OS_13.3 - Brain and language acquisition research: Construction of recursive exercises for non verbal communication devices

Lowenthal, F. ¹ , Fortemps, P. ² & Wautie, V. ^{1, 2}

1 Cognitive Sciences, University of Mons, Mons (BE)
2 Mathematics and Operational Research, University of Mons, Mons (BE)

One of us (FL) has shown that Non-Verbal Communication Devices approaches (NVCDs) favor both the acquisition and the reacquisition of language skills (Lowenthal & Saerens, 1986). Lefebvre et al. (2007) have shown that these approaches favor the emergence of new cerebral abilities. Lowenthal (2007) formulate the hypothesis that these results are essentially associated to the use of recursive exercises in an NVCD approach. In order to test this hypothesis, the authors want to use finite automata enabling the subject to discover the regularity of the sequence of exits: they want to use in parallel non recursive, partially recursive and fully recursive exercises in three different but equivalent groups. This requires the construction of equivalent exercises of different types: clearly recursive, partially recursive and totally non recursive. For the researcher, the creation of such exercises is an arduous task. In this paper we describe a systematic and algorithmic approach for constructing such exercises. We will present a software adapted for these constructions. The intended experimental setting will also be discussed.