Evolution, brain, and the nature of language
@article{Berwick2013EvolutionBA, title={Evolution, brain, and the nature of language}, author={Robert C. Berwick and Angela D. Friederici and Noam Chomsky and Johan J Bolhuis}, journal={Trends in Cognitive Sciences}, year={2013}, volume={17}, pages={89-98} }
374 Citations
Evolution of the neural language network
- Biology, PsychologyPsychonomic bulletin & review
- 2017
Comparing language-related brain regions and their white matter connectivity in the developing and mature human brain with the respective structures in the nonhuman primate brain shows that the functional specificity of the posterior portion of Broca’s area and its dorsal fiber connection to the temporal cortex makes a crucial neural difference between the species.
Language, mind and brain
- Psychology, BiologyNature Human Behaviour
- 2017
A view of the neural organization of language is outlined, whereby language involves dynamic interactions of syntactic and semantic aspects represented in neural networks that connect the inferior frontal and superior temporal cortices functionally and structurally.
The evolution of language and thought.
- Biology, PsychologyJournal of anthropological sciences = Rivista di antropologia : JASS
- 2016
Although the knowledge of the neural circuits of the human brain is at a very early stage and incomplete, the findings of independent studies over the past 40 years have identified circuits linking the basal ganglia with various areas of prefrontal cortex, posterior cortical regions and other subcortical structures that play a critical role in conferring cognitive flexibility.
The evolution of enhanced conceptual complexity and of Broca’s area
- BiologyBenjamins Current Topics
- 2020
The origin and evolution of the remarkably rich conceptual world that humans share to the exclusion of other primates, and the origin of neural circuitry that underlies various sequential and hierarchical aspects of language, as utilized for example in syntax and word morphology are studied.
Brain mechanisms of acoustic communication in humans and nonhuman primates: An evolutionary perspective
- Biology, PsychologyBehavioral and Brain Sciences
- 2014
The proposed model assumes age-dependent interactions between the basal ganglia and their cortical targets, similar to vocal learning in some songbirds, and provides a solution to the question for the adaptive value of the “first word”.
A Complex-Adaptive-Systems Approach to the Evolution of Language and the Brain
- Psychology, Biology
- 2017
It will be argued that this has in turn led to the evolution of language structure via cultural mechanisms (many of which remain opaque and hidden from the authors' conscious awareness) and this has itself contributed to a richer conceptual world.
Animals Have No Language, and Humans Are Animals Too
- Biology, PsychologyPerspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science
- 2019
It is illustrated how treating humans as an equal species in vocal-communication research is expected to provide us with no evidence for human superiority in this realm, and novel balanced and unbiased comparative studies are vital for identifying any unique component of human speech and language.
On the Matter of Mind: Neural Complexity and Functional Dynamics of the Human Brain
- Biology, Psychology
- 2017
It will be argued that in primates the complexity of the neural circuitry of the cerebral cortex is the neural correlate of higher cognitive functions, including mind-like properties and consciousness.
Evolution of vocal learning and spoken language
- Biology, PsychologyScience
- 2019
A modern, evolution-based synthesis of nonhuman animal studies that inform us about human spoken language concludes that components of spoken language are continuous between species, and that the vocal learning component is the most specialized and rarest and evolved by brain pathway duplication from an ancient motor learning pathway.
A conjecture about the neural basis of recursion in light of descent with modification
- BiologyJournal of Neurolinguistics
- 2017
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