Abstract Action Language Processing in Eleven-Year-Old Children: Influence of Upper Limb Movement on Sentence Comprehension

Regarding the embodiment of language processing in adults, there is evidence of a close connection between sensorimotor brain areas and brain areas relevant to the processing of action verbs. This thesis is hotly debated and has therefore been thoroughly studied in adults. However, there are still questions concerning its development in children. The present study deals with the processing of action verbs in concrete and abstract sentences in 60 eleven-year-olds using a decision time paradigm. Sixty-five children mirrored arm movements or sat still and rated the semantic plausibility of sentences. The data of the current study suggest that eleven-year-olds are likely to misunderstand the meaning of action verbs in abstract contexts. Their decision times were faster and their error rates for action verbs in concrete sentences were lower. However, the gender of the children had a significant influence on the decision time and the number of errors, especially when processing abstract sentences. Females were more likely to benefit from an arm movement before the decision, while males were better if they sat still beforehand. Overall, children made quite a few errors when assessing the plausibility of sentences, but the female participants more often gave plausibility assessments that deviated from our expectations, especially when processing abstract sentences. It can be assumed that the embodiment of language processing plays some role in 11-year-old children, but is not yet as mature as it is in adults. Especially with regard to the processing of abstract language, the embodied system still has to change and mature in the course of child development.

Peningkatan Kemampuan Bahasa Anak Melalui Metode Bercerita Dengan Media Diorama

The purpose of this research was to determine the process of implementation of learning activities using storytelling methods with dioramas media in improving the language skills of children in group B and to know the extent of the results of improving children's language skills through storytelling methods with dioramas in group B. The method used in this research is an action research which refers to the model of a Classroom Action Research Kemmis and Mc. Taggart consist of four phase: planning, action, observation and reflection. This research consist of two cycles, each cycle consist of 6 times in actions. Analysis of the data used quantitative and qualitative approaches. Analysis of quantitative data used descriptive statistics that compare the results obtained from the first cycle and the second cycle. While the analysis of qualitative data used analyzing data from the field notes and interviews during the research by steps of data reduction, data display and data verification. The results showed an improvement in language skills through storytelling methods with dioramas, as evidenced by the average pre-action language proficiency score of children by 39%. Then increased in cycle I by 20% to 59%. Furthermore, from cycle I to cycle II children's language skills increased by 30% from 59% to 89%. So that the total improvement of children's language skills ranging from pre-action, cycle I to cycle II 39% which is 59% to 89%.

Cognitive performance and specific aspects of language processing are associated with Oldowan-like chert flaking and retouch

A vast amount of literature suggests a co-evolutionary relationship between Palaeolithic stone toolmaking, and cognition and specifically language. However, empirical data remain limited to indirect findings of neurophysiological studies. Furthermore, most Oldowan studies have used chert and have not investigated retouch, even though quartz and lava were predominant raw materials during periods of chert unavailability, and even though chert was disproportionately more frequently used for retouch compared to other raw materials during periods of chert availability, at least in the Olduvai Gorge. The study recruited 13 young adults with no prior experience in knapping. Subjects were taught by an experienced knapper to produce quartz choppers and chert sidescrapers in either a verbal or gestural condition. Two raters rated on a 5-point scale the subjects’ performances on specific steps of the two stone toolmaking tasks. In a post-experimental interview, subjects stated which aspects of the tasks they preferred or disfavored. Subjects also performed on a neuropsychological battery encompassing visuospatial, executive functioning, and linguistic tasks. Given the small sample size, the results should be regarded as exploratory and preliminary. Our results are further limited to the early acquisition phase and may not reflect processes in modern experienced knappers. Descriptive data suggested better performance across all stone toolmaking variables in the verbal compared to gestural condition, but only flake quality on the sidescraper task was significantly different between groups. Analyses of the stone toolmaking variables suggested subjects perceived quartz and chert flaking very differently. Correlational and other analyses suggested that quartz chopper manufacture was not associated with cognitive performance. Conversely, chert flaking and retouch were strongly associated with visuospatial working memory, showing that subjects with a higher memory span produced better chert flakes and retouch. Retouch only was moderately associated with executive functioning measures, showing subjects who made fewer errors on the tasks were better on retouch. Specific aspects of chert flaking were also associated with verbal fluency performance, showing, among others, moderate and strong positive associations with the productivity and rate of production of syntactically transitive verbs on action fluency. Evolutionary implications can be drawn from our research only if we controversially assume similar results would have been obtained had we tested early hominins and not modern humans. Following this axiom, our results suggest that Oldowan hominins relied on modern-like visuospatial working memory during chert flaking and retouch, and, to a lesser degree, modern-like executive functioning during chert retouch. This is contrary to previous Oldowan studies suggesting no involvement of executive functioning during Oldowan-like flaking. Results from the linguistic tasks controversially suggest that some of the prerequisites for aspects of action language and syntactic transitivity (verb-object phrases) in modern humans were to some degree present in Oldowan hominin populations. Because Olduvai Gorge hominins readily incorporated chert for stone toolmaking in periods of chert availability, our results suggest that these cognitive capacities were phylogenetically not related to chert knapping. Finally, we propose that the quality of performance on Oldowan flaking and retouch may not reflect the full level of cognitive capacities of Oldowan populations. We provide the first direct evidence for an association between Palaeolithic stone toolmaking and cognitive performance in modern humans, while previous studies have inferred cognitive processes from neuroimaging data. We also provide the first direct evidence for an association between Palaeolithic stone toolmaking, and action language and simple syntactic transitivity in modern humans.

Elaboration Tolerant Representation of Markov Decision Process via Decision-Theoretic Extension of Probabilistic Action Language +

We extend probabilistic action language $p{\cal BC}$ + with the notion of utility in decision theory. The semantics of the extended $p{\cal BC}$ + can be defined as a shorthand notation for a decision-theoretic extension of the probabilistic answer set programming language LPMLN. Alternatively, the semantics of $p{\cal BC}$ + can also be defined in terms of Markov decision process (MDP), which in turn allows for representing MDP in a succinct and elaboration tolerant way as well as leveraging an MDP solver to compute a $p{\cal BC}$ + action description. The idea led to the design of the system pbcplus2mdp, which can find an optimal policy of a $p{\cal BC}$ + action description using an MDP solver.

Enhancing Motor Brain Activity Improves Memory for Action Language: A tDCS Study

The embodied cognition approach to linguistic meaning posits that action language understanding is grounded in sensory–motor systems. However, evidence that the human motor cortex is necessary for action language memory is meager. To address this issue, in two groups of healthy individuals, we perturbed the left primary motor cortex (M1) by means of either anodal or cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), before participants had to memorize lists of manual action and attentional sentences. In each group, participants received sham and active tDCS in two separate sessions. Following anodal tDCS (a-tDCS), participants improved the recall of action sentences compared with sham tDCS. No similar effects were detected following cathodal tDCS (c-tDCS). Both a-tDCS and c-tDCS induced variable changes in motor excitability, as measured by motor-evoked potentials induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation. Remarkably, across groups, action-specific memory improvements were positively predicted by changes in motor excitability. We provide evidence that excitatory modulation of the motor cortex selectively improves performance in a task requiring comprehension and memory of action sentences. These findings indicate that M1 is necessary for accurate processing of linguistic meanings and thus provide causal evidence that high-order cognitive functions are grounded in the human motor system.

Hybrid conditional planning for robotic applications

Robots who have partial observability of and incomplete knowledge about their environments may have to consider contingencies while planning, and thus necessitate cognitive abilities beyond classical planning. Moreover, during planning, they need to consider continuous feasibility checks for executability of the plans in the real world. Conditional planning is concerned with reaching goals from an initial state, in the presence of incomplete knowledge and partial observability, by considering all contingencies and by utilizing sensing actions to gather relevant knowledge when needed. A conditional plan is essentially a tree of actions where each branch of the tree represents a possible execution of actuation actions and sensing actions to reach a goal state. Hybrid conditional planning extends conditional planning by integrating feasibility checks into executability conditions of actions. We introduce a parallel offline algorithm, called HCPlan, for computing hybrid conditional plans. HCPlan relies on modeling deterministic effects of actuation actions and non-deterministic effects of sensing actions in the causality-based action language [Formula: see text]. Branches of a hybrid conditional plan are computed in parallel using a SAT solver, where continuous feasibility checks are performed as needed. We develop a comprehensive benchmark suite and introduce new evaluation metrics for hybrid conditional planning. We evaluate HCPlan with extensive experiments in terms of computational efficiency and plan quality. We perform experiments to compare HCPlan with other related conditional planners and approaches to deal with contingencies due to incomplete knowledge. We further demonstrate the applicability and usefulness of HCPlan in service robotics applications, through dynamic simulations and physical implementations.