How should we evaluate models of segmentation in artificial language learning?

• Raquel G. Alhama, Institute of Logic, Language and Information, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Remko Scha, Institute of Logic, Language and Information, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Willem Zuidema, Institute of Logic, Language and Information, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Abstract

One of the challenges that infants have to solve when learn- ing their native language is to identify the words in a con- tinuous speech stream. Some of the experiments in Artificial Grammar Learning (Saffran, Newport, and Aslin (1996); Saf- fran, Aslin, and Newport (1996); Aslin, Saffran, and Newport (1998) and many more) investigate this ability. In these ex- periments, subjects are exposed to an artificial speech stream that contains certain regularities. Adult participants are typ- ically tested with 2-alternative Forced Choice Tests (2AFC) in which they have to choose between a word and another sequence (typically a partword, a sequence resulting from misplacing boundaries).

• The Paper: How should we evaluate models of segmentation in artificial language learning?

Back