Project Summary
One of the fundamental outstanding problems in our scientific
understanding of intelligence concerns the origins of language and
meaning. A great deal is known about the structure and functioning of
natural language through linguistics and natural language
processing research. AI and cognitive psychology have also developed
sophisticated knowledge representation and reasoning schemes. But so
far, specific knowledge representations, lexicons, phonological
conventions, grammars and discourse patterns have to be explicitly
implemented based on extensive knowledge modeling, knowledge
acquisition, formalization, and programming. This project is focusing
on mechanisms that would generate these representations and
conventions in a self-organizing manner. Such an approach does not
only contribute to basic research issues in cognitive science and
biology, but also contributes to making a bottom-up approach towards
intelligence possible.
Another fundamental problem related to language and meaning is the
grounding problem. This is the question of how language and
representations can be tightly interconnected to bridge the gap
between reality and symbols representing it. The project tackles this
issue by studying the processes of meaning creation and language
formation in situated robotic agents operating in a dynamically
evolving open ecosystem.
Three hypotheses have been and are being examined:
- Language is an open, distributed adaptive system which is
transmitted and evolves culturally (as opposed to genetically).
- Meaning originates in situated action. Meaning is what matters to
the agent as it engages in perceptually grounded activity principally
targeted towards remaining viable.
- Language and meaning co-evolve. Meaning continually arises when
the agent interacts with the environment or other agents but it is
only through language that meaning can be kept for further usage and
storage and can be shared by the rest of the group.
Funding
The project funded by a Concerted Research Action fund (G.O.A.,
"Geconcerteerde Onderzoeks Actie") of the Flemish Government and the
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Duration
1997-2002
Collaborators
The people involved in this projects are, among others:
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