@inproceedings{javier-vazquez-martinez-etal-2023-evaluating,
title = "Evaluating Neural Language Models as Cognitive Models of Language Acquisition",
author = "V{\'a}zquez Mart{\'\i}nez, H{\'e}ctor and
Lea Heuser, Annika and
Yang, Charles and
Kodner, Jordan",
editor = "Hupkes, Dieuwke and
Dankers, Verna and
Batsuren, Khuyagbaatar and
Sinha, Koustuv and
Kazemnejad, Amirhossein and
Christodoulopoulos, Christos and
Cotterell, Ryan and
Bruni, Elia",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 1st GenBench Workshop on (Benchmarking) Generalisation in NLP",
month = dec,
year = "2023",
address = "Singapore",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2023.genbench-1.4",
doi = "10.18653/v1/2023.genbench-1.4",
pages = "48--64",
abstract = "The success of neural language models (LMs) on many technological tasks has brought about their potential relevance as scientific theories of language despite some clear differences between LM training and child language acquisition. In this paper we argue that some of the most prominent benchmarks for evaluating the syntactic capacities of LMs may not be sufficiently rigorous. In particular, we show that the template-based benchmarks lack the structural diversity commonly found in the theoretical and psychological studies of language. When trained on small-scale data modeling child language acquisition, the LMs can be readily matched by simple baseline models. We advocate for the use of the readily available, carefully curated datasets that have been evaluated for gradient acceptability by large pools of native speakers and are designed to probe the structural basis of grammar specifically. On one such dataset, the LI-Adger dataset, LMs evaluate sentences in a way inconsistent with human language users. We conclude with suggestions for better connecting LMs with the empirical study of child language acquisition.",
}
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<abstract>The success of neural language models (LMs) on many technological tasks has brought about their potential relevance as scientific theories of language despite some clear differences between LM training and child language acquisition. In this paper we argue that some of the most prominent benchmarks for evaluating the syntactic capacities of LMs may not be sufficiently rigorous. In particular, we show that the template-based benchmarks lack the structural diversity commonly found in the theoretical and psychological studies of language. When trained on small-scale data modeling child language acquisition, the LMs can be readily matched by simple baseline models. We advocate for the use of the readily available, carefully curated datasets that have been evaluated for gradient acceptability by large pools of native speakers and are designed to probe the structural basis of grammar specifically. On one such dataset, the LI-Adger dataset, LMs evaluate sentences in a way inconsistent with human language users. We conclude with suggestions for better connecting LMs with the empirical study of child language acquisition.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Evaluating Neural Language Models as Cognitive Models of Language Acquisition
%A Vázquez Martínez, Héctor
%A Lea Heuser, Annika
%A Yang, Charles
%A Kodner, Jordan
%Y Hupkes, Dieuwke
%Y Dankers, Verna
%Y Batsuren, Khuyagbaatar
%Y Sinha, Koustuv
%Y Kazemnejad, Amirhossein
%Y Christodoulopoulos, Christos
%Y Cotterell, Ryan
%Y Bruni, Elia
%S Proceedings of the 1st GenBench Workshop on (Benchmarking) Generalisation in NLP
%D 2023
%8 December
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Singapore
%F javier-vazquez-martinez-etal-2023-evaluating
%X The success of neural language models (LMs) on many technological tasks has brought about their potential relevance as scientific theories of language despite some clear differences between LM training and child language acquisition. In this paper we argue that some of the most prominent benchmarks for evaluating the syntactic capacities of LMs may not be sufficiently rigorous. In particular, we show that the template-based benchmarks lack the structural diversity commonly found in the theoretical and psychological studies of language. When trained on small-scale data modeling child language acquisition, the LMs can be readily matched by simple baseline models. We advocate for the use of the readily available, carefully curated datasets that have been evaluated for gradient acceptability by large pools of native speakers and are designed to probe the structural basis of grammar specifically. On one such dataset, the LI-Adger dataset, LMs evaluate sentences in a way inconsistent with human language users. We conclude with suggestions for better connecting LMs with the empirical study of child language acquisition.
%R 10.18653/v1/2023.genbench-1.4
%U https://aclanthology.org/2023.genbench-1.4
%U https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2023.genbench-1.4
%P 48-64
Markdown (Informal)
[Evaluating Neural Language Models as Cognitive Models of Language Acquisition](https://aclanthology.org/2023.genbench-1.4) (Vázquez Martínez et al., GenBench-WS 2023)
ACL