Joint Attention, Imitation and Language Acquisition

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Joint Attention, Imitation and Language
Acquisition

• Akira Hirose lab Master 1
• 66466 Kunio Kitahara

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Introduction

• To realize the making of versatile robots, there
  is a need for us to study the behavior in human
  interaction
• We focus our attention on communicative learning
  by introducing a case study of a research carried
  out by a robot in the areas of joint attention,
  imitation and language acquisition

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Humans are influenced by the gaze direction of
the eyes
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automatic spatial coding of perceived gaze
direction is revealed by the Simon Effect
Simon effectreaction times are usually faster
when stimulus and response occur at the same
location than when they do not, even if the
stimulus location is irrelevant to the task
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It is easy to tell where a human being is looking
at
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Joint attention

• To look where others are looking at by relying on
  others' gaze.
• This is the basis of infants communication
  ability

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Acquisition of joint attention
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Acquisition of joint attention

• The position of a gaze object is random
• There is correlation between the gaze objects and
  the eyes of a person
• A robot is able to have joint attention with a
  specific subject even if we do not tell it the
  correct direction of the gaze.

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• There are people who are not good at joint
  attention

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Autism

• A neurodevelopmental disorder that manifests in
  delays of social interaction, language as used in
  social communication, or symbolic or imaginative
  play
• (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical
  Manual of Mental Disorders)

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Savant syndrome

• An autistic person who has striking feats of
  memory which often include arithmetic
  calculation and sometimes art or music

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Savant syndrome

• A person who was paralyzed on the left frontal
  lobe by TMS temporarily can draw a picture
  realistically and notice the wrong characters in
  a sentence easily.
• Is autism caused by the fact that mirror neuron
  does not function?

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Mirror neuron (Imitation neuron)

• Neuron which fires when an animal performs an
  action and when the animal observes the same
  action performed by another.
• In humans, mirror neurons are found in the
  inferior frontal cortex, close to Brocas area, a
  language region.

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Three phases of imitation

• Model imitation
• Exact same movement
• Movement imitation
• imitation which is matched according to ones
  body shape/physique.
• Purpose level imitation
• imitation that can achieve the same purpose

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Example of an imitation by acquisition of joint
attention
Monkey who learned joint attentionbeforehand
imitates the humans action naturally
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• Is joint attention important for imitation?

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Imitation that uses a gaze point
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Imitation that uses a gaze point
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History of language communication between people
and machines

• ELIZA Weizenbaum 66
• generate a simple reply sentence to promote the
  next utterance to a person
• SHRDLU Winograd 72
• limited environment
• understand and move when a person says, "have a
  building block"

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Language Acquisition

• Vilayanur Ramachandran
• Mirror neuron is important for language
  acquisition

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Language development study

• Ferdinand de Saussure structuralism
• Avram Noam Chomsky Generative grammar
• Tiedeman,D. Description study based on case
  study
• Anti Chomsky Cognitive linguistics etc.

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Generative grammar

• Language acquisition is a transition from an
  initial general state to the respective correct
  states of different languages
• Universal Grammar (Initial state) belong to human
  beings inherently. The parameters for this
  grammar are changed when humans acquire a
  language
• A parse tree can be used to analyze a sentence

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Cognitive linguistics

• The experiences and perceptions of human beings
  form the basis/essence of a language
• The speech is directed to the conceptual space of
  the brain of the listener and the meaning of the
  words in the speech is interpreted
• Language is a tool which can be used to direct
  the attention of a listener from a speaker

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Infanoid
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SOINN

• SOINN
• (Self Organizing Incremental Neural Network)

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Summary

• To realize the making of versatile robots, there
  is a need for us to study the behavior in human
  interaction
• We have examined a case study of a research
  carried out by a robot in the areas of joint
  attention, imitation and language acquisition

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Thank you for your attention