20 papers · ranked by Valyu relevance
Helena Miton, Olivier Morin
A writing system is a graphic code, i.e., a system of standardized pairings between symbols and meanings in which symbols take the form of images that can endure. The visual character of writing implies that written characters have to fit constraints of the human visual system. One aspect of this optimization lays in…
Guangyuan Jiang, Matthias Hofer, Jiayuan Mao, Lionel Wong + 2 more
'Joshua B. Tenenbaum' 'Roger Lévy'] One hallmark of human language is its combinatoriality reusing a relatively small inventory of building blocks to create a far larger inventory of increasingly complex structures. In this paper, we explore the idea that combinatoriality in language reflects a human inductive bias…
Simon J. Han, Piers Kelly, James Winters, Charles Kemp
Linguistic systems are hypothesised to be shaped by pressures towards communicative efficiency that drive processes of simplification. A longstanding illustration of this idea is the claim that Chinese characters have progressively simplified over time. Here we test this claim by analyzing a dataset with more than half…
Alexander Porto, Nikolai Huckle, Alexander Basalyga, Julio Santiago + 1 more
'Alexander Kranjec'] Writing systems are an underused source of stimuli for behavioral and computational experiments in cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, and anthropology, despite being ecologically relevant and systematically different in shape, structure, and orientation. One possible reason that glyphs of…
Leyi Qian, Yan Cheng, Yali Zhao
In studies on second language writing, linguistic complexity exhibited by learners has long been regarded as being indicative of writing proficiency. However, there are relatively scant studies focusing on the diversity and structural elaboration of complexity in L2 production data that are extracted from high-stakes…
Rana Yassin, David L. Share, Yasmin Shalhoub-Awwad
Learning to spell is a challenging process, especially for young learners, in part because it relies on multiple aspects of linguistic knowledge, primarily phonological and morphological. However, alongside these universals, there are significant writing system specifics, namely, language-specific and script-specific…
G. V. Bency Sherin, A. Abijesh Euphrine, A. Lenora Moreen, Laurence José
'Laurence José'] UniGlyph represents a groundbreaking venture into the realm of constructed languages (conlangs), aiming to establish a universal transliteration system using a script derived from seven-segment characters. Its core objective is to foster cross-language communication through the provision of a flexible…
Benjamin Gagl, Julius Golch, Stefan Hawelka, Jona Sassenhagen + 2 more
Across languages, the speech signal is characterized by a ~4-5 Hz rhythm of the amplitude modulation spectrum, reflecting the processing of linguistic information chunks approximately every 200 ms. Interestingly, ~200 ms is also the typical eye-fixation duration during reading. Prompted by this observation, we…
Manali Naik, V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy
We present Bharati, a simple, novel script that can represent the characters of a majority of contemporary Indian scripts. The shapes/motifs of Bharati characters are drawn from some of the simplest characters of existing Indian scripts. Bharati characters are designed such that they strictly reflect the underlying…
V. T. Rajan
Analysis of scripts plays an important role in paleography and in quantitative linguistics. Especially in the field of digital paleography quantitative features are much needed to differentiate glyphs. We describe an elaborate set of metrics that quantify qualitative information contained in characters and hence…
Alaa Ghandour, Emmanuel Trouche, Dominique Guillo, Sylviane Valdois
The present study sets out to explore the cognitive underpinnings of reading acquisition in Arabic. Previous studies have identified phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming as early predictors. However, the graphic complexity of Arabic letters imposes particular constraints on the visual system, which…
Chihiro Taguchi, David Chiang
Complexity Hurts, Phonological Complexity Doesn't Authors: ['Chihiro Taguchi' 'David Chiang'] We investigate what linguistic factors affect the performance of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) models. We hypothesize that orthographic and phonological complexities both degrade accuracy. To examine this, we finetune the…
Serhii Hamotskyi, Anis Rojbi, Sergii Stirenko, Yuri Gordienko
—In this paper, we discuss the generation of symbols (and alphabets) based on specific user requirements (medium, priorities, type of information that needs to be conveyed). A framework for the generation of alphabets is proposed, and its use for the generation of a shorthand writing system is explored. We discuss the…
Xiaoxia Feng, Irene Altarelli, Karla Monzalvo, Guosheng Ding + 5 more
Are the brain mechanisms of reading acquisition similar across writing systems? And do similar brain anomalies underlie reading disabilities in alphabetic and ideographic reading systems? In a cross-cultural paradigm, we measured the fMRI responses to words, faces and houses of 96 Chinese and French 10-year-old…
David L. Share
There has been mounting concern among social scientists that conclusions from studies conducted on highly educated populations from affluent European cultures may have limited applicability to human behavior in general (Henrich et al., [23]). Similar reservations have also been voiced in the fields of language (Evans…
Richard Apodaca
Despite its widespread use, Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry System (SMILES) remains underspecified. The lack of a detailed specification encourages improvisation by software developers, complicates data standardization efforts, and undermines extension development. Balsa, a reformulation of SMILES, addresses…
Swarnendu Moitra, Dustin A. Chacón, Linnaea Stockall
This paper presents a magnetoencephalography (MEG) study on reading in Bangla, an east Indo-Aryan language predominantly written in an abugida script. The study aims to uncover how visual stimuli are processed and mapped onto abstract linguistic representations in the brain. Specifically, we investigate the neural…
Carlo Y. Meloni, Jessica K. Ivani, Taras Zakharko, Guanghao You + 2 more
The acquisition of writing has a lasting effect on how languages are processed in the brain, raising the possibility that it also affects how they are used and evolve over time. A popular hypothesis is that writing specifically leads to increased use and evolution of complex hierarchical structures in language. While…
Giuliana Pinto, Lucia Bigozzi, Christian Tarchi, Monica Camilloni
This study assessed the efficacy of PASSI (Promoting the Achievement of Sound-Sign Integration), an intervention to improve children's conceptual knowledge of the Italian writing system in kindergarten, which is an emergent literacy predictor of reading and spelling acquisition focused on letter-speech sound…
Authors not listed
Laser modification of polymer surfaces is critical in many contexts including self-cleaning materials, microelectronics, and biomedical research. Despite their utility, accessing these modified polymers requires expensive or complex materials and multi-step fabrication, masking, and washing processes. Here, we present…