On the Computational Modeling of Meaning: Embodied Cognition Intertwined with Emotion

TL;DR

This paper explores how embodied cognition and emotion influence language understanding and acquisition, emphasizing the importance of perception, action, and emotional context in developing models of language learning inspired by children.

Contribution

It synthesizes ideas on embodiment and emotion in language acquisition, proposing requirements for language-learning agents based on child development insights.

Findings

Embodiment is crucial for understanding both concrete and abstract concepts.

Emotion and cognition are interconnected in language learning.

Guidelines for developing child-like language-learning agents.

Abstract

This document chronicles this author's attempt to explore how words come to mean what they do, with a particular focus on child language acquisition and what that means for models of language understanding.\footnote{I say \emph{historical} because I synthesize the ideas based on when I discovered them and how those ideas influenced my later thinking.} I explain the setting for child language learning, how embodiment -- being able to perceive and enact in the world, including knowledge of concrete and abstract concepts -- is crucial, and how emotion and cognition relate to each other and the language learning process. I end with what I think are some of the requirements for a language-learning agent that learns language in a setting similar to that of children. This paper can act as a potential guide for ongoing and future work in modeling language.