ERIC Number: EJ1418259
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0364-0213
EISSN: EISSN-1551-6709
Computational Modeling of the Segmentation of Sentence Stimuli from an Infant Word-Finding Study
Daniel Swingley; Robin Algayres
Cognitive Science, v48 n3 e13427 2024
Computational models of infant word-finding typically operate over transcriptions of infant-directed speech corpora. It is now possible to test models of word segmentation on speech materials, rather than transcriptions of speech. We propose that such modeling efforts be conducted over the speech of the experimental stimuli used in studies measuring infants' capacity for learning from spoken sentences. Correspondence with infant outcomes in such experiments is an appropriate benchmark for models of infants. We demonstrate such an analysis by applying the DP-Parser model of Algayres and colleagues to auditory stimuli used in infant psycholinguistic experiments by Pelucchi and colleagues. The DP-Parser model takes speech as input, and creates multiple overlapping embeddings from each utterance. Prospective words are identified as clusters of similar embedded segments. This allows segmentation of each utterance into possible words, using a dynamic programming method that maximizes the frequency of constituent segments. We show that DP-Parse mimics American English learners' performance in extracting words from Italian sentences, favoring the segmentation of words with high syllabic transitional probability. This kind of computational analysis over actual stimuli from infant experiments may be helpful in tuning future models to match human performance.
Descriptors: Sentences, Word Recognition, Psycholinguistics, Infants, Verbal Stimuli, Natural Language Processing, Speech Communication
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF), Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 1917608