Symbol Acquisition Research Articles

Canonical finger-numeral configurations facilitate the processing of Arabic numerals in adults: An Event-Related Potential study

Various studies claim that early-learned, culture-typical (canonical) finger configurations used to communicate or represent numerosity, have stronger connections to numerical concepts stored in long-term memory than cultural-unfamiliar finger configurations, thereby allowing for faster access to their numerical meaning. The current study investigated whether presentation of canonical finger configurations gesturing numerosities 1–4 or 6–9 would facilitate young adults’ behavioral and neural processing of Arabic numerals. Thirty-one adults performed a number comparison task in which they had to decide whether simultaneously presented Arabic numerals and canonical or non-canonical finger configurations showed the same or a different numerosity, while measuring their performance and Event-Related Potentials (ERPs). The results showed faster responses when comparisons involved canonical (versus non-canonical) finger configurations, but only on numerosity-congruent trials where finger configuration and Arabic numeral matched in number identity. Canonical, and small-number finger configurations 1–4 in general (irrespective of their canonicity), also elicited enhanced amplitude of the early right-parietal P2p, and the later centro-parietal P3 on numerosity-congruent trials. We suggest these P2p and P3 findings respectively reflect facilitated numerical access and easier categorization of canonical finger-numeral configurations. The current results provide behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for the embodiment of culture-specific, canonical, finger-numeral configurations, and their link with other number representations in the adult brain, likely emerging from their more frequent use in daily life communication and/or in early childhood during number symbol acquisition.

Visual-graphic symbol acquisition in school age children with developmental and language delays

Augmented language systems have become both an integral component of communication intervention programs for children with severe communicative impairments and spurred research on their language and communication development. This study examined intrinsic and extrinsic factors that may influence the language development process for children with developmental disabilities, by exploring the relationship between varying degrees of symbol arbitrariness and extant speech comprehension skills in the discrimination, learning, and use of symbols for communication. For the study, 13 school-aged participants (M = 8.24 [years; months]), with both developmental and language delays, were provided experience with iconic Blissymbols and an arbitrary symbol set of lexigrams via observational computerized experience sessions. There was a modest difference in their ability to learn arbitrary versus iconic symbols. There were no differences if the vocabulary item was unknown prior to the symbol learning experience. These findings suggest that iconicity of a symbol may not be a critical factor in learning a symbol-referent relationship if a target referent is not yet known in comprehension.

Social babbling: The emergence of symbolic gestures and words

Language acquisition theories classically distinguish passive language understanding from active language production. However, recent findings show that brain areas such as Broca’s region are shared in language understanding and production. Furthermore, these areas are also implicated in understanding and producing goal-oriented actions. These observations question the passive view of language development. In this work, we propose a cognitive developmental model of symbol acquisition, coherent with an active view of language learning. For that purpose, we introduce the concept of social babbling. In this view, symbols are learned in the same way as goal-oriented actions in the context of specific caregiver–infant interactions. We show that this model allows a virtual agent to learn both symbolic words and gestures to refer to objects while interacting with a caregiver. We validate our model by reproducing results from studies on the influence of parental responsiveness on infants language acquisition.

Assessing Symbol Acquisition and Preference During Functional Communication Training With English Language Learners Who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication

Purpose The purpose of this article is to provide interventionists with a strategy for comparing the efficiency of initial graphic symbol acquisition in an individual's 1st and 2nd language for Eng...

Symbol Acquisition from Motion Patterns and Their Sparce Coding by an Associative Memory Model with Self-organizing Nonmonotonicity

As has been claimed by Barlow [2], and reported by some recent neuro-physiological researches, at higher levels in the hierarchy of representations in the brain, sparse coding is adopted. Sparse coding is a kind of neural representation in which a very small number of neurons fire selectively. Because of the small overlaps between the firing patterns, the codes have the property of uniform metric, which may correspond to abstract symbolic representation of physical patterns [6]. We propose here a system that generates sparse codes of concepts of motions from accumulated feature vectors of observed motion patterns, by extending our previous research [11]. We propose an associative memory dynamics model with a self-organizing nonmonotonic activation function, which automatically finds out the hierarchical cluster structures in the stored motion patterns. Based on analysis of the dynamics of this model, we design an output function for the attractors, which can generate the sparse codes of the symbols of motion patterns.

Exploring visual-graphic symbol acquisition by pre-school age children with developmental and language delays

The process of language acquisition requires an individual to organize the world through a system of symbols and referents. For children with severe intellectual disabilities and language delays, the ability to link a symbol to its referent may be a difficult task. In addition to the intervention strategy, issues such as the visual complexity and iconicity of a symbol arise when deciding what to select as a medium to teach language. This study explored the ability of four pre-school age children with developmental and language delays to acquire the meanings of Blissymbols and lexigrams using an observational experiential language intervention. In production, all four of the participants demonstrated symbol-referent relationships, while in comprehension, three of the four participants demonstrated at least emerging symbol-referent relationships. Although the number of symbols learned across participants varied, there were no differences between the learning of arbitrary and comparatively iconic symbols. The participants' comprehension skills appeared to influence their performance.

Self-organizing Symbol Acquisition and Motion Generation based on Dynamics-based Information Processing System

The symbol acquisition and manipulation abilities are one of the inherent characteristics of human beings comparing with other creatures. In this paper, based on recurrent self-organizing map and dynamics-based information processing system, we propose a dynamics based self-organizing map (DBSOM). This method enables designing a topological map using time sequence data, which causes recognition and generation of the robot motion. Using this method, we design the self-organizing symbol acquisition system and robot motion generation system for a humanoid robot. By implementing DBSOM to the robot in the real world, we realize the symbol acquisition from the experimental data and investigate the spatial property of the obtained DBSOM.

Evolution of communication and language using signals, symbols, and words

This paper describes different types of models for the evolution of communication and language. It uses the distinction between signals, symbols, and words for the analysis of evolutionary models of language. In particular, it shows how evolutionary computation techniques such as artificial life can be used to study the emergence of syntax and symbols from simple communication signals. Initially, a computational model that evolves repertoires of isolated signal is presented. This study has simulated the emergence of signals for naming foods in a population of foragers. This type of model studies communication systems based on simple signal-object associations. Subsequently, models that study the emergence of grounded symbols are discussed in general, including a detailed description of a work on the evolution of simple syntactic rules. This model focuses on the emergence of symbol-symbol relationships in evolved languages. Finally, computational models of syntax acquisition and evolution are discussed. These different types of computational models provide an operational definition of the signal/symbol/word distinction. The simulation and analysis of these types of models will help to understand the role of symbols and symbol acquisition in the origin of language.

The ontogenesis of meaning: An interactional approach

The aim of this article is to shed new light on the process through which infants acquire a set of cultural meanings around the use of objects during play interactions with adults. It is based on the authors' longitudinal study of manipulative play interaction between mothers and infants. The authors propose a theoretical framework to explain the acquisition of shared meanings based on ideas borrowed from Vygotsky (intermentality‐intramentality), Trevarthen (primary and secondary subjectivity), Bruner (joint activity formats and narratives), and Peirce (theory of signs). They argue that meanings are generated in a dialogical process in which the adult acts expressively; the infant understands and is then able to reproduce the expressive actions previously performed by his interlocutor. This behavior is a recursive loop that, according to Maturana and Varela, is a typical autopoietic process. With emphasis on the infants' comprehension, a facet rarely studied and often approached from an erroneous standpoint in the psychological study of personal interaction, the authors distance themselves from the traditional Piagetian approach to symbol acquisition by infants. They schematically present some prototypes of interaction, with an emphasis on developing a conceptual framework that could explain how infants gain access to the cultural meanings conveyed in and by everyday human activities.

Symbol Comprehension and Learning

Language comprehension in the great apes has been investigated through a variety of paradigms. This experiment employed a match-to-sample computer task to investigate the current language comprehension of three chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) raised in different language environments but with a similar symbol system (lexigrams). Each of these animals still uses the lexigram keyboard system on a daily basis but none of the animals are the focus of ongoing ape language research programs. Six testing conditions were employed utilizing photographs, lexigrams and spoken English. The results indicated that all apes retained knowledge of at least some of the symbols that they had previously learned, and they each learned differing numbers of new lexigrams that were never taught to them. This indicates that rearing history is important not only in initial symbol acquisition in apes, but also in extended recall of the symbols, particularly when those symbols are used infrequently later in life. Differences in the current ages of these apes requires that such a conclusion be made tentatively, and suggests the need to continue the examination of symbol vocabulary size at various times throughout the life of each ape.

Augmentative communication systems taught to cerebral-palsied children-a longitudinal study. III. Teaching practices and exposure to sign and symbol use in schools and homes

A longitudinal study of augmentative communication training with 40 language-impaired, cerebral-palsied children examined the teaching practices adopted in schools, and the extent to which teachers and parents used the augmentative systems with the children. The study found limited exposure to sign and symbol training in formal teaching sessions and in other school settings, and teachers made relatively few attempts to foster spontaneous use of the systems and generalisation outside of formal training settings. Exposure to augmentative communication in the children's homes was equally limited, and a significant number of parents expressed reservations about the value of the systems for their children. These findings may at least partly account for the children's limited progress in sign and symbol acquisition and use over an 18-month period, which was documented in two earlier reports.

Reflections on “visual symbol acquisition by students with autism”

(1991). Reflections on “visual symbol acquisition by students with autism”. Exceptionality: Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 223-229.

Visual symbol acquisition by students with autism

Abstract Given the need to help develop communication skills in individuals with autism, an examination of visual symbol systems is critical. In this study, I focused on the exploration of a hierarchy of visual symbol systems that may aid practitioners in selecting more readily acquired symbol systems. Although evidence suggests that persons with cognitive disabilities attach meaning more readily to symbol systems that display higher levels of iconicity, it is not clear that this same hierarchical progression exists for persons with autism. I used a modified multiple baseline with four students with autism, ranging in ages from 7 to 13 years, to investigate the number of trials to criterion for five visual symbol sets: (a) photopictorial, (b) rebus, (c) Blissymbolics, (d) orthography, and (e) Premack‐type tokens. All four students reached criterion with fewer trials in systems that had a higher degree of iconicity.

Spontaneous symbol acquisition and communicative use by pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus).

Two pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus) have spontaneously begun to use symbols to communicate with people. In contrast to common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) using the same communicative system, the pygmy chimpanzees did not need explicit training in order to form referential symbol-object associations. Instead, they acquired symbols by observing others use these symbols in daily communications with them. In addition, the pygmy chimpanzees have begun to comprehend spoken English words and can readily identify lexigrams upon hearing the spoken words. By contrast, common chimpanzees who received similar exposure to spoken English are unable to do so. The older pygmy chimpanzee has begun to form requests of the form agent-verb-recipient in which he is neither the agent nor the recipient. By contrast, similarly aged common chimpanzees limited their requests to simple verbs, in which the agent was always presumed to be the addressee and the chimpanzee itself was always the recipient, thus they had no need to indicate a specific agent or recipient. These results suggest that these pygmy chimpanzees exhibit symbolic and auditory perceptual skills that are distinctly different from those of common chimpanzees.

Spontaneous symbol acquisition and communicative use by pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus).

Spontaneous symbol acquisition and communicative use by pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus).