John Benjamins Publishing Company
Plasticity, innateness, and the path to language in the primate brain
Abstract
Many researchers consider language to be definitionally unique to humans. However, increasing evidence suggests that language emerged via a series of adaptations to neural systems supporting earlier capacities for visuomotor integration and manual action. This paper reviews comparative neuroscience evidence for the evolutionary progression of these adaptations. An outstanding question is how to mechanistically explain the emergence of new capacities from pre-existing circuitry. One possibility is that human brains may have undergone selection for greater plasticity, reducing the extent to which brain organization is hard-wired and increasing the extent to which it is shaped by socially transmitted, learned behaviors. Mutations that made these new abilities easier or faster to learn would have undergone positive selection, and over time, the neural changes once associated with individual neural plasticity would tend to become heritable, innate, and fixed. Clearly, though, language is not entirely “innate;” it does not emerge without the requisite environmental input and experience. Thus, a mechanistic explanation for the evolution of language must address the inherent trade-off between the evolutionary pressure for underlying neural systems to be flexible and sensitive to environmental input vs. the tendency over time for continually adaptive behaviors to become reliably expressed in an early-emerging, canalized, less flexible manner.
Abstract
Many researchers consider language to be definitionally unique to humans. However, increasing evidence suggests that language emerged via a series of adaptations to neural systems supporting earlier capacities for visuomotor integration and manual action. This paper reviews comparative neuroscience evidence for the evolutionary progression of these adaptations. An outstanding question is how to mechanistically explain the emergence of new capacities from pre-existing circuitry. One possibility is that human brains may have undergone selection for greater plasticity, reducing the extent to which brain organization is hard-wired and increasing the extent to which it is shaped by socially transmitted, learned behaviors. Mutations that made these new abilities easier or faster to learn would have undergone positive selection, and over time, the neural changes once associated with individual neural plasticity would tend to become heritable, innate, and fixed. Clearly, though, language is not entirely “innate;” it does not emerge without the requisite environmental input and experience. Thus, a mechanistic explanation for the evolution of language must address the inherent trade-off between the evolutionary pressure for underlying neural systems to be flexible and sensitive to environmental input vs. the tendency over time for continually adaptive behaviors to become reliably expressed in an early-emerging, canalized, less flexible manner.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introducing the Volume 1
-
An Old Road Map to Draw Upon
- Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain 7
- Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain 22
-
Starting from the Macaque
- Reflections on the differential organization of mirror neuron systems for hand and mouth and their role in the evolution of communication in primates 38
- Plasticity, innateness, and the path to language in the primate brain 54
- Voice, gesture and working memory in the emergence of speech 70
-
Bringing in Emotion
- Relating the evolution of Music-Readiness and Language-Readiness within the context of comparative neuroprimatology 86
- Why do we want to talk? 102
- Mind the gap – moving beyond the dichotomy between intentional gestures and emotional facial and vocal signals of nonhuman primates 121
-
Turn-taking and Prosociality
- From sharing food to sharing information 136
- Social manipulation, turn-taking and cooperation in apes 151
- Language origins 167
-
Imitation, Pantomime and Development
- The evolutionary roots of human imitation, action understanding and symbols 183
- Pantomime and imitation in great apes 200
- From action to spoken and signed language through gesture 216
- Praxis, symbol and language 239
-
Action, Tool Making and Language
- Archaeology and the evolutionary neuroscience of language 256
- Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of verbal working memory with neuro-archaeology 272
- From actions to events 289
-
Meaning and Grammar Emerging
- From evolutionarily conserved frontal regions for sequence processing to human innovations for syntax 318
- The evolution of enhanced conceptual complexity and of Broca’s area 336
- Mental travels and the cognitive basis of language 352
-
The Road Map
- The comparative neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) road map for research on How the Brain Got Language 370
- Index 389
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introducing the Volume 1
-
An Old Road Map to Draw Upon
- Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain 7
- Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain 22
-
Starting from the Macaque
- Reflections on the differential organization of mirror neuron systems for hand and mouth and their role in the evolution of communication in primates 38
- Plasticity, innateness, and the path to language in the primate brain 54
- Voice, gesture and working memory in the emergence of speech 70
-
Bringing in Emotion
- Relating the evolution of Music-Readiness and Language-Readiness within the context of comparative neuroprimatology 86
- Why do we want to talk? 102
- Mind the gap – moving beyond the dichotomy between intentional gestures and emotional facial and vocal signals of nonhuman primates 121
-
Turn-taking and Prosociality
- From sharing food to sharing information 136
- Social manipulation, turn-taking and cooperation in apes 151
- Language origins 167
-
Imitation, Pantomime and Development
- The evolutionary roots of human imitation, action understanding and symbols 183
- Pantomime and imitation in great apes 200
- From action to spoken and signed language through gesture 216
- Praxis, symbol and language 239
-
Action, Tool Making and Language
- Archaeology and the evolutionary neuroscience of language 256
- Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of verbal working memory with neuro-archaeology 272
- From actions to events 289
-
Meaning and Grammar Emerging
- From evolutionarily conserved frontal regions for sequence processing to human innovations for syntax 318
- The evolution of enhanced conceptual complexity and of Broca’s area 336
- Mental travels and the cognitive basis of language 352
-
The Road Map
- The comparative neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) road map for research on How the Brain Got Language 370
- Index 389
