This week’s Cog Lunch features Steve Piantadosi, presenting work with Noah Goodman and Josh Tenenbaum.
Title: A formal model of number word acquisition
Time: Tues 9/30, 12PM
Location: 46-3310
We present a formal computational model for learning number word
meanings from noisy, cross-situational evidence. The model learns to
construct number word meanings in a developmentally-plausible “language
of thought” and shows how rational probabilistic inference can explain
several key developmental patterns. The model also illustrates how
infinite, structured, recursive concepts may be learned from relatively
little data in a fairly unrestricted hypothesis space.The model also provides a formal framework for studying conceptual
change. It implements bootstrapping, where each successive numerical
concept is defined in terms of the previous one (Carey & Sarnecka 2006,
Carey 2004). However, we provide a new formalization of bootstrapping
that avoids a key problem posed by Rips, Asmuth & Bloomfield (2006,
2008)—that bootstrapping presupposes knowledge of number and therefore
cannot explain how children learn numerical concepts. The model also
shows how linguistic and conceptual structures may be crucially related
in number word learning.