Silvia Rădulescu

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gerken [2015/11/22 22:23] silviagerken [2015/11/22 22:51] (current) silvia
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 +**Conclusions:**
 +\\
 +A question raised by the experiments
 +is **what caused infants in the column condition to generalize based on the location of
 +//di// rather than making the more abstract generalization**?
 +\\
 +One possibility is that the data are consistent with the **Subset Principle** (Manzini &
 +Wexler, 1987), in which learners select among possible parameter values based on which
 +value generates the smallest language compatible with the input data. Note that, if we
 +interpret ‘language’ to mean ‘set of sentences,’ a learner would need to generate all of the
 +sentences for each parameter value and determine which value generated fewer sentences
 +(but see Wexler, 1993). Wexler and Manzini reduce the computational task for the learner
 +by placing relevant parameters in a markedness hierarchy, in which the learner begins with
 +the least marked value, which generates the smallest language.
 +\\
 +Another possibility is consistent with the **Bayesian approaches** to generalization
 +(e.g., Tenenbaum & Griffiths, 2001), in which learners compare the subset of the input
 +they have received to the range of input generated by different formal descriptions. For
 +example, an infant might tacitly compute that it is extremely unlikely, given an AAB
 +grammar, the only input ends in di. Depending on its implementation, this approach might
 +also be computationally challenging. However, it has the advantage of applying to a more
 +general (e.g., non-parameterized) learning problems, and it allows increasing confidence
 +in hypothesis selection with increasing input set size. Importantly, this solution to the
 +induction problem entails learners choosing among formal descriptions that they have
 +already generated from the data using general purpose mechanisms (Saffran, Reeck,
 +Niebuhr, & Wilson, 2005) or that are part of their innate endowment for language
 +(e.g. Valian, 1990). For example, Saffran et al. (2005) demonstrated that the structure of
 +the input determines the primitives (in this case absolute vs. relative pitch) over which
 +generalizations are made. This type of research, in which learners ‘choose’ among
 +different generalizations allowed by input data, may ultimately allow us to distinguish
 +between theories of language development.