How the Brain Got Language – Towards a New Road Map

Description

How did humans evolve biologically so that our brains and social interactions could support language processes, and how did cultural evolution lead to the invention of languages (signed as well as spoken)? This book addresses these questions through comparative (neuro)primatology – comparative study of brain, behavior and communication in monkeys, apes and humans – and an EvoDevoSocio framework for approaching biological and cultural evolution within a shared perspective. Each chapter provides an authoritative yet accessible review from a different discipline: linguistics (evolutionary, computational and neuro), archeology and neuroarcheology, macaque neurophysiology, comparative neuroanatomy, primate behavior, and developmental studies. These diverse perspectives are unified by having each chapter close with a section on its implications for creating a new road map for multidisciplinary research. These implications include assessment of the pluses and minuses of the Mirror System Hypothesis as an “old” road map. The cumulative road map is then presented in the concluding chapter. Originally published as a special issue of Interaction Studies 19:1/2 (2018). Table of contents Introduction Introducing the Volume: “How the brain got language: Towards a new road map” • Michael A. Arbib An Old Road Map to Draw Upon Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain: 1. From manual action to protosign • Michael A. Arbib Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain: 2. Building towards neurolinguistics • Michael A. Arbib 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 • Gino Coudé and Pier Francesco Ferrari Plasticity, innateness, and the path to language in the primate brain: Comparing macaque, chimpanzee and human circuitry for visuomotor integration • Erin Hecht Voice, gesture and working memory in the emergence of speech • Francisco Aboitiz Bringing in Emotion Relating the evolution of Music-Readiness and Language-Readiness within the context of comparative neuroprimatology • Uwe Seifert Why do we want to talk? Evolution of neural substrates of emotion and social cognition • Katerina Semendeferi Mind the gap – moving beyond the dichotomy between intentional gestures and emotional facial and vocal signals of nonhuman primates • Katja Liebal and Linda Oña Turn-taking and Prosociality From sharing food to sharing information: Cooperative breeding and language evolution • Judith Burkart, Eloisa Guerreiro Martins, Fabia Miss and Yvonne Zürcher Social manipulation, turn-taking and cooperation in apes: Implications for the evolution of language-based interaction in humans • Federico Rossano Language origins: Fitness consequences, platform of trust, cooperation, and turn-taking • Sławomir Wacewicz and Przemysław Żywiczyński Imitation, Pantomime and Develop The evolutionary roots of human imitation, action understanding and symbols • Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi Pantomime and imitation in great apes: Implications for reconstructing the evolution of language • Anne E. Russon From action to spoken and signed language through gesture: Some basic developmental issues for a discussion on the evolution of the human language-ready brain • Virginia Volterra, Olga Capirci, Pasquale Rinaldi and Laura Sparaci Praxis, symbol and language: Developmental, ecological and linguistic issues • Chris Sinha Action, Tool Making and Language Archaeology and the evolutionary neuroscience of language: The technological pedagogy hypothesis • Dietrich Stout Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of verbal working memory with neuro-archaeology • Shelby S. Putt and Sobanawartiny Wijeakumar From actions to events: Communicating through language and gesture • James Pustejov Meaning and Grammar Emerging From evolutionarily conserved frontal regions for sequence processing to human innovations for syntax • Benjamin Wilson and Christopher I. Petkov The evolution of enhanced conceptual complexity and of Broca’s area: Language preadaptations • P. Thomas Schoenemann Mental travels and the cognitive basis of language • Michael C. Corballis The Road Map The comparative neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) road map for research on How the Brain Got Language • Michael A. Arbib, Francisco Aboitiz, Judith M. Burkart, Michael Corballis, Gino Coudé, Erin Hecht, Katja Liebal, Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi, James Pustejovsky, Shelby Putt, Federico Rossano, Anne E. Russon, P. Thomas Schoenemann, Uwe Seifert, Katerina Semendeferi, Chris Sinha, Dietrich Stout, Virginia Volterra, Sławomir Wacewicz and Benjamin Wilson Index