowly conceived notions of globalisation, foundationalism and mathematical language that give rise to a decontextualised mathematics teacher education program.With these research themes at my disposal my aim in this research was twofold. Primarily, I intended to explore, explain and interpret problems, issues and dilemmas arising from and embedded in the research questions. Such an epistemic activity of articulation was followed by envisioning, an act of imagining futures together with reflexivity, perspectival language and inclusive vision logics.In order to carry out both epistemic activities – articulating and envisioning – I employed a multi-paradigmatic research design space, taking on board mainly the paradigms of criticalism, postmodernism, interpretivism and integralism. The critical paradigm offered a critical outlook needed to identify the research problem, to reflect upon my experiences as a mathematics teacher and teacher educator, and to make my lifetime’s subjectivities transparent to readers, whereas the paradigm of postmodernism enabled me to construct multiple genres for cultivating different aspects of my experiences of culturally decontextualised mathematics education. The paradigm of interpretivism enabled me to employ emergence as the hallmark of my inquiry, and the paradigm of integralism acted as an inclusive meta-theory of the multi-paradigmatic design space for portraying my vision of an inclusive mathematics education in Nepal.Within this multi-paradigmatic design space, I chose autoethnography and small p philosophical inquiry as my methodological referents. Autoethnography helped generate the research text of my cultural-professional contexts, whereas small p philosophical inquiry enabled me to generate new knowledge via a host of innovative epistemologies that have the goal of deepening understanding of normal educational practices by examining them critically, identifying underpinning assumptions, and reconstructing them through scholarly interpretations and envisioning. Visions cultivated through this research include: (i) an inclusive and multidimensional image of the nature of mathematics as an im/pure knowledge system, (ii) the metaphors of thirdspace and dissolution for conceiving an inclusive mathematics education, (iii) a multilogical perspective for morphing the hegemony of reductionism-inspired mathematics education, (iv) an inclusive image of mathematics curriculum as montage that provides a basis for incorporating different knowledge systems in mathematics education, and (v) perspectives of glocalisation, healthy scepticism and multilevel contextualisation for constructing an inclusive mathematics teacher education program