Toddlers May Learn Language By Data Mining 213
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."
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Eventually he abandoned that behaviour and later replaced it with a more sophisticated model. Presumably he had then collected enough data to get a better idea of how our language worked.
Effortless? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Effortless? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Effortless? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Effortless? (Score:3, Insightful)
It takes time for a child to learn language. A toddler can get frustrated when parents (or others) don't understand what they want. But the language acquisition process is not hard in the same way as learning is hard for adults. They do not need to conciously do it. It is more instinctive and automatic than if I were to try to learn another language. Furthermore, the problem is not understanding and learning the language - the problem is expressing themselves and being mature enough to deal with not getting what they want. Toddlers have amazing understanding, but limited ability to express themselves.
So I would argue that learning languages for children is easy (comparatively speaking). But there is a lot more to growing up and communicating than just learning language - and some of those bits are hard.
Re:Effortless? (Score:4, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
It should even in the second. In fact, that's the primary and most effective mode of learning for the human brain. That's also why formal education sucks.
Want multilingual kids? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.