Understanding Infants’ Language Development in Relation to Levels of Consciousness: An Approach in Building up an Agent-based Model

Understanding Infants’ Language Development in Relation to Levels of Consciousness: An Approach in Building up an Agent-based Model Helena Hong Gao Can Guo Bilingual Development Lab, School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Complexity Institute, Nanyang Technological University Bilingual Development Lab, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Singapore Singapore helenagao@ntu.edu.sg kfcankf@gmail.com Abstract Language development in infants is a dynamic process that involves the emergence and increase of consciousness, with which built-in learning mechanisms make infants’ imitation and interaction with their surroundings become socially meaningful. Taking Gao & Holland’s (2008, 2013) statements of levels of consciousness for language development as the theoretical guideline, this study proposes a rule-based, signal-processing agent-based model to explore the dynamics of language development in early infants. In this model, we assume that an infant’s rule-based learning behaviors can be featured by different levels of consciousness and that its adaptation processes can be explained in relation to levels of consciousness. In this paper we will discuss properties of consciousness at different levels and identify the influencing factors for reaching them. Our ultimate goal in building up the model is to understand the processes of language development with an approach that can better reflect reality. 1 Introduction Understanding how language is acquired by infants has remained to be a challenging task. Previous attempts, such as the behavioral approach (e.g. Skinner, 1957; Roediger, 2004; Ramscar & Yarlett, 2007), relational frame theory (e.g. Hayes et al., 2001), nativist theories (Chomsky, 1967, 1975), social interactionist theories (Bruner, 1983; Carpenter et al., 1998; Tomasello, 2003), etc. all have achieved remarkable results that have shed light on future directions in research in child language acquisition. More recent views emphasize that child language emerges through imitation and social interaction with the support of built-in learning mechanisms (Tomasello & Bates, 2001; Tomasello, 2003; Snow, 1999; MacWhinney, 2004; Bates & Goodman, 1999). For example, emergentist theories, represented by MacWhinney's competition model (1986), argue that language acquisition emerges from the interaction of biological pressures and the environment through a cognitive process. These theories emphasize that nature and nurture need to be jointly involved to trigger the language learning process. In psychology, Jean Piaget’s experimental studies on cognitive development revealed stage- development in children. Children’s speech was discussed in terms of thought and reasoning (Piaget, 1926). Following Piaget, psychologists and linguists (e.g. Bowerman, 1990, 2004; Bates, 1975, 1999; Bates & Goodman, 1997, 1999; Mandler, 2004, 1998) made data-based assumptions that there could be many learning processes involved in language acquisition. Evolutionarily, some wired-in help supplied by a long evolutionary history is assumed to exist in supporting this task. For example, infants can imitate facial gestures between 12 and 21 days of age, an age much earlier than predicted by stage development theory (e.g. Piaget). Such imitation implies that human neonates equate their own behaviors with gestures they see others perform (Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1997; Meltzoff & Borton, 1979; Meltzoff & Moore, 1977). But how PACLIC 29 359 29th Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and …

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