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

Exploring the Linguistic and Cultural Identities of Transnational Background Children in Catalonia, Spain

This article explores linguistic and cultural identities as they emerge in ethnographic data from plurilingual children with transnational and ethnic minority backgrounds in Catalonia, Spain. The particular sociolinguistic and multicultural context where these young people currently live, characterised by the coexistence of local, national and heritage languages with unequal social status, as well as their own trajectories and experiences of socialisation, implies that they often forge complex "in-between" linguistic and cultural identities and senses of belonging. To reflect on these complexities, we analyse multimodal data from transnational- and minority-background children as they participate in an autobiographical activity aimed at promoting linguistically and culturally inclusive pedagogical approaches and participatory action research (PAR). The analysis shows that children's identity constructions fluently intertwine elements from their "home" and "host" languages and cultures with features characteristic of child/youth popular cultures, and with adscriptions to diverse real and imagined communities. These hybrid articulations, which can be described as plurilingual and transcultural, foreground how identity is both an individual and a social process, transversed by different axes, including cultural and ethnic referents, linguistic repertoires, historic, family and personal trajectories, urban cultures and the influence of friends and peers, among others. The identification of these emergent traits in our data foregrounds both the particularities and commonalities of pupils' identity construction, which challenges and reshapes traditional understandings of identity. Finally, this work aims to illustrate how transnational children's complex senses of being and belonging can be recognised and supported through inclusive pedagogical proposals as the one described herein