H2020Индивидуална стипендия2020–2022

SymBa · Relational Symmetry in the Baboon: towards symbols and language

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2020-05-01 → 2022-07-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 184 708 €
Участници: 1
Схема: MSCA-IF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Способността за установяване на двупосочни връзки между обекти, например между дума и предмет, се тества при хора и павиани. Резултатите ще помогнат да се разбере дали съществува когнитивна разлика между нас и животните при усвояването на езика.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

Relational Symmetry in the Baboon: towards symbols and language

In this 2-year project, we had proposed to try to resolve a paradox. On the one hand, non-human animals such as monkeys or birds are known to be endowed with advanced skills at high cognitive levels (metacognition, decision making, theory of mind, etc.). On the other hand, the same animals are thought to have a basic incapacity in a low cognitive levels, that of encoding bidirectional associations between simple stimuli - the capacity is called "Associative Symmetry". In contrast, humans appear to be proficient in associative symmetry and it is thought that this capacity confers them with an enhanced ability to acquire language, notably for the mental bidirectional (=symmetrical) relations between words and the objects/actions they refer to. Such a situation appears untenable scientifically and may represent a big deficiency in our understanding of how cognition, and brains in general, work. Resolving this paradox thus has the potential to remove a large stumbling block. We set out to conduct a series of behavioral experiments in a non-human model species (the Guinea baboon), taking advantage of our world-unique computerized setup for automatized experiments, located in Rousset close to Marseille. In complement, we decided to conduct behavioral experiments on human participants in the lab as well as on the Internet, again taking advantage of the latest technology for automatized computerized data acquisition. The goal of these experiments was to test whether in baboons associative symmetry is really absent, and whether in humans it is as robust as generally reported. If both our hypothesis were true, this would call for reconsideration of the alleged cognitive gap of "Associative Symmetry" and question our understanding of human specificities. Next to empirical work, our aim was to also critically examine the evidence available in the human literature, as well as potentially come up with new theoretical propositions to integrate or findings in the existing data and theory. Success with this agenda would help resolve contradictions in our accounts of cognitive capacities in species other than humans, and contribute to improving our understanding of the basis of language acquisistion in humans.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Language and the symbolic use of labels underpin human cognition. As these features imply back and forths between label and labelled object, they require relational symmetry: the capacity to reverse a learned relation A->B into B->A. In non-human animals, such flexible encoding of bidirectional relations has been difficult to obtain experimentally, mostly due to their failure to reverse stimulus relations. This apparent absence of symmetry suggests an evolutionary gap at the origin of human language. Yet, a number of procedural biases, inlcuding perceptual ones, may account for this failure to demonstrate symmetry. Moreover, all studies have relied on specific motor outputs to reveal symmetry, whereas symmetric relations may simply not be learned in such an explicit form. Using the baboon as model primate species, and a worldwide unique, automatized, high-throughput behavioral platform as experimental system, we will conduct new experiments to re-assess this question. We will implement relational learning procedures which correct for all biases identified in past experiments, and rely on implicit rather than explicit measurements to test for the emergence of symmetry. Furthermore, we will study the effects of symmetry on stimulus networks, to assess the baboons’ abilities for flexible relational encoding when more stimuli are involved. A crucial feature of natural intelligence such as relational symnetry ought to be also considered in Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, as their relational learning abilities are still limited. We will thus investigate the capacity of existing connectionnist models (e.g. Recurrent Neural Networks) to learn symmetrical associations of stimuli, and will explore new architectures able to implement symmetry. Both symmetry or its absence in baboons would inform about the fundaments of human cognition. Hence, far-reaching implications are expected from this project, which may open new avenues of research in both AI and psychology.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisКоординаторФранция