Cognitive model of phonological awareness focusing on errors and formation process through Shiritori

Abstract

Language acquisition is supported by phonological awareness, which intentionally makes children aware of phonological units. By understanding the internal processes of children during language acquisition, this study aims to elucidate factors that can correct erroneous phonological generation. Therefore, we developed a cognitive model using innate and experiential factors of the memory retrieval in the cognitive architecture–ACT-R. Furthermore, we performed simulations using Shiritori, a Japanese word game, as an interaction task. The simulation included the observation of effects of the experiential factor of repeating a task and innate factors of different settings. It showed that repeating a single task causes incorrect convergence, and this convergence can be prevented by comprehensive activation of overall phonological knowledge during the interval of Shiritori tasks. Moreover, the simulation in specific innate settings exhibited commonalities with cases of developmental disorder by showing errors like consonant deletion. In the future, we will examine the correlation of the aforementioned findings with actual language development to realize the use of cognitive architecture in real world.