Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-09T18:37:23.728Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The co-evolution of cooperation and communication: Alternative accounts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2023

Nima Mussavifard  and
Gergely Csibra Open the ORCID record for Gergely Csibra [Opens in a new window]
Nima Mussavifard
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Wien 1100, Austria. Mussavifard_Nima@phd.ceu.edu; csibrag@ceu.edu http://cdc.ceu.edu/people/gergely-csibra
Gergely Csibra
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Wien 1100, Austria. Mussavifard_Nima@phd.ceu.edu; csibrag@ceu.edu http://cdc.ceu.edu/people/gergely-csibra
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We challenge the proposal that partner-choice ecology explains the evolutionary emergence of ostensive communication in humans. The good fit between these domains might be because of the opposite relation (ostensive communication promotes the evolution of cooperation) or because of the dependence of both these human-specific traits on a more ancient contributor to human cognitive evolution: the use of technology.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 46 , 2023 , e11
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brinck, I., & Gärdenfors, P. (2003). Co-operation and communication in apes and humans. Mind & Language, 18(5), 484–501. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0017.00239CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Csibra, G., & Gergely, G. (2011). Natural pedagogy as evolutionary adaptation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1149–1157. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0319CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gärdenfors, P., & Högberg, A. (2017). The archaeology of teaching and the evolution of Homo docens. Current Anthropology, 58(2), 188–208. https://doi.org/10.1086/691178CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hockett, C. F. (1960). The origin of speech. Scientific American, 203(3), 88–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hurford, J. R. (1998). The evolution of language and languages. In Dunbar, R., Knight, C., & Power, C. (Eds.), The evolution of culture (pp. 173–193). Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Laland, K. N. (2017). The origins of language in teaching. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 24, 225–231. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1077-7CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgan, T. J. H., Uomini, N. T., Rendell, L. E., Chouinard-Thuly, L., Street, S. E., Lewis, H. M., … Laland, K. N. (2015). Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-making teaching and language. Nature Communications, 6(1), 6029. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7029CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roche, H., Blumenschine, R. J., & Shea, J. J. (2009). Origins and adaptations of early homo: What archeology tells us. In Grine, F. E., Fleagle, J. G., & Leakey, R. E. (Eds.), The first humans – Origin and early evolution of the genus Homo (pp. 135–147). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9980-9_12CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shick, K. D. (1987). Modeling the formation of Early Stone Age artifact concentrations. Journal of Human Evolution, 16(7), 789–807. https://doi.org/10.1016/0047-2484(87)90024-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toth, N., & Schick, K. (2015). Overview of Paleolithic archaeology. In Henke, W. & Tattersall, I. (Eds.), Handbook of paleoanthropology (pp. 2441–2464). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39979-4_64CrossRefGoogle Scholar