From rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Mon Aug 13 08:51:56 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_1); 13 Aug 2001 15:51:56 -0000 Received: (qmail 44676 invoked from network); 13 Aug 2001 15:49:54 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 13 Aug 2001 15:49:54 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO chain.digitalkingdom.org) (64.169.75.101) by mta2 with SMTP; 13 Aug 2001 15:49:54 -0000 Received: from rlpowell by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 3.32 #1 (Debian)) id 15WJyS-0001um-00 for ; Mon, 13 Aug 2001 08:49:52 -0700 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 08:49:52 -0700 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] New to lojban, any suggestions? Message-ID: <20010813084952.K21501@digitalkingdom.org> Mail-Followup-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010813012844.00d69150@pop.cais.com> <9l1op2+k2ts@eGroups.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20010813012844.00d69150@pop.cais.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20010813021737.00d26e10@pop.cais.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010813021737.00d26e10@pop.cais.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.20i From: Robin Lee Powell On Mon, Aug 13, 2001 at 02:37:49AM -0400, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote: > At 11:07 PM 8/12/01 -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote: > > > I want to make sure to note that people who use LogFlash are helping the > > > research aspect of the project. > > > >Uhh, really? No offense intended, but perhaps then it should exist in > >a form that can actually be used by most people. > > Meaning? Dude, it's a _DOS_ program. In a highly proprietary form of _pascal_. It's completely useless to a number of people on this list, including me. > > > LogFlash is instrumented, and anyone like Arnt who makes it > > > through all the words is urged to send me the files specific to > > > their name. Info on the learner's education and language > > > background (especially with regard to the 6 source languages for > > > Lojban gismu, is also useful. > > > > I can't believe I'm saying this. > > > >If you explain in more detail why Logflash is important, and I agree > >with the value as presented in said explanation, I'll give serious > >consideration to re-writing it. > > Rewriting it? Why? See above. > LogFlash is instrumented to log the user's sessions, and also keeps > statistics on how many hits and errors that the user has in learning > each word. This is the first cut for research as to whether the > recognition scores used to make Lojban words actually mean anything in > terms of learnability. If we get any correlation with a small > self-selected and haphazardly learning set of users, then we likely > would want to repeat the experiment more systematically with new users > (and probably modify the instrumentation based on what we found in the > first pass). > > Such a second-level research effort would be specific and focussed in > the way no other Loglan/Lojban research has been, could be described > in terms that do not limit applicability to learning only Lojban, and > hence could be eligible for grant funding from some organization that > funds academic research in second language learning. This of course > would build the Loglan project's credibility in the scientific > research arena, credibility that is hard for any artificial language > research to gain. OK. > >Is the research value 'tainted' if the user has done other, seperate > >memorizing of the words? > > Such a taint is real, but at this point I suspect that tainted data is > better than no data. Words that someone has learned before using > LogFlash will "go right to the top" with no errors, and this could be > filtered out, leaving us the rest of the data to analyze. > A secondary goal is to statistically demonstrate the effectiveness of > the LogFlash algorithm. While you and others have at times thought > poorly of it for varying reasons, LogFlash is an automation of JCB's > flashcard algorithm, which he apparently devised after conducting his > own serious research into flashcard methods to find what worked best. > LogFlash is thus (presumably) tuned for optimal learning. Optimal learning of the whole set, maybe, but not of subsets. > BTW, it IS possible to use LogFlash with a subset of the words, by > running a weeded gismu list through a little program that builds the > index that the program uses. Not sure how good this would be for the > research purposes (if only because analyzing the data would need a > smarter program that could match the instrumentation data to actual > words rather than to line number in the gismu list), but it does avoid > one of your criticisms. Ah, OK. -Robin -- http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ BTW, I'm male, honest. le datni cu djica le nu zifre .iku'i .oi le so'e datni cu to'e te pilno je xlali -- RLP http://www.lojban.org/