Brandon Prickett
@bprickett.bsky.social
Computational and experimental phonologist. My hobbies include watching cartoons and eating at Waffle House. (he/him)
I found that when you use PFA with a MaxEnt model and train it on Types I-VI, II starts off harder than IV, but becomes easier for the model later in learning. Since lab learning involves less exposure than natural language acquisition, this could explain the mismatch in M&P's (2014) results.
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July 19, 2025 at 9:40 PM
I found that when you use PFA with a MaxEnt model and train it on Types I-VI, II starts off harder than IV, but becomes easier for the model later in learning. Since lab learning involves less exposure than natural language acquisition, this could explain the mismatch in M&P's (2014) results.
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Probabilistic Feature Attention (PFA) can potentially explain this. PFA adds ambiguity to the learning process, randomly sampling which features a model can attend to (similar to dropout in neural networks). E.g., if the model doesn’t attend to [voice], it can’t distinguish between [t] & [d].
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July 19, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Probabilistic Feature Attention (PFA) can potentially explain this. PFA adds ambiguity to the learning process, randomly sampling which features a model can attend to (similar to dropout in neural networks). E.g., if the model doesn’t attend to [voice], it can’t distinguish between [t] & [d].
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...And found that Type II phonotactic patterns were harder for participants to acquire than Type IV patterns. But when they looked at typological data, Type II phonological patterns were more common than Type IV. But why does typology seem to favor the more difficult pattern?
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July 19, 2025 at 9:40 PM
...And found that Type II phonotactic patterns were harder for participants to acquire than Type IV patterns. But when they looked at typological data, Type II phonological patterns were more common than Type IV. But why does typology seem to favor the more difficult pattern?
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Shepard Types (I-VI below) have been used widely in category learning since they were introduced by Shepard et al. (1961). These assume a stimulus space with 3 features, 8 stimuli, and 6 possible ways to halve that space. Moreton & Pertsova (2014) adapted these to the domain of phonotactics...
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July 19, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Shepard Types (I-VI below) have been used widely in category learning since they were introduced by Shepard et al. (1961). These assume a stimulus space with 3 features, 8 stimuli, and 6 possible ways to halve that space. Moreton & Pertsova (2014) adapted these to the domain of phonotactics...
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Artificial language learning experiments often explain typology by showing that more common patterns are easier to learn. But this isn’t always the case. In work I recently presented at SCiL, I present a possible explanation for one such mismatch between the lab and typology. 🐦🐦 #linguistics
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July 19, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Artificial language learning experiments often explain typology by showing that more common patterns are easier to learn. But this isn’t always the case. In work I recently presented at SCiL, I present a possible explanation for one such mismatch between the lab and typology. 🐦🐦 #linguistics
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Look who I found outside my front door! 10/10, no room for improvement.
May 12, 2025 at 11:43 PM
Look who I found outside my front door! 10/10, no room for improvement.
She knows I'm taking a picture and she's NOT happy about it.
November 18, 2024 at 12:42 AM
She knows I'm taking a picture and she's NOT happy about it.
Hard to explain why, but there's something very cute about popcorn in a pickle jar.
November 10, 2024 at 2:32 PM
Hard to explain why, but there's something very cute about popcorn in a pickle jar.
Just landed in Boston. Making sure to immerse myself in the local culture.
September 6, 2024 at 1:47 PM
Just landed in Boston. Making sure to immerse myself in the local culture.
Don't have anything productive to post, so here's my dog 🐶
July 3, 2024 at 9:36 PM
Don't have anything productive to post, so here's my dog 🐶
I'll be teaching a fun new online course at UMass this fall! Data Science for #Linguistics will dive into how tools like statistics, machine learning, and data visualization can be used in language research.
Anyone can enroll and you can sign up starting next week!
www.umass.edu/universitypl...
Anyone can enroll and you can sign up starting next week!
www.umass.edu/universitypl...
May 28, 2024 at 7:54 PM
I'll be teaching a fun new online course at UMass this fall! Data Science for #Linguistics will dive into how tools like statistics, machine learning, and data visualization can be used in language research.
Anyone can enroll and you can sign up starting next week!
www.umass.edu/universitypl...
Anyone can enroll and you can sign up starting next week!
www.umass.edu/universitypl...
Made some very aesthetically pleasing French toast recently 👨🏻🍳
February 7, 2024 at 12:02 AM
Made some very aesthetically pleasing French toast recently 👨🏻🍳
Fictional character(s) you would give an invite code to.
August 21, 2023 at 3:57 AM
Fictional character(s) you would give an invite code to.
Reskeet with a banger pic of your dog
July 29, 2023 at 4:17 AM
Reskeet with a banger pic of your dog
Welcome to Bluesky, we have one rule:
July 25, 2023 at 2:10 AM
Welcome to Bluesky, we have one rule:
Gonna go ahead and post a picture of my dog, since that's the main benefit I bring to any social media site.
July 3, 2023 at 12:52 PM
Gonna go ahead and post a picture of my dog, since that's the main benefit I bring to any social media site.