| dc.description.abstract | This work explores the interaction between pragmatic reasoning and concept learning. Specifically, it examines how reasoning about a speaker’s intentions influences
concept learning, as well as how learners’ beliefs about the meanings of novel words
interact when those words are known to have distinct meanings.
The study comprises an experiment where participants learn two concepts simultaneously, involving the elicitation of conversational implicatures. The experimental
results are then used to fit cognitive models.
The model for pragmatics being used is the Lexical Uncertainty Model, which is
based on the Rational Speech Act framework. This is a Bayesian model, where
hypotheses about concept meanings need to be clearly defined in order to evaluate
whether experimental observations (such as seeing trials’ feedback) support them.
This is where Languages of Thought prove useful, as they account for concepts being realized through compositions of symbols, thereby allowing hypotheses about
concept meanings to be represented as logical expressions.
The experimental results provide no clear indication that participants engage
in conversational implicatures, whereas the cognitive models including pragmatic
reasoning do not exhibit a significantly better fit with the experimental data.
Nevertheless, these results should be considered preliminary, as the participant pool
was very limited, and individuals capable of the required pragmatic reasoning for
this task are uncommon. Furthermore, there is still a vast margin of improvement
on the methodologies, given the complexity of the study. | |
