Grounded Pronoun Learning and Pronoun Reversal

An embodied language-learning system is presented that can learn the correct deictic meanings for the words “I” and “you.” The system uses contextual clues from already understood words and sensory information from its environment to determine the most likely grounding for a new word. The system also serves as a model for the phenomenon of pronoun reversal among congenitally blind children, as the system learns that “you” is its own name when it is blinded. The system is novel among grounded systems in that it learns language by observing interactions between other agents, rather than from a helpful caregiver, and in that it associates words with social roles rather than reasoning about visual appearance alone.