EDITOR: Michael A. Arbib TITLE: How the Brain Got Language - Towards a New Road Map SERIES TITLE: Be
EDITOR: Michael A. Arbib
TITLE: How the Brain Got Language - Towards a New Road Map
SERIES TITLE: Benjamins Current Topics 112
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2020
REVIEWER: Pamela Villar González
SUMMARY
This collection of papers (“How the brain got language: Towards a new road map”) edited by Michael A. Arbib offers an in-depth understanding of a new multidisciplinary approach to how we, humans, got language. Starting from the “old maps” that is to say, the old models, the volume goes through evolutionary and comparative approaches including and analyzing emotion, socialization, imitation, pantomime, tool-making, meaning, and the emerging of grammar to create a new model about the evolution of language. This new model has taken into account all of the milestones described from the perspective of the different disciplines, creating a comprehensive road map for studying the evolution of language.
The volume is organized in several sections: it starts with an introduction explaining the different approaches and ends with a section entitled “The Road Map”, where the “Comparative Neuroprimatology 2018 Road Map” is presented. Every section in the volume has several subsections, each of which consists of a formal paper that can be read alone, independent of the other papers in the section. At the end of every paper we find a fixed epigraph “Toward a new roadmap” that agglutinates the key factors of the paper that will contribute to the final Road Map.
After an introduction , the volume presents the section “An Old Road Map to Draw Upon” with two subsections on the “computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain”, both by the editor of the volume. In the first paper, Michael A. Arbib focuses on the study of macaque brain models and how they can give us a better understanding of how language has evolved. In the second paper, he presents the need for more neurolinguistic studies and for integration of the currently accepted models regarding innatism and the acquisition of language.
The core of the book “Starting From the Macaque” presents three papers, all of them focused as the title suggests on the models made through the study of macaques. The titles of the papers are explicit about the topic addressed:
“Reflections on the differential organization of mirror neuron systems for hand and mouth and their role in the evolution of communication in primates” by Gino Coudé and Pier Francesco Ferrari. This first subsection inquires into the overlapping of the mirror system network related to hand control and grasping and the network of mouth/face control.
“Plasticity, innateness, and the path to language in the primate brain: Comparing macaque, chimpanzee and human circuitry for visuomotor integration” by Erin Hecht. In this subsection, language is studied from the progressive-adaptative point of view not just comparing the macaque, chimpanzee, and human neurobiology but focusing on the integration of the visuomotor and manual action and how much can be already encoded through evolution driving us to the “innateness”.
“Voice, gesture, and working memory in the emergence of speech” by Francisco Aboitiz. In the previous subsections, the importance of the visual and motor system for the development of language has been widely addressed. Here, the author highlights the importance of the working memory (sometimes also called “short-time memory”) that was expanded thanks to the strengthening of the auditory-vocal articulatory network.
The section “Bringing in Emotion” still reflects the perspective of comparative neuroprimatology and includes the following articles:
“Relating the evolution of Music-Readiness and Language-Readiness within the context of comparative neuroprimatology” by Uwe Seifert. Music, like language, is a multimodal phenomenon of interaction that has evolved from non-human primates. Presenting three hypotheses the author relates music and language through the readiness of the brain for it.
“Why do we want to talk?: Evolution of neural substrates of emotion and social cognition” by Katerina Semendeferi. In this subsection the author analyses the evolution of the limbic system and the changes in the functions related to it (motivation, attention, inhibition, and detection of emotional stimuli among others). The paper states that the reason why humans want to talk may be related to the connection between cognitive and emotional processes. The arguments are supported as well by neurodevelopmental disorders in humans that affect both language and sociability.
“Mind the gap - moving beyond the dichotomy between intentional gestures and emotional facial and vocal signals of nonhuman primates” by Katja Liebal and Linda Oña. Here the authors address the lack of research in emotional expressions in our closest relatives and how further studies on this topic will bring us more valuable information for a comprehensive model of the evolution of human language.
In the section “Turn-Taking and Prosociality” the following topics are addressed:
“From sharing food to sharing information: Cooperative breeding and language evolution” by Judith M. Burkart, Eloisa Guerreiro Martins, Fabia Miss, and Yvonne Zürcher. According to the authors, language relies on the motivation for sharing information, which implies that it is not enough to have the cognitive abilities to develop language; also needed is the interest/necessity of the interchange of information.
“Social manipulation, turn-taking, and cooperation in apes: Implications for the evolution of language-based interaction in humans” by Federico Rossano. The author explores the motivation required for the interchange of information. According to the data presented about the evidence of social manipulation during cooperation in non-human primates, it seems that prosocial motivations would not be the only reason for language evolution.
“Language origins: Fitness consequences, platform of trust, cooperation, and turn-taking” by Sławomir Wacewicz and Przemysław Żywiczyński. In this section, focusing again on the turn-taking process the authors present the concept of “platform of trust” advancing the idea that the turn-taking is based on this trustful environment and not just on the cooperative and not necessarily communicative turn-taking system found in primates.
The next section entitled “Imitation, Pantomime and Development” develops these topics:
“The evolutionary roots of human imitation, action understanding, and symbols” by Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi. The author proposes a model highlighting the difference between the process of visual-motor information by chimpanzees and humans. Through this model, the author focuses on what is unique for humans (such as the visual attention to the face) and can drive us to the “language-ready brain”.
“Pantomime and imitation in great apes: Implications for reconstructing the evolution of language” by Anne E. Russon. This paper evaluates two key contributors to language evolution in nonhuman hominids: pantomime and action imitation.
“From action to spoken and signed language through gesture: Some basic developmental issues for a discussion on the evolution of the human language-ready brain” by Virginia Volterra, Olga Capirci, Pasquale Rinaldi and Laura Sparaci. In this paper, the authors review the evidence (on children between 6 and 36 months of age) for the importance of the interaction with caregivers in the development of communication and its multimodality component (gestures, words, and signs). Furthermore, they point out analogous findings on ape communicative behavior.
“Praxis, symbol, and language: Developmental, ecological and linguistic issues” by Chris Sinha. The author distinguishes the concept of a “symbol-ready brain” from the already mentioned language-ready brain. According to the authors, the concept does not imply the immediate ability to symbolically communicate or the “Evolutionary Modern Languages”, just that the brain is ready for the process.
The section “Action, Toolmaking, And Language” includes:
“Archaeology and the evolutionary neuroscience of language: The technological pedagogy hypothesis” by Dietrich Stout. The author remarks on the importance of adding the context information to the comparative approach to language evolution .
“Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of verbal working memory with neuro-archaeology” by Shelby S. Putt and Sobanawartiny Wijeakumar. The authors explore from a neuro-archaeology perspective the overlap between working memory networks involved in language and Early Stone Age toolmaking behaviors through optical neuroimaging.
“From actions to events: Communicating through language and gesture” by James Pustejovsky. The author argues that the recognition and conceptualization of events are unique to humans and that during this process, complex linguistic expressions emerge from holophrastic units.
The last section before the “Road Map” is “Meaning and Grammar Emerging”:
“From evolutionarily conserved frontal regions for sequence processing to human innovations for syntax” by Benjamin Wilson and Christopher I. Petkov. Authors argue that the networks which support some sequence learning abilities that appear in other species are conserved in humans, and in these areas, language is processed as well.
“The evolution of enhanced conceptual complexity and Broca’s area: Language preadaptations” by P. Thomas Schoenemann. The author explores the pre-existing brain circuits that after evolution trigger two core characteristics of human language: conceptual complexity and sequence processing. The paper focuses on these processes through the fossil record of brain evolution and the archaeological record.
“Mental travels and the cognitive basis of language” by Michael C. Corballis. The author presents the concept of mental travel both in time and space. This characteristic is shown somehow in some nonhuman animals. However, the author argues that displacement is unique to humans. Based on these, the paper presents the idea of mental time travel co-evolving with the development of language, being the mental time travel capacity prior to (modern) language.
In the last section of the book, the “Road Map” is introduced and explained:
The comparative neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) road map for research on How the Brain Got Language by Michael A. Arbib, 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 and Benjamin Wilson. This chapter agglutinates all the presented approaches, views, and data in order to give a comprehensive model of the evolution of language.
EVALUATION
“How the Brain Got Language - Towards a New Road Map” presents a compelling collection of papers about the process of acquiring language sorted in a quite new fashion, including some key points like the Turn-Taking section that has been systematically ignored in the study of the development of language, even though recently it is getting more attention.
The “road map” drawn from many disciplines presents data from primates and computer models in formal but understandable from, even for non-experts in the field.
To my view, this is not a reference book for a specific discipline, but a resource book for supporting the multidisciplinary approach to the study of language and its mechanisms. The comprehension of the book requires some minimal knowledge about the language process. However, it could be used as well by students or researchers coming from other disciplines not strictly focused on Language (Psychology, Archeology, Physiology, or Computer Science among others) to have an overview of the topic.
As I see it, this volume provides a fascinating and well-connected mix of approaches to the development of the faculty of language in humans; it will be useful from the last courses of undergraduate programs to the explorations of senior researchers . It provides a new perspective on language research and makes clear the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach. It makes clear as well the need for the integration into the new models of developmental and biological information about both humans and apes, taking into account social and cultural context without forgetting the computation challenges.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Pamela Villar González works as a fellow researcher at the Department of Neurodevelopmental Psychology at the University of Warsaw (Poland). Her previous works are in diverse fields like neuroscience (memory, the study of biomarkers in healthy aging and dementia, and sleep), and psycholinguistics (brain lateralization of language, whistled languages). Apart from research, she has taught Spanish language (Ruhr Universität Bochum, and University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany)) and trained medical students (Ruhr Universität Bochum) in Neuropsychology and Master students in different behavioral and neuroimaging techniques (MRI, TMS-EEG, and eye-tracking among others). Her research interests include as well language pathologies, speech science, bilingualism, communication, literature, culture, machine learning, in vivo-imaging methods, open science, and science communication (she has created the “Pamdemia Científica - Scientific Pamdemic” a science communication project through Facebook and Instagram).
Page Updated: 24-Jun-2021
TITLE: How the Brain Got Language - Towards a New Road Map
SERIES TITLE: Benjamins Current Topics 112
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2020
REVIEWER: Pamela Villar González
SUMMARY
This collection of papers (“How the brain got language: Towards a new road map”) edited by Michael A. Arbib offers an in-depth understanding of a new multidisciplinary approach to how we, humans, got language. Starting from the “old maps” that is to say, the old models, the volume goes through evolutionary and comparative approaches including and analyzing emotion, socialization, imitation, pantomime, tool-making, meaning, and the emerging of grammar to create a new model about the evolution of language. This new model has taken into account all of the milestones described from the perspective of the different disciplines, creating a comprehensive road map for studying the evolution of language.
The volume is organized in several sections: it starts with an introduction explaining the different approaches and ends with a section entitled “The Road Map”, where the “Comparative Neuroprimatology 2018 Road Map” is presented. Every section in the volume has several subsections, each of which consists of a formal paper that can be read alone, independent of the other papers in the section. At the end of every paper we find a fixed epigraph “Toward a new roadmap” that agglutinates the key factors of the paper that will contribute to the final Road Map.
After an introduction , the volume presents the section “An Old Road Map to Draw Upon” with two subsections on the “computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain”, both by the editor of the volume. In the first paper, Michael A. Arbib focuses on the study of macaque brain models and how they can give us a better understanding of how language has evolved. In the second paper, he presents the need for more neurolinguistic studies and for integration of the currently accepted models regarding innatism and the acquisition of language.
The core of the book “Starting From the Macaque” presents three papers, all of them focused as the title suggests on the models made through the study of macaques. The titles of the papers are explicit about the topic addressed:
“Reflections on the differential organization of mirror neuron systems for hand and mouth and their role in the evolution of communication in primates” by Gino Coudé and Pier Francesco Ferrari. This first subsection inquires into the overlapping of the mirror system network related to hand control and grasping and the network of mouth/face control.
“Plasticity, innateness, and the path to language in the primate brain: Comparing macaque, chimpanzee and human circuitry for visuomotor integration” by Erin Hecht. In this subsection, language is studied from the progressive-adaptative point of view not just comparing the macaque, chimpanzee, and human neurobiology but focusing on the integration of the visuomotor and manual action and how much can be already encoded through evolution driving us to the “innateness”.
“Voice, gesture, and working memory in the emergence of speech” by Francisco Aboitiz. In the previous subsections, the importance of the visual and motor system for the development of language has been widely addressed. Here, the author highlights the importance of the working memory (sometimes also called “short-time memory”) that was expanded thanks to the strengthening of the auditory-vocal articulatory network.
The section “Bringing in Emotion” still reflects the perspective of comparative neuroprimatology and includes the following articles:
“Relating the evolution of Music-Readiness and Language-Readiness within the context of comparative neuroprimatology” by Uwe Seifert. Music, like language, is a multimodal phenomenon of interaction that has evolved from non-human primates. Presenting three hypotheses the author relates music and language through the readiness of the brain for it.
“Why do we want to talk?: Evolution of neural substrates of emotion and social cognition” by Katerina Semendeferi. In this subsection the author analyses the evolution of the limbic system and the changes in the functions related to it (motivation, attention, inhibition, and detection of emotional stimuli among others). The paper states that the reason why humans want to talk may be related to the connection between cognitive and emotional processes. The arguments are supported as well by neurodevelopmental disorders in humans that affect both language and sociability.
“Mind the gap - moving beyond the dichotomy between intentional gestures and emotional facial and vocal signals of nonhuman primates” by Katja Liebal and Linda Oña. Here the authors address the lack of research in emotional expressions in our closest relatives and how further studies on this topic will bring us more valuable information for a comprehensive model of the evolution of human language.
In the section “Turn-Taking and Prosociality” the following topics are addressed:
“From sharing food to sharing information: Cooperative breeding and language evolution” by Judith M. Burkart, Eloisa Guerreiro Martins, Fabia Miss, and Yvonne Zürcher. According to the authors, language relies on the motivation for sharing information, which implies that it is not enough to have the cognitive abilities to develop language; also needed is the interest/necessity of the interchange of information.
“Social manipulation, turn-taking, and cooperation in apes: Implications for the evolution of language-based interaction in humans” by Federico Rossano. The author explores the motivation required for the interchange of information. According to the data presented about the evidence of social manipulation during cooperation in non-human primates, it seems that prosocial motivations would not be the only reason for language evolution.
“Language origins: Fitness consequences, platform of trust, cooperation, and turn-taking” by Sławomir Wacewicz and Przemysław Żywiczyński. In this section, focusing again on the turn-taking process the authors present the concept of “platform of trust” advancing the idea that the turn-taking is based on this trustful environment and not just on the cooperative and not necessarily communicative turn-taking system found in primates.
The next section entitled “Imitation, Pantomime and Development” develops these topics:
“The evolutionary roots of human imitation, action understanding, and symbols” by Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi. The author proposes a model highlighting the difference between the process of visual-motor information by chimpanzees and humans. Through this model, the author focuses on what is unique for humans (such as the visual attention to the face) and can drive us to the “language-ready brain”.
“Pantomime and imitation in great apes: Implications for reconstructing the evolution of language” by Anne E. Russon. This paper evaluates two key contributors to language evolution in nonhuman hominids: pantomime and action imitation.
“From action to spoken and signed language through gesture: Some basic developmental issues for a discussion on the evolution of the human language-ready brain” by Virginia Volterra, Olga Capirci, Pasquale Rinaldi and Laura Sparaci. In this paper, the authors review the evidence (on children between 6 and 36 months of age) for the importance of the interaction with caregivers in the development of communication and its multimodality component (gestures, words, and signs). Furthermore, they point out analogous findings on ape communicative behavior.
“Praxis, symbol, and language: Developmental, ecological and linguistic issues” by Chris Sinha. The author distinguishes the concept of a “symbol-ready brain” from the already mentioned language-ready brain. According to the authors, the concept does not imply the immediate ability to symbolically communicate or the “Evolutionary Modern Languages”, just that the brain is ready for the process.
The section “Action, Toolmaking, And Language” includes:
“Archaeology and the evolutionary neuroscience of language: The technological pedagogy hypothesis” by Dietrich Stout. The author remarks on the importance of adding the context information to the comparative approach to language evolution .
“Tracing the evolutionary trajectory of verbal working memory with neuro-archaeology” by Shelby S. Putt and Sobanawartiny Wijeakumar. The authors explore from a neuro-archaeology perspective the overlap between working memory networks involved in language and Early Stone Age toolmaking behaviors through optical neuroimaging.
“From actions to events: Communicating through language and gesture” by James Pustejovsky. The author argues that the recognition and conceptualization of events are unique to humans and that during this process, complex linguistic expressions emerge from holophrastic units.
The last section before the “Road Map” is “Meaning and Grammar Emerging”:
“From evolutionarily conserved frontal regions for sequence processing to human innovations for syntax” by Benjamin Wilson and Christopher I. Petkov. Authors argue that the networks which support some sequence learning abilities that appear in other species are conserved in humans, and in these areas, language is processed as well.
“The evolution of enhanced conceptual complexity and Broca’s area: Language preadaptations” by P. Thomas Schoenemann. The author explores the pre-existing brain circuits that after evolution trigger two core characteristics of human language: conceptual complexity and sequence processing. The paper focuses on these processes through the fossil record of brain evolution and the archaeological record.
“Mental travels and the cognitive basis of language” by Michael C. Corballis. The author presents the concept of mental travel both in time and space. This characteristic is shown somehow in some nonhuman animals. However, the author argues that displacement is unique to humans. Based on these, the paper presents the idea of mental time travel co-evolving with the development of language, being the mental time travel capacity prior to (modern) language.
In the last section of the book, the “Road Map” is introduced and explained:
The comparative neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) road map for research on How the Brain Got Language by Michael A. Arbib, 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 and Benjamin Wilson. This chapter agglutinates all the presented approaches, views, and data in order to give a comprehensive model of the evolution of language.
EVALUATION
“How the Brain Got Language - Towards a New Road Map” presents a compelling collection of papers about the process of acquiring language sorted in a quite new fashion, including some key points like the Turn-Taking section that has been systematically ignored in the study of the development of language, even though recently it is getting more attention.
The “road map” drawn from many disciplines presents data from primates and computer models in formal but understandable from, even for non-experts in the field.
To my view, this is not a reference book for a specific discipline, but a resource book for supporting the multidisciplinary approach to the study of language and its mechanisms. The comprehension of the book requires some minimal knowledge about the language process. However, it could be used as well by students or researchers coming from other disciplines not strictly focused on Language (Psychology, Archeology, Physiology, or Computer Science among others) to have an overview of the topic.
As I see it, this volume provides a fascinating and well-connected mix of approaches to the development of the faculty of language in humans; it will be useful from the last courses of undergraduate programs to the explorations of senior researchers . It provides a new perspective on language research and makes clear the necessity of a multidisciplinary approach. It makes clear as well the need for the integration into the new models of developmental and biological information about both humans and apes, taking into account social and cultural context without forgetting the computation challenges.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Pamela Villar González works as a fellow researcher at the Department of Neurodevelopmental Psychology at the University of Warsaw (Poland). Her previous works are in diverse fields like neuroscience (memory, the study of biomarkers in healthy aging and dementia, and sleep), and psycholinguistics (brain lateralization of language, whistled languages). Apart from research, she has taught Spanish language (Ruhr Universität Bochum, and University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany)) and trained medical students (Ruhr Universität Bochum) in Neuropsychology and Master students in different behavioral and neuroimaging techniques (MRI, TMS-EEG, and eye-tracking among others). Her research interests include as well language pathologies, speech science, bilingualism, communication, literature, culture, machine learning, in vivo-imaging methods, open science, and science communication (she has created the “Pamdemia Científica - Scientific Pamdemic” a science communication project through Facebook and Instagram).
Page Updated: 24-Jun-2021