Blog: Challenging the Limits of Learning [... language acquisition]

Challenging the Limits of Learning
American Friends of Tel Aviv University (01/19/11)

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have developed software that models the human mind to explore language acquisition, and report that the early results suggest that people actually learn language. The program learns basic grammar using a bare minimum of cognitive machinery, similar to what a child might have, says Tel Aviv's Roni Katzir. He used unsupervised learning to program his computer to learn simple grammar on its own, and the machine-learning technique enabled the program to see raw data and conduct a random search to find the best way to characterize what it sees. The computer looked for the simplest description of any data using the Minimum Description Length criterion. Katzir was able to explore what kinds of information the human mind can acquire and store unconsciously, and whether a computer can learn in a similar manner. He believes the research has applications in technologies such as voice-dialogue systems, or for teaching robots how to read visual images. "Many linguists today assume that there are severe limits on what is learnable," Katzir says. "I take a much more optimistic view about those limitations and the capacity of humans to learn."

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