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A computer program that learns to decode sounds from different languages in the same way that a baby does helps to shed new light on how people learn to talk, researchers say.
They say the finding casts doubt on theories that babies are born knowing all the possible sounds in all of the world's languages.
Professor James McClelland, a psychology professor at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, says his computer program supports the theory that babies sort through sounds until they understand the structure of a language.
The problem facing the child is "how many categories are there and how should I think about it. We're trying to propose a method that solves that problem." The work appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Expanding on existing ideas, Professor McClelland and a team of researchers developed a computer model that resembles the brain processes a baby uses when learning about speech.
They tested their model by exposing it to "training sessions" that consisted of analysing recorded speech in both English and Japanese between mothers and babies.
What they found is the computer was able to learn basic vowel sounds right along with baby.
"It learns how many sounds there are.
"It figures that out," he said.
And if the computer can do it, he said, a baby can, too.
"In the past, people have tried to argue it wasn't possible for any machine to learn these things, and so it had to be hard-wired [in humans]. Those arguments were not particularly well grounded."
- Reuters
