Sviluppo Cognitivo e Naming Explosion, il contributo dei modelli computazionali nello studio delle tappe fondamentali dell'acquisizione del linguaggio

The aim of this article is to focus the use of computational models in the study of language acquisition. Specifically, we will refer to a kind of model - neural networks - whose primary focus is to simulate the computations that occur in the brain. These models, moreover, assume the biological plausibility and the psychological plausibility as their hallmarks. After examining some central issues that affect the process of language learning in the specific phase of the vocabulary spurt (the multimodality of human cognition and the trajectory of cognitive and linguistic development), we will show, through the analysis of two computational approaches, how these issues are computationally addressed.