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What the hands reveal about the brain

TL;DR: This paper showed that there are primary linguistic systems passed down from one generation of deaf people to the next, which have been forged into antonomous languages and are not derived from front spoken languages.
Abstract: What the Hands Reveal About the Brain provides dramatic evidence that language is not limited to hearing and speech, that there are primary linguistic systems passed down from one generation of deaf people to the next, which have been forged into antonomous languages and are not derived front spoken languages.
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Book
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: In this paper, a Hegelian synthesis of Piagetian constructivism and Fodorian modularity in terms of the author's own model of representational ''representational ''
Abstract: This is an original, important and stimulating book, which attempts a Hegelian synthesis of Piagetian constructivism and Fodorian modularity in terms of the author's own model of ‘representational ...

2,226 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: There is every reason to believe that a specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process, as well as other arguments and data.
Abstract: Many people have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot be explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have suggested that language may have evolved as the by-product of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of as-yet unknown laws of growth and form. Others have argued that a biological specialization for grammar is incompatible with every tenet of Darwinian theory – that it shows no genetic variation, could not exist in any intermediate forms, confers no selective advantage, and would require more evolutionary time and genomic space than is available. We examine these arguments and show that they depend on inaccurate assumptions about biology or language or both. Evolutionary theory offers clear criteria for when a trait should be attributed to natural selection: complex design for some function, and the absence of alternative processes capable of explaining such complexity. Human language meets these criteria: Grammar is a complex mechanism tailored to the transmission of propositional structures through a serial interface. Autonomous and arbitrary grammatical phenomena have been offered as counterexamples to the position that language is an adaptation, but this reasoning is unsound: Communication protocols depend on arbitrary conventions that are adaptive as long as they are shared. Consequently, language acquisition in the child should systematically differ from language evolution in the species, and attempts to analogize them are misleading. Reviewing other arguments and data, we conclude that there is every reason to believe that a specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process.

2,002 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is suggested that the evolution of large groups in the human lineage depended on developing a more efficient method for time-sharing the processes of social bonding and that language uniquely fulfills this requirement.
Abstract: Group size is a function of relative neocortical volume in nonhuman primates. Extrapolation from this regression equation yields a predicted group size for modern humans very similar to that of certain hunter-gatherer and traditional horticulturalist societies. Groups of similar size are also found in other large-scale forms of contemporary and historical society. Among primates, the cohesion of groups is maintained by social grooming; the time devoted to social grooming is linearly related to group size among the Old World monkeys and apes. To maintain the stability of the large groups characteristic of humans by grooming alone would place intolerable demands on time budgets. It is suggested that (1) the evolution of large groups in the human lineage depended on the development of a more efficient method for time-sharing the processes of social bonding and that (2) language uniquely fulfills this requirement. Data on the size of conversational and other small interacting groups of humans are in line with the predictions for the relative efficiency of conversation compared to grooming as a bonding process. Analysis of a sample of human conversations shows that about 60% of time is spent gossiping about relationships and personal experiences. It is suggested that language evolved to allow individuals to learn about the behavioural characteristics of other group members more rapidly than is possible by direct observation alone.

1,811 citations

Book
Merlin Donald1
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: This book discusses the need for a theory of cognitive evolution as an emergent phenomenon culture as evidence for cognitive structure and the transition from episodic to mimetic culture, which is the missing link in human cognition without language.
Abstract: Prologue PART 1: The Need for a Theory of Cognitive Evolution Mental Architecture as an Emergent Phenomenon Culture as Evidence for Cognitive Structure The Organization of This Book PART 2:

1,576 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is asserted that producing and understanding are interwoven, and that this interweaving is what enables people to predict themselves and each other.
Abstract: Currently, production and comprehension are regarded as quite distinct in accounts of language processing. In rejecting this dichotomy, we instead assert that producing and understanding are interwoven, and that this interweaving is what enables people to predict themselves and each other. We start by noting that production and comprehension are forms of action and action perception. We then consider the evidence for interweaving in action, action perception, and joint action, and explain such evidence in terms of prediction. Specifically, we assume that actors construct forward models of their actions before they execute those actions, and that perceivers of others' actions covertly imitate those actions, then construct forward models of those actions. We use these accounts of action, action perception, and joint action to develop accounts of production, comprehension, and interactive language. Importantly, they incorporate well-defined levels of linguistic representation (such as semantics, syntax, and phonology). We show (a) how speakers and comprehenders use covert imitation and forward modeling to make predictions at these levels of representation, (b) how they interweave production and comprehension processes, and (c) how they use these predictions to monitor the upcoming utterances. We show how these accounts explain a range of behavioral and neuroscientific data on language processing and discuss some of the implications of our proposal.

1,046 citations