Greg Detre
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
learn an
average of 10 words a day between 1 and adolescence � but this is non-linear
(leveraging structure)
human
infants shown an experimenter pressing his head against a button to turn on a
light
when the experimenter�s hands are tied behind him, the infant presses
the button with its hand
when the experimenter�s hands are free and he holds them up while
pressing the button with his head, the infant presses the button with its head
a similar experiment with chimps got them to learn to touch the button
with their hands, but not with their heads
St
Augustine � active associations � find out what the adult�s intent is
first
this is still association though, just with different features
extracted + being associated
Deb: doesn�t agree � it�s a modulation function that affects when you
make the association
Kaluli in
New Guinea � should not indulge children�s weak + feebleness, but treat them as
adult � mother speaks for the child when it�s addressed � place the infant in
semi-adult setting � but there�s no ostensive naming
how did
they convey that one bag was full of familiar objects???
at what
point do children get over the mutual exclusivity of names (lexical
non-overlap)???
gradually
the mirror
system hypothesis (Rizzolatti + Arbib)
the primate homologue of Broca�s area is full of mirror neurons, which fire when performing an action, observing an action or hearing an action (Gallese, 2001)
Zukow-Goldring, Arbib, Ortop
perhaps the mirror system which relates the gesture of others (and possibly sounds) to the gestures of the self, contributes to ToM and to language learning
Bloom has shown that Locke�s simple associationism alone can�t be sufficient (for fast-mapping), though there might still be room for him
Deb wants
to know whether mirror neurons would fire when a jug is poured into a glass by
an invisible being (i.e. whether they fire when it�s just the result rather
than visibly being performed)
he�s confused by the fact that the sound of a nut cracking makes them
fire apparently, but that�s just the result of an action
chimp mirror neurons didn�t fire when seeing a robot crack a nut
Quine �
whole vs part, object vs action being performed
Bruce �
only two problems with ToM, �theory� and �mind�
in
fast-mapping, do the infants have to remember the entire scene in order to make
the comparison a month later???
what does
Hugo mean by a stance filter???
Dretske tried to use information theory to look at intentionality
the difference between a person�s thought about speed and a speedometer, is that there isn�t a direct causal link between people and the world � differential (cf Cantwell-Smith)
animation + the intentional stance
do I reckon that children in fact have panintentionality, that is, they attribute beliefs + desires to everything??? nah
theory of mind as a path of mechanisms � ToM as a useful label for a (coherent) set of mechanisms
recursivity as the criterion for a full ToM???
embedding as limited-level recursion
they don�t want to talk in terms of a cutoff point
ToM specialised use by Spelke, Carey, Gopnik etc. to mean �mental simulation�, running theory of self