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Article published In:
How the Brain Got Language: Towards a New Road Map
Edited by Michael A. Arbib
[Interaction Studies 19:1/2] 2018
► pp. 318–335

From evolutionarily conserved frontal regions for sequence processing to human innovations for syntax

 | Newcastle University
 | Newcastle University
Empirical advances have been made in understanding how human language, in its combinatorial complexity and unbounded expressivity, may have evolved from the communication systems present in our evolutionary ancestors. However, a number of cognitive processes and neurobiological mechanisms that support language may not have evolved specifically for communication, but rather from abilities that support perception and cognition more generally. We review recent evidence from comparative behavioural and neurobiological studies on structured sequence learning in human and nonhuman primates. These studies support the notion that certain sequence learning abilities are evolutionarily conserved and engage corresponding inferior frontal brain regions across the species, regions also involved in processing language in humans. Alongside the cross-species similarities is evidence for human specialisations, illuminating the likely evolutionary pathways towards language in modern humans. We argue that cognitive abilities that were in place for animals to learn combinatorial relationships in the sensory world were available and co-opted for language in humans.
Keywords: sequence processing, language evolution, syntax, monkey, human, comparative, behaviour, neuroimaging
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Structured sequence learning and empirical links to analogous operations in language
  • Conserved sequence processing in human and nonhuman primates
  • Cross-species similarities and differences in sequence learning and the primate frontal cortex
  • Possible evolutionary pathways from conserved combinatorial capacities to the emergence of language
    • Patterned sequences in motor movements
    • Primate vocal communication and the perception of conspecific vocal exchanges
    • The expansion of cognitive combinatorial abilities
    • Pathways from conserved combinatorial learning to proto-language
  • Toward a new roadmap
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 17 September 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.17038.wil
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