What the infant’s brain tells the CIO
by
Rolf Kubli
Could you imagine the brain of an infant telling us something about future information systems?
I could. Consider the findings of the following piece of research. Between the age of 6 and 12 months, we learn the phonetic units of language. Studies show that infants are capable of discerning differences among the phonetic units (sound elements) of all languages, including native- and foreign-language sounds.
In a first experiment, 9-month-old American infants were exposed to native mandarin Chinese speakers in 12 sessions over a 4-week period (a control group also participated in 12 language sessions, but heard only English). During these sessions, native speakers of Mandarin read from children's books for 10 minutes and played with toys for 15 minutes. Then learning effects such as speech discrimination were measured, showing significant learning.
In a second experiment, infants were exposed to the same foreign-language speakers and materials, but now via audio-visual or audio-only recordings. Guess what happened? Nothing! Foreign-language exposure in the absence of a live person shows no learning!
Seemingly, phonetic learning from complex language input relies on more than raw auditory sensory information. It needs referential information, environmental information, social cues and context.
This reminds me of the "ubiquitous edge," the anticipated growth of sensors and peripheral "devices (such as RFID), and the associated exponential growth of content and context information.
In other words, the emerging context awareness of devices and the multi-channel, correlated input feeding our information systems might boost the learning and adaptation capabilities of future IT systems and consequently take the agility of organisations to the next level.
