Bayesian modeling of manner and path psychological data

How people and computers can learn the meaning of words has long been a key question for both AI and cognitive science. It is hypothesized that a person acquires a bias to favor the characteristics of their native language, in order to aid word learning. Other hypothesized aids are syntactic bootstrapping, in which the learner assumes that the meaning of a novel word is similar to that of other words used in a similar syntax, and its complement, semantic bootstrapping, in which the learner assumes that the syntax of a novel word is similar to that of other words used in similar situations. How these components work together is key to understanding word learning. Using cognitive psychology and computer science as a platform, this thesis attempts to tackle these questions using the classic example of manner and path verb bias. A series of cognitive psychology experiments was designed to gather information on this bias. Considerable flexibility of the subject's bias was demonstrated during these experiments. Another separate series of experiments was conducted using different syntactic frames for the novel verbs to address the question of bootstrapping. The resulting information was used to design a Bayesian model which successfully predicts the human behavior in the psychological experiments that were conducted. Dynamic parameters were required to account for subjects revising their expected manner and path verb distributions during the course of an experiment. Bayesian model parameters that were optimized for rich syntactic frame data performed equally well in predicting poor syntactic frame data.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Havasi, Catherine Andrea, 1981-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert C. Berwick.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/16678

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/16678