Journal ArticleDOI
Evolution of Brain and Language.
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TLDR
The authors reviewed evolutionary changes in the human brain that are thought to be relevant to language and argued that the process may best be viewed as a complex adaptive system, in which cultural learning interacts with biology iteratively over time to produce language.Abstract:
The evolution of language and the evolution of the brain are tightly interlinked. Language evolution represents a special kind of adaptation, in part because language is a complex behavior (as opposed to a physical feature) but also because changes are adaptive only to the extent that they increase either one's understanding of others, or one's understanding to others. Evolutionary changes in the human brain that are thought to be relevant to language are reviewed. The extent to which these changes are a cause or consequence of language evolution is a good question, but it is argued that the process may best be viewed as a complex adaptive system, in which cultural learning interacts with biology iteratively over time to produce language.read more
Citations
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Book ChapterDOI
Evolution of brain and language.
TL;DR: Overall, language appears to have adapted to the human brain more so than the reverse, particularly in areas relevant to language production and perception.
Book ChapterDOI
Hominid Brain Evolution
TL;DR: Brain evolution involves identifying both the physical changes that occurred, as well as understanding the reasons for these changes, and comparing modern species and assessing fossil evidence, which are essential for making inferences about evolutionary changes.
Journal ArticleDOI
A Proposed Neurological Interpretation of Language Evolution
TL;DR: While the lexical/semantic language system (vocabulary) probably appeared during human evolution long before the contemporary man, the grammatical language historically represents a recent acquisition and is correlated with the development of complex cognition (metacognitive executive functions).
Journal ArticleDOI
Rethinking foundations of language from a multidisciplinary perspective.
TL;DR: This paper proposes that the biological predispositions for language are largely domain-general, not necessarily language-specific or human-unique, and the socio-cultural environment of language serves as another important foundation of language, which helps shape language components, induce and drive language shift.
DissertationDOI
The symbolic mind: Apes, symbols, and the evolution of language
TL;DR: Exposing assumptions about the history of the two research traditions and on questionable notions such as the idea of a species' natural environment lets us more readily examine the current evidence for early rearing influence on ape cognition and the measures currently taken in laboratories to address biases in the studies.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Review of B.F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior
TL;DR: In a recent review of Skinner's book as discussed by the authors, it was pointed out that the general point of view was largely mythology, and that its widespread acceptance is not the result of empirical support, persuasive reasoning, or the absence of a plausible alternative.
Journal ArticleDOI
Human Brain: Left-Right Asymmetries in Temporal Speech Region
Norman Geschwind,Walter Levitsky +1 more
TL;DR: The planum temporale (the area behind Hesch's gyrus) is larger on the left in 65 percent of brains; on the right it is larger in only 11 percent.
Journal ArticleDOI
The role of left prefrontal cortex in language and memory
TL;DR: Attempts to characterize the mental operations mediated by left inferior prefrontal cortex, especially the anterior and inferior portion of the gyrus, with the functional neuroimaging techniques of positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging are reviewed.
Journal ArticleDOI
New and revised data on volumes of brain structures in insectivores and primates.
TL;DR: More than 2,000 data on volumetric measurements of 42 structures in a variety of up to 76 species (28 insectivores, 21 prosimians, 27 simians) are given.
Journal ArticleDOI
Comparative cytoarchitectonic analysis of the human and the macaque ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and corticocortical connection patterns in the monkey
TL;DR: A comparison of the cytoarchitecture of the human and the macaque monkey ventrolateral prefrontal cortex demonstrated a region in the monkey that exhibits the architectonic characteristic of area 45 in the human brain.