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Phonemic Coding Might Result From Sensory-Motor Coupling Dynamics

Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves (2002) Phonemic Coding Might Result From Sensory-Motor Coupling Dynamics. [Conference Paper]

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Abstract

Human sound systems are invariably phonemically coded. Furthermore, phoneme inventories follow very particular tendancies. To explain these phenomena, there existed so far three kinds of approaches : ``Chomskyan''/cognitive innatism, morpho-perceptual innatism and the more recent approach of ``language as a complex cultural system which adapts under the pressure of efficient communication''. The two first approaches are clearly not satisfying, while the third, even if much more convincing, makes a lot of speculative assumptions and did not really bring answers to the question of phonemic coding. We propose here a new hypothesis based on a low-level model of sensory-motor interactions. We show that certain very simple and non language-specific neural devices allow a population of agents to build signalling systems without any functional pressure. Moreover, these systems are phonemically coded. Using a realistic vowel articulatory synthesizer, we show that the inventories of vowels have striking similarities with human vowel systems.

Item Type:Conference Paper
Keywords:speech, phonemic coding, particulate speech, agents, self-organisation, regularities, discreteness, digitalness shared sound system \sep production \sep perception
Subjects:Computer Science > Language
Computer Science > Dynamical Systems
Linguistics > Computational Linguistics
Neuroscience > Computational Neuroscience
Psychology > Psycholinguistics
Computer Science > Neural Nets
Computer Science > Speech
Biology > Theoretical Biology
Neuroscience > Neurolinguistics
Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence
Linguistics > Phonology
ID Code:2658
Deposited By: Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves
Deposited On:12 Mar 2003
Last Modified:11 Mar 2011 08:55

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