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Rhythmic lyrics translation: Customizing a pre-trained language model using stacked fine-tuning

Chong et al. | May 01, 2023

Rhythmic lyrics translation: Customizing a pre-trained language model using stacked fine-tuning
Image credit: Pixabay

Neural machine translation (NMT) is a software that uses neural network techniques to translate text from one language to another. However, one of the most famous NMT models—Google Translate—failed to give an accurate English translation of a famous Korean nursery rhyme, "Airplane" (비행기). The authors fine-tuned a pre-trained model first with a dataset from the lyrics domain, and then with a smaller dataset containing the rhythmical properties, to teach the model to translate rhythmically accurate lyrics. This stacked fine-tuning method resulted in an NMT model that could maintain the rhythmical characteristics of lyrics during translation while single fine-tuned models failed to do so.

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The Effect of Lyrical and Instrumental Music on Reading Comprehension Tasks

Herring et al. | Nov 01, 2018

The Effect of Lyrical and Instrumental Music on Reading Comprehension Tasks

Herring and Scott investigated how specific types of background music affected 8th and 9th graders' performance on a reading comprehension task. In the study, their results indicated that music with English lyrics led to lower reading comprehension scores, while foreign language and instrumental music was comparable to no music at all. The authors therefore recommend that teachers avoid playing English language music for students completing reading tasks in order to minimize distractions and improve work efficiency.

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Changing electronic use behavior in adolescents while studying: An interventional psychology experiment

Kumar et al. | Mar 02, 2024

Changing electronic use behavior in adolescents while studying: An interventional psychology experiment
Image credit: RAMSHA ASAD

Here, the authors investigated the effects of an interventional psychology on the study habits of high school students specifically related to the use of electronic distractions such as social media or texting, listening to music, or watching TV. They reported varying degrees of success between the control and intervention groups, suggesting that the methods of habit-breaking for students merits further study.

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