From evolutionarily conserved frontal regions for sequence processing to human innovations for syntax
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.
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
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Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Arbib, Michael A., Francisco Aboitiz, Judith M. Burkart, Michael C. Corballis, Gino Coudé, Erin Hecht, Katja Liebal, Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi, James Pustejovsky, Shelby S. Putt, Federico Rossano, Anne E. Russon, P. Thomas Schoenemann, Uwe Seifert, Katerina Semendeferi, Chris Sinha, Dietrich Stout, Virginia Volterra, Sławomir Wacewicz & Benjamin Wilson
Arbib, Michael A., 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 & Benjamin Wilson
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