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From: hugh@fivegl.co.nz (Hugh Grierson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Chinese Room Experiment: empirical tests
Message-ID: <1990Nov28.003642.22319@fivegl.co.nz>
Date: 28 Nov 90 00:36:42 GMT
References: <7852@uwm.edu>
Reply-To: hugh@fivegl.co.nz (Hugh Grierson)
Organization: 5GL International Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand
Lines: 40

In article <7852@uwm.edu> markh@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark William Hopkins) writes:
>So here's what you should do: take out about 10 books written in a language you
>don't understand (like 10 books written in Spanish).  The language can be one
>that uses the Latin alphabet, or not.  It doesn't matter.
>
>Rewrite the exact contents of each book.  That means, WRITE the contents, don't
>analyse them.  Don't even think about what it all might mean, just write it.
>And write it all.
>
>This is what will happen.  Within about 60 minutes your brain WILL begin to
>adapt itself to the regularities of the language.  In one day (supposing you
>work about 8 hours that day), you will already have a good feel for the
>syntax of the language.  In about 3 to 5 days, you'll gradually begin to
>recognize stylistic regularities.
>...
>After a week you will be able to reproduce very complex novel (and valid)
>written segments in that language, though you may not have a glimmer of what
>it all means.
>
>At this point, you'll find yourself in a very unusual position of being able
>to recognize a new written language, and even being able to write in that
>language, without having the faintest idea of what you're saying.
>

All the way through I was looking for the smilies...

>
>Trust me, it's a very weird feeling, I've tried something very similar to
>this experiment a countless number of times.

...but now you have me interested.  

Don't leave us hanging here - what actually were the experiments you tried,
and what were the results?  What other history is there of such absorbtion 
techniques: for oral/written language, or for non-linguistic learning?

-- 
                               | Hugh Grierson         | hugh@fivegl.co.nz 
                               | 5GL International Ltd | PH:  +64.9.3021621
                               | Auckland, New Zealand | FAX: +64.9.3021617