Mr.Samsa wrote:Whilst browsing through the
language acquisition page on Wikipedia, I noticed a small segment labelled "Statistical Learning":
Statistical learning
Some language acquisition researchers, such as Elissa Newport, Richard Aslin, and Jenny Saffran, believe that language acquisition is based primarily on general learning mechanisms, namely statistical learning. The development of connectionist models that are able to successfully learn words and syntactical conventions[19] supports the predictions of statistical learning theories of language acquisition, as do empirical studies of children's learning of words and syntax.[20]
After reading more on it (e.g.
here), I struggled to find where it differs from the behaviorist theories on language. Anybody able to help me figure out what I'm missing?
Thanks for the links ! I should visit the Linguistics section more often. As it happens I am quite partial to the statistical learning hypothesis (even if perhaps not as an all-encompassing theory of language). This is because I have seen it (read it, I mean) doing wonders in explaining how music works.
As for fitting it within an operant conditioning framework, it is certainly possible with some extra assumptions. Suppose that when listening to speech we always engage into predicting the speaker's next utterance (there are some hints that we do that, like the ease with which we complete unfinished sentences, and the strong immediate surprise that comes with an unexpected word). Since learning language is adaptive, it makes sense that correct predictions would be rewarded. Moreover, our predicting competence would enable us to speak instead of privately predicting. I guess that with the right values fit in here and there, the matching law would imply statistical learning.
Now the above seems to have more explanatory value for music, which is none too adaptive, and where the #1 puzzle is to explain why we
enjoy music so much in the first place. In the case of language, one could argue that the private predicting behavior thus posited is unparsimonious, and that "naked" statistical learning is a more parsimonious explanation. Or in a cognitive wording, that statistical learning works at a lower level than operant conditioning, so is more fundamental. I am not well-versed enough into the philosophy of mind to decide on that, but it is always nice to see when different theories say more or less the same thing.