Zabawki kognitywne

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Zabawki kognitywne

• Wlodzislaw Duch
• Katedra Informatyki Stosowanej UMK
• http//www.phys.uni.torun.pl/duch
• (Google Duch)

2
Plan

• Background cognitive development
• Few science facts
• Proposed invention
• Plans, strategy of development
• Possibilities ...

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Odkrycie dziecinstwa

• W 1900 srednia dlugosc zycia to 45 lat, wiek
  wczesniej 35 lat.Królowa Anna Stuart miala 18
  dzieci,tylko jedno dozylo do 11 roku, maz zmarl
  w wieku 25 lat a ona sama 37.
• Nie bylo czasu na dziecinstwo, nie bylo zabawek.
• Dzieci rodzilo sie duzo, wysylalo sie je na
  wies.Niewiele przezywalo, rzadko mialy kontakt z
  rodzicami.
• Efekt Jamesa R. Flynna sredni iloraz
  inteligencji rosnie we wszystkich krajach
  poczatku XX w !100 punktów IQ to srednia dla
  populacji. W zaleznosci od testów co pokolenie
  (20 lat)wartosc ta rosnie od 7-15 punktów!
• Dlaczego? Zlozone srodowisko? Odzywianie? A moze
  lepsze dziecinstwo i rozwój mózgu?

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Cognitive development

• Brain the ultimate engineering problem!
• Genes important, but setting only a hard to
  reach limit for potential individual development
  early development is critical for unfolding this
  potential.
• Challenge boost the normal development, prevent
  abnormalities, dyslexia and others.
• Maximum number of neurons 1-2 month before
  birth, although infants brain is ¼ of the final
  size. Since genes cannot specify where
  individual neurons should go (ex eye to visual
  cortex, across the whole brain) too many are
  created, and those unused die.
• General principle growing up is specializing
  narrowing potential possibilities. How to keep
  more possibilities open?

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Infant communication

• Brain is there, but sensory analysis and motor
  coordination makes it difficult to communicate.
• Suction-methods are used with newborns and
  infants to find how much interest they have in
  different stimuli.
• Sign-language for communication with infants (US
  patent) using simple signs with babies to bridge
  the gap between understanding and speech
  development
• Recommendations of developmental psychologists
  pre-natal stimulation BabyPlus enhanced
  heartbeat, playing music to babies in the womb.
  Playing tapes with foreign language lullabies
  etc.
• All this is passive learning, much less effective
  than learning in which the infant is actively
  engaging. Can one learn walking just by
  observation? Listing must also be active.

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Speech perception facts

• Speech perception is based on syllables,
  combinations of elementary phonemes 2-month old
  recognize syllables.
• There are about 6800 languages, but only 800
  phonemes.
• The ability to hear phonetic contrasts of all
  possible human languages is in-born, 6 month old
  are good in any language.
• This ability declines sharply 10 month after
  birth, only the ability to distinguish contrast
  in languages that are spoken to the child is
  preserved one of the earliest specializations.
• At 5 month children are able to categorize a
  vowel in a speaker-independent way (figure
  Korean-French).
• Learning many languages correlates positively
  with IQ
• Tonal languages, prevalent in Asia, are
  phonetically rich, but even simple /ra/-/la/
  contrast is impossible for Japanese, /vi/-/bi/
  for Spanish, /s/-/th/ for most non-English native
  speakers.

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Speech-learning patents

• My initial application (full rights) since 1997,
  granted in 2002, covers only Poland.
• Many patents are related to language learning,
  but for older children, playing video, using
  keyboards etc.
• Communication and feedback system for promoting
  development of physically disadvantaged persons
  Patent Number US5260869, Northeaster University.
  
• Most similar patents Development language
  system for infants, by Hannah R Cohen
  (US)US5893720, 1999-04-13 US5964593,
  1999-10-12 Second application contains a more
  detail version of the claims, otherwise it is
  identical.

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US5893720 abstract

• Hannah R Cohen (US) 1999 patent
• A computer toy for infants that promotes normal
  speech development by facilitating the infant's
  experimentation with babbles and other elementary
  sounds. Additionally, the toy provides an
  enriched environment for language learning by
  prompting the infant with a repertoire of verbal
  sounds including phonemes, syllables, and simple
  spoken words. The toy includes a microphone
  input device for detecting vocalizations by an
  infant and an audiovisual output device for
  providing feedback to the infant including the
  immediate playback of the infant's own
  vocalizations, and a control means for
  transforming detected vocalizations into
  instructions for use by the audiovisual output
  device.

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Key ideas

• Enhance recognition of phonetic contrasts, not
  just encourage and play with the babbles.
• If the infant notices phonetic contrasts,
  positive stimulation for signaling that the
  difference has been noted is applied.
• Use active learning feedback from infants is
  obtained by analysis of sound or movements they
  produce.
• The infant may not be able to repeat the
  phonemes development of the ability to speak
  requires changes in the larynx, highly
  sophisticated control over vocal cords, and is
  slower than neural development.
• Feedback signal change in vocalization, between
  babbling and silence, between different
  babblings.

10
Scheme

• Software version has been implemented, but this
  was based on a wrong assumption that an infant
  will be able to repeat the syllable or phoneme
  this is replaced by a simpler feedback.

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Imagine ...

• A world in which people could communicate
  without problems and even adults learn languages
  easily.
• A world in which developmental abnormalities
  related to speech and reading would largely
  vanish.
• A world much more rich in subtle sensory
  experiences now only 110.000 has perfect pitch.
• A world in which the potential of each child
  would be fully developed ...
• We just have to start early, adding structure to
  the development of the brain in a natural,
  effortless way.
• This is possible with cognitive toys!
• Speech perception is just the first step. The
  demand for such toys can easily reach 10 million
  units/year.

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Further possibilities

• General learning strategy specialization of
  function. Infants are able to learn anything
  within human reach.
• Active toys providing feedback for improving all
  senses, starting from the most early age.
• Music perception, development of perfect pitch
  ear.
• Visual acuity, subtle discrimination of colors
  later stage.
• French approach develop taste, for school
  children.
• Development of general intelligence through
  challenging interactions with cognitive toys!
  G. Marcus et al, Rule learning by
  seven-month-old infants, Science 1999, Vol. 283,
  pp. 77 80.

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Roadmap

• Patent application for phonetic/musical
  discrimination to facilitate development of
  speech/music hearing.
• Possibly a second patent on toys providing
  intellectual challenges to infants.
• Creation of phonetic database most important
  phonetic contrasts for major languages, syllables
  and words which are hard to distinguish, like
  van/ban, thick/sick, extending it to cover subtle
  differences, full spectrum of speech sounds.
• Feedback recognition systems software for
  recognition of vowels/consonants, sounds that
  infants may use for signaling.
• Creation of a chip, with software for control,
  recognition of feedback, memory of sounds to be
  presented.
• Creation of actual toy, testing, and
  commercialization.

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Research opportunities

• Multi-disciplinary engineering, signal
  processing, behavioral, data mining,
  neurolinguistics, developmental psychology,
  education ...
• Psychoacoustic models of speech perception,
  database of all phonemes, syllables, short words
  useful for phonetic contrast enhancement.
• Natural sounds and artificially generated, from
  basic set of most important phonemes to a wide
  set of all possible speech sounds that should
  cover all languages.
• Follow-up studies to investigate the effect of
  using cognitive speech toys on phonetic contrast
  perception (a few month), language learning
  (long-term studies) and reduction of speech and
  reading abnormalities (long-term).
• Music perception, development of perfect pitch
  ear as a result of early training.

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Collaboration

• Possible collaboration at NTU
• NIE Some research with pre-school children, but
  no infants?
• MPE Center for Human Factors, have experience,
  but not with infants.
• IC/speech experts
• In Singapore
• NUS has behavioral lab, used for
  developmentally delayed children research (Lynne
  Tan).
• Toy industry?
• Outside
• Tomohiro Takagi, Human Interface Lab, Meiji
  University.
• Masumi Ishikawa, Life Science, KIT, behavioral
  rules.
• MIT Media Lab.