Toddlers May Learn Language By Data Mining

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Toddlers' brains can effortlessly do what the most powerful computers with the most sophisticated software cannot: learn language simply by hearing it used. A ground-breaking new theory postulates that young children are able to learn large groups of words rapidly by data-mining. Researchers Linda Smith and Chen Yu attempted to teach 28 children, 12 to 14 months old, six words by showing them two objects at a time on a computer monitor while two pre-recorded words were read to them. No information was given regarding which word went with which image. After viewing various combinations of words and images, however, the children were surprisingly successful at figuring out which word went with which picture. Yu and Smith say it's possible that the more words tots hear, and the more information available for any individual word, the better their brains can begin simultaneously ruling out and putting together word-object pairings, thus learning what's what. Yu says if they can identify key factors involved in this form of learning and how it can be manipulated, they might be able to make learning languages easier for children and adults. Understanding children's learning mechanisms could also further machine learning."

Comments

Interesting

[chuckymonkey]

This is why I've never talked to either of my children in "baby talk". I've always talked to them like they're adults (minus swearing and things like that) and as a result my eldest talks like a six or seven year (she's two) and my youngest... well she's just a few months old but she knows mom and dad. It really is interesting to see the difference between the children that aren't expected to speak and those that are. My eldest has never gotten away with pointing and grunting for things, she always had to at least try to say what she wanted and we'll do the same for the baby when she's around the right age. What kills me though is that the eldest is starting to use sarcasm.... that just blows my mind when she does it. Children's minds are the most amazing things, when people say sponge that doesn't even begin to describe it. Given a lot of patience and a lot of work from the parents children can learn at incredible rates. I only wish that I knew more languages so that I could teach them at this young age so they'd be fluent, I'm really considering taking a job in Europe partially for that reason and cultural exposure for them.

Effortless?

[krazytekn0]

Have you ever watched a toddler try to talk? Nothing about learning to talk is "effortless" anyone who says so either not a parent, or not thinking clearly.

Re:Effortless?

[MightyYar]

Nothing about learning to talk is "effortless" anyone who says so either not a parent, or not thinking clearly. That's what I was thinking. They get so frustrated when they can't say what they want to say. 50% of my current parenting is spent calming the child down from frustration (she's almost 2). It seems about as effortless as training for a marathon.

Re:Effortless?

[Belial6]

You are correct. People are always amazed at how quickly children learn to speak. I say that if you took your average adult, put them into a fully immersive foreign language environment, where they could not get anything for themselves, they would learn the foreign language even faster than a child. Heck, to make it a fair comparison, you also would have to give the adult multiple tutors who will happily spend every day helping with identifying words and correcting pronunciation.

Depending on your definition, most kids would not be considered fluent with their first language until the age of 4 or 5, and then generally still speak it with an accent. I would say that this is not all really any different than an adult. They are actually probably a little slower.

Re:Interesting, but...

[TapeCutter]

"what seemed far more interesting to me is why when we reach a certain age it becomes significantly harder to acquire languages"

Someone who is raised with a single language does not even hear certain sounds in other languages because their brain has long since rejected those sounds as irrelevant 'noise'. The same thing applies to vision, a baby sees every meercat face as different but adults don't (without a lot of practice).

A babies brain actually loses a lot of connectivity between neurons in the first year of life (not so much data minning as connection breaking/forming). In other words we are all programmed by our early environment to exclude irrelevant stimuli, hacking into that 'code' later in life can be extremely difficult.

Re:Interesting, but...

[jp25666]

That might be part of it, but that's definitely not the whole story. In particular, there are some language errors that babies simply do not make. Likewise, there is a general pattern that all babies follow when acquiring a language. These aspects of acquisition cannot be explained by positive reinforcement alone: they are a result of general cognition or the language faculty, or they are somehow an artifact of the human language learning algorithm.

Want multilingual kids?

[Half-pint HAL]

I only wish that I knew more languages so that I could teach them at this young age so they'd be fluent

Do what my mum did: buy albums of kids songs in foreign languages (in my case only French). When I was about four, I could sing in a perfect French accent. Didn't have a clue what I was saying, but the accent was there. When I started learning French about 8 years later I had no problems. My ear was primed and my mouth was primed, so I could handle the sound system without problems, and it's the sounding like a foreigner/lunatic that frustrates most people when learning languages.

HAL.