[Research] [Publications]

Gregory Caza

MSc, Cognitive Science

I was supervised by Ali Knott from the Computer Science department. I also worked as a research assistant, in the Action, Brain, and Cognition Lab.

My master's was awarded in March, 2009. I am currently in Canada, moving forward with my research when I can fit it around work.

Research

I am interested in infants' skills of joint attention and intention recognition, and the roles these two abilities play in language acquisition.

Allow me to elaborate.... There is pretty solid evidence that, sharing a child's attention using referential cues will facilitate the learning of object labels. For example, a mother looks at a kiwi bird and says "Look, junior. There's a kiwi over there!" A child can follow the mother's gaze to the bird and learn that it is called a 'kiwi', sometimes after only one exposure. It's not the only way that words are learned and it's not a necessary condition, but it does help.

However, this ability does not emerge until approximately 18 months of age, even though speech generally begins around 12 months of age. Why at 18 months? What is going on inside the little brain when it happens? These are some of the questions for my research.

Publications, Conferences, and Presentations

Caza, G. A. and Knott, A. Pragmatic Bootstrapping: a neural network model of vocabulary acquisition. 2011, in press.

Caza, G. A. The role of social-pragmatic cues in word learning: a neural network model. Master's thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Otago. March, 2009.

Caza, G. A. Computational Model of Cognitive Development: Filtering Ambient Speech to Facilitate Word Learning. In Proceedings of NZCSRSC '08, the Sixth New Zealand Computer Research Student Conference. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. April, 2008.

Caza, G. A. Learning to recognise relevant ambient speech: a computational model. In Proceedings of 15th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Human Development Association. Sydney, Australia. July, 2007.

Caza, G. A. Computational Model of Plan Competition in the Prefrontal Cortex. In Proceedings of NZCSRSC '07, the Fifth New Zealand Computer Science Research Student Conference. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. April, 2007.

Representative References

Baldwin, D. A. and Moses, L. J. (1996). The Ontogeny of Social Information Gathering. Child Development, 67, 1915-1939.

Braver, T. S. and Cohen, J. D. (2000). On the Control of Control: The Role of Dopamin in Regulating Prefrontal Function and Working Memory. In Control of Cognitive Processes: Attention and Performance, Volume XVIII, Cambridge, MA, USA, 713-737. MIT Press.

Elman, J. L. (1993). Learning and development in neural networks: the importance of starting small. Cognition, 48, 71-99.

Miller, E. K. and Cohen, J. D. (2001). An Integrative Theory of Prefrontal Cortex Function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 167-202.

Sabbagh, M. A. and Baldwin, D. A. (2005). Understanding the Role of Communicative Intentions in Word Learing. In N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, T. McCormack, and J. Roessler (Eds.), Joint Attention: Communication and Other Minds, Oxford, England, 165-184. Oxford University Press.

Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press.

Yu, C. and Ballard, D. H. (2007). A unified model of early word learning: Integrating statistical and social cues. Neurocomputing, 70, , 2149-2165.

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