I feel like I'm repeating myself:
#7 - Understanding is learning a new language to the point of fluency.
(When the words in the new language activate your language independent
concepts, and you have created sufficient behaviors so that you can
effortlessly generate expressions in the new language).
Even when the new language is a signed language.
~PM
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [agi] Step One towards the real lingua franca of brain/AGI
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 2013 12:16:06 +0100
Language by mouth and by
hand
April 3rd, 2013 in Other Sciences / Social Sciences
Humans favor
speech as the primary means of linguistic communication. Spoken languages are
so
common many think language and speech are one and the same. But the prevalence
of sign languages suggests otherwise. Not only can Deaf communities generate
language using manual gestures, but their languages share some of their design
and neural mechanisms with spoken languages.
New research by Northeastern
University's Prof. Iris Berent further underscores the flexibility
of human language and its robustness across both spoken and signed channels of
communication.
In a paper published in PLOS ONE, Prof. Berent and her
team show that English speakers can learn to rapidly recognize key structures
of
American Sign Language (ASL), despite no previous familiarity with this
language.
Like spoken languages, signed languages construct words from
meaningless syllables (akin to can-dy in English) and distinguish them from
morphemes (meaningful units, similar to the English can-s). The research group
examined whether non-signers might be able to discover this structure.
In
a series of experiments, Prof. Berent and her team (Amanda Dupuis, a graduate
student at Northeastern University, and Dr. Diane Brentari of the University of
Chicago) asked English speakers to identify syllables in novel ASL signs.
Results showed that these non-signing adults quickly learned to identify the
number of signed syllables (one vs. two), and they could even distinguish
syllables from morphemes.
Remarkably, however, people did not act as
indiscriminate general-purpose learners. While they could easily learn to
discern the structure of ASL signs, they were unable to do so when presented
with signs that were equally complex, but violated the structure of ASL (as
well
as any known human language).
The results suggest that participants
extended their linguistic knowledge from spoken language to sign language. This
finding is significant because it shows that linguistic principles are
abstract,
and they can apply to both speech and sign. Nonetheless, Dr. Berent explains,
language is also constrained, as not all linguistic principles are equally
learnable. "Our present results do not establish the origin of these
limitations- whether they only result from people's past experience with
English, or from more general design properties of the language system. But
regardless of source, language transcends speech, as people can extend their
linguistic knowledge to a new modality."
Provided by Northeastern
University
"Language by mouth and by hand." April 3rd, 2013.
http://phys.org/news/2013-04-language-mouth.html
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