Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!vlsi_lib
From: vlsi_lib@netcom.com (Gerard Malecki)
Subject: Re: What's innate? (Was Re: Artificial Neural Networks and Cognition
Message-ID: <vlsi_libD33GzF.Js0@netcom.com>
Organization: VLSI Libraries Incorporated
References: <3gbknj$7tj@mp.cs.niu.edu> <vlsi_libD33461.36s@netcom.com> <3gc5al$hlv@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 02:45:15 GMT
Lines: 52

In article <3gc5al$hlv@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>In <vlsi_libD33461.36s@netcom.com> vlsi_lib@netcom.com (Gerard Malecki) writes:

>It is my understanding that sign languages such as ASL, or
>such as develop spontaneously, are considered full languages.
>They supposedly have syntaxes of complexity comparable to that
>of spoken language, but with variations due to the different
>degrees of flexibility available (3-dimension motions, for example).
>Sign languages constructed from spoken languages may be considered
>more primitive.
>
>>Is it the same part of the brain (for eg., Broca's area or whatever) that
>>controls sign language coherency?
>
>There will obviously be some differences, since different muscles are
>used.  It is my impression that there is a lot of overlap, including
>Broca's area.  I can't speak with certainty, because I have tended to
>avoid getting involved with brain areas.  I think those matters can
>be very misleading at this stage of our knowledge.

Makes sense. I believe that it is only a short step from the mental 
language engine to the actual action of communication (be it spoken,
sign language, typing or writing). But things can go wrong even here.
For example, it is widely believed that stuttering is caused not because
of a defective syntactic engine, but rather in the motor area that
controls jaw movements. Similarly a person who learns typing is able
to communicate at a faster rate than someone who hasn't though the other
person may be better at verbal communication. I think we can talk of
bandwidths here. We have two of them, one being the inherent language
engine and the other that of the translation process (typing or speaking).
If the former exceeds the latter (as is the case of someone who does
single-finger touch typing) the overall communication while
being low bandwidth, would have more semantic content and be more
organized. In the other case, there could either be annoying pauses
or nonsensical blabbering depending on which part has more control.

>
>>                                  In general, how are both significantly
>>different from learning a skill like juggling or playing a video game? In
>>the latter we have the syntactic rules replaced by the rules of the game.
>
>But there is a much richer semantics in language than in video game
>playing.
>
Games like chess have a rich semantic content in addition to rules. But
I guess it is of a totally different type and to include it in this
discussion would be like comparing apples and oranges.

Shankar Ramakrishnan
shankar@vlibs.com


