Re: [xmca] Deb Roy: The birth of a word

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Hi Lauren

Thanks for the articles posted to XMCA.  I am in over my head on this topic
so am reflecting from a position of heaps and complexes as I try to make
personal sense of this fascinating thread.  However, I have just read Roy's
article "Connecting Language to the World"  and I'm left wondering about
Mike's question, "HOW do we use the information generated by Roy's powerful
new techniques?"  Roy's fundamental inquiry is "How does language relate to
the world?"  He believes the way through is to build artificial intelligence
systems that are AUTOMATED and connect the symbolic world to the
non-symbolic world of sensory input and effector control. As he states this
is one of the great challenges of AI (p.10)  This great challenge requires
integrating various subfields of AI, including vision, robotics, pattern
analysis, knowledge representation, learning, and natural language
processing.

I'm wondering, as I read this ideal vision of artificial intelligence as the
way forward, if it is the best way to proceed. It seems to privilege
building automated systems  as the way to understand the links between
language and sensory experience.  In notions of automatic systems where do
we fit concepts such as "trust" as central to notions of going on together?
Are high levels of trust among participants in interactivity a factor in
creating ZPD and open communication?  Where do notions such as "trust"
within shared contexts fit into the ideal pursuit of artificial intelligence
as building automated systems which link language to the world of sensory
perception and motor behaviors?

As I mentioned, my background in artificial intelligence is at the level of
heaps and complexes so I have lots to learn and will keep reading this
thread.  However, Mike's question of HOW do we use the information generated
by Roy's technological instruments seems critical.

Larry



On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 9:35 PM, Carol Macdonald <carolmacdon@gmail.com>wrote:

> Thank you Lauren for that.  He has an amazing number of publications and
> not
> that many of the corpus at hand.  He's a cognitive scientist, that's clear,
> which puts him a little to the right of xmca, but boy do they have
> conferences and journals :-)
>
> Carol
>
> On 19 March 2011 19:26, Lauren Zentz <laurenzentz@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > With all due respect to all the brilliant minds on this list and in this
> > discussion, I have been following along here and there since this
> > conversation started and wondering the entire time exactly what research
> > and
> > knowledge implications we should be worried about based on a 20 minute
> TED
> > Talk.  It seems that for us as researchers it is very important to know
> > what
> > Roy is doing with language acquisition and development research, and who
> > will be buying which ideas that he puts forth; but I feel like the
> intended
> > message of his talk, which was given to a *very* broad, and generally
> > non-linguist, non-cognitivist, and non-social scientist audience, was
> > basically to demonstrate how amazing are the technological tools he is
> > using
> > to do this research, and to generally inspire a larger population of
> > listeners regarding how complex and precious is the nature of human
> > (language) development.
> > I wonder if maybe, if we want to discuss the implications of his
> research,
> > those of us interested could take a look at the actual publications he
> has
> > written, where he has published them, and what audiences read them:
> > http://web.media.mit.edu/~dkroy/publications/index.html.
> >
> > Lauren Zentz
> > Doctoral Candidate, Language, Reading and Culture
> > College of Education, University of Arizona
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 9:48 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I wonder if criticisms of the sort voiced in this company might not
> > > influence the subsequent course of inquiry. There are a bunch of
> critical
> > > comments below the Roy
> > > presentation that could benefit from this discussion.
> > > mike
> > >
> > > On Sat, Mar 19, 2011 at 9:14 AM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > On Mar 16, 2011, at 9:16 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I am not entirely sure I agree with Martin's and Jim's criticisms.
> > > First
> > > > of all, when I read Halliday's work on early language acquisition, it
> > > seems
> > > > MORE objective than Deb Roy's "space time worms". Halliday is looking
> > at
> > > > grammar and especially at function. But I am really not sure at all
> > what
> > > Deb
> > > > Roy is looking at. I can't even understand, when I am looking at the
> > > worms,
> > > > what is space and what is time, but above all I can't understand how
> it
> > > > helps him organize his transcriptions. (I can see how it makes for a
> > cool
> > > > presentation, though!)
> > > >
> > > > Like Jim, I'd like to clarify my previous message. I didn't mean to
> > sound
> > > > as though I were rejecting any use of technology for this kind of
> > > research.
> > > > Obviously videorecording and other techniques of objectification are
> > > crucial
> > > > for the study of a phenomenon as fleeting as speech. But any
> > > investigation
> > > > of children's acquisition of language has to make use of the
> intuitions
> > > of
> > > > speakers of that language. One needs to be able to recognize the
> legal
> > > > combinations of phonemes, and syllables, and the illegal
> combinations,
> > in
> > > > order to plot the movement from one to the other. One needs to
> > recognize
> > > a
> > > > word, and approximations to it, and what it signifies in a specific
> > > occasion
> > > > of use. The utility of computers, then, to help conduct an analysis
> of
> > a
> > > > child's speech depends on ones ability to program them with the
> > > equivalent
> > > > of these intuitions. The degree of success with which we have been
> able
> > > to
> > > > program computers to recognize human speech is still very limited,
> and
> > > our
> > > > ability to program them to understand context has been even more
> > limited.
> > > > Yet once one collects massive amounts of data, as Roy has done, the
> use
> > > of
> > > > computers becomes virtually unavoidable. My point about Halliday's
> > > research
> > > > was that he drew not only on his speaker/hearer's intuitions, he also
> > > drew
> > > > on what was available to him as a participant interacting intimately
> > with
> > > > the child speaker. Roy of course had the same type of interactions,
> but
> > > > rather than build on these he chose instead the strategy of massive
> > data
> > > > collection. There is, presumably as a consequence of, apparently no
> > > > attention to semantics in Roy's analysis - not that one would expect
> to
> > > find
> > > > the child showing an understanding of concepts, but knowing something
> > of
> > > the
> > > > adults' interpretations of his words in context would surely be
> > > tremendously
> > > > helpful in understanding the acquisition process.
> > > >
> > > > I assume that the fact that in his presentation Roy could provide
> only
> > > > sound bites of the child's approximations to "water" indicates that
> his
> > > > system for automated analysis of the videos was not able to parse
> those
> > > > events. Was the computer able to judge these utterances to be tokens
> of
> > a
> > > > single type? Or did humans still need to go through the recordings to
> > > make
> > > > such judgments? If the latter, then it seems to me that the
> > accumulation
> > > of
> > > > massive amounts of data made the researchers' task more difficult,
> not
> > > > easier, and it is not clear to me what the benefit is of Roy's
> > approach.
> > > >
> > > > Martin __________________________________________
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