From babbling towards first words: The emergence of speech in a robot in real-time interaction

Rothwell, Anton; Lyon, Caroline; Nehaniv, Chrystopher L.; Saunders, Joe

doi:10.1109/alife.2011.5954641

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…In sets 1, 3, 4, 5 conditions only varied in the humanâ® “robot interface, while set 2 was based on a variation in the learning algorithm, described later. Reference is also made to 2 preliminary sets of experiments: one with 8 participants talking to another robot in a similar scenario but then processed off line [55] ; the second with 2 participants in a real-time interaction but with a simulated reinforcement mechanism [56] .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The approving comments themselves, against which DeeChee’s perception is matched, were taken from preliminary experiments [55] .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The programmer made a list of salient words that it was hoped DeeChee would learn. If there was a match between one of these words and DeeChee’s output, then that word was entered in the lexicon [55] , [56] . In contrast the reinforcement mechanism in the experiments described here depended on the teacher hearing a desired word uttered by DeeChee and responding with an approving comment.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interactive Language Learning by Robots: The Transition from Babbling to Word Forms

2012

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The advent of humanoid robots has enabled a new approach to investigating the acquisition of language, and we report on the development of robots able to acquire rudimentary linguistic skills. Our work focuses on early stages analogous to some characteristics of a human child of about 6 to 14 months, the transition from babbling to first word forms. We investigate one mechanism among many that may contribute to this process, a key factor being the sensitivity of learners to the statistical distribution of linguistic elements. As well as being necessary for learning word meanings, the acquisition of anchor word forms facilitates the segmentation of an acoustic stream through other mechanisms. In our experiments some salient one-syllable word forms are learnt by a humanoid robot in real-time interactions with naive participants. Words emerge from random syllabic babble through a learning process based on a dialogue between the robot and the human participant, whose speech is perceived by the robot as a stream of phonemes. Numerous ways of representing the speech as syllabic segments are possible. Furthermore, the pronunciation of many words in spontaneous speech is variable. However, in line with research elsewhere, we observe that salient content words are more likely than function words to have consistent canonical representations; thus their relative frequency increases, as does their influence on the learner. Variable pronunciation may contribute to early word form acquisition. The importance of contingent interaction in real-time between teacher and learner is reflected by a reinforcement process, with variable success. The examination of individual cases may be more informative than group results. Nevertheless, word forms are usually produced by the robot after a few minutes of dialogue, employing a simple, real-time, frequency dependent mechanism. This work shows the potential of human-robot interaction systems in studies of the dynamics of early language acquisition.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The approving comments themselves, against which DeeChee’s perception is matched, were taken from preliminary experiments [55] .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interactive Language Learning by Robots: The Transition from Babbling to Word Forms

2012

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“…The iCub's output was converted using the eSpeak speech synthesizer. The CMU phonemic alphabet was used [62, 63].…”

Section: Embodied Language Learning Methodolgies Developed Separatelymentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied Language Learning and Cognitive Bootstrapping: Methods and Design Principles

Lyon

Nehaniv

Saunders

et al. 2016

International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

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Co-development of action, conceptualization and social interaction mutually scaffold and support each other within a virtuous feedback cycle in the development of human language in children. Within this framework, the purpose of this article is to bring together diverse but complementary accounts of research methods that jointly contribute to our understanding of cognitive development and in particular, language acquisition in robots. Thus, we include research pertaining to developmental robotics, cognitive science, psychology, linguistics and neuroscience, as well as practical computer science and engineering. The different studies are not at this stage all connected into a cohesive whole; rather, they are presented to illuminate the need for multiple different approaches that complement each other in the pursuit of understanding cognitive development in robots. Extensive experiments involving the humanoid robot iCub are reported, while human learning relevant to developmental robotics has also contributed useful results.Disparate approaches are brought together via common underlying design principles. Without claiming to model human language acquisition directly, we are nonetheless inspired by analogous development in humans and consequently, our investigations include the parallel codevelopment of action, conceptualization and social interaction. Though these different approaches need to ultimately be integrated into a coherent, unified body of knowledge, progress is currently also being made by pursuing individual methods.

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From babbling towards first words: The emergence of speech in a robot in real-time interaction

Cited by 2 publications

References 22 publications

Interactive Language Learning by Robots: The Transition from Babbling to Word Forms

Interactive Language Learning by Robots: The Transition from Babbling to Word Forms

Embodied Language Learning and Cognitive Bootstrapping: Methods and Design Principles

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