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Kids store 1.5 megabytes of information to master their native language
[...] research from UC Berkeley suggests that language acquisition between birth and 18 is a remarkable feat of cognition, rather than something humans are just hardwired to do.
Researchers calculated that, from infancy to young adulthood, learners absorb approximately 12.5 million bits of information about language — about two bits per minute — to fully acquire linguistic knowledge. If converted into binary code, the data would fill a 1.5 MB floppy disk, the study found.
The findings, published today in the Royal Society Open Science journal, challenge assumptions that human language acquisition happens effortlessly, and that robots would have an easy time mastering it.
"Ours is the first study to put a number on the amount you have to learn to acquire language," said study senior author Steven Piantadosi, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. "It highlights that children and teens are remarkable learners, absorbing upwards of 1,000 bits of information each day."
For example, when presented with the word "turkey," a young learner typically gathers bits of information by asking, "Is a turkey a bird? Yes, or no? Does a turkey fly? Yes, or no?" and so on, until grasping the full meaning of the word "turkey."
Humans store about 1.5 megabytes of information during language acquisition (open, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.181393) (DX)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:20PM
FWIW, wild turkeys *can* fly. They don't like to, but they can. Domestic turkeys are too overweight, and it's common practice for those raising them to break one of their wings or at least clip the feathers short, so they can't fly at all. (Even without the wing mutilation, they're too heavy, but they *ought* to be able to manage a decent glide.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.