@inproceedings{48727663637344dfaa027a8cbcce6530,
title = "Unlearning helps",
abstract = "Overregularization seen in child language learning, re verb tense constructs, involves abandoning correct behaviors for incorrect ones and later reverting to correct behaviors. Quite a number of other child development phenomena also follow this U-shaped form of learning, un- learning, and relearning. A decisive learner doesn{\textquoteright}t do this and, in general, never abandons an hypothesis H for an inequivalent one where it later conjectures an hypothesis equivalent to H. The present paper shows that decisiveness is a real restriction on Gold{\textquoteright}s model of iteratively (or in the limit) learning of grammars for languages from positive data. This suggests that natural U-shaped learning curves may not be a mere accident in the evolution of human learning, but may be necessary for learning. The result also solves an open problem. Second-time decisive learners conjecture each of their hypotheses for a language at most twice. By contrast, they are shown not to restrict Gold{\textquoteright}s model of learning, and correspondingly, there is an apparent lack of re- ports in child development of the opposite, W-shaped learning curves.",
author = "Ganesh Baliga and John Case and Wolfgang Merkle and Frank Stephan",
year = "2000",
month = jan,
day = "1",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9783540450221",
series = "Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)",
publisher = "Springer Verlag",
pages = "844--856",
editor = "Ugo Montanari and Emo Welzl and Rolim, {Jose D. P.}",
booktitle = "Automata, Languages and Programming - 27th International Colloquium, ICALP 2000, Proceedings",
address = "Germany",
note = "27th International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming, ICALP 2000 ; Conference date: 09-07-2000 Through 15-07-2000",
}