Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T00:06:54.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Complex imitation and the language-ready brain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2014

Michael A. Arbib
Michael A. Arbib*
Affiliation:
Computer Science, Neuroscience, and the USC Brain Project, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520, USA. E-mail: arbib@usc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The present article responds to commentaries from experts in anthropology, apraxia, archeology, linguistics, neuroanatomy, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, primatology, sign language emergence and sign language neurolinguistics on the book How the brain got language: The mirror system hypothesis (Arbib 2012). The role of complex imitation is discussed, and the distinction between protolanguage and language is emphasized. Issues debated include the role of protosign in scaffolding protospeech, the interplay between biological evolution of the brain and cultural evolution of the social interactions within groups, the relations brain mechanisms for action and language, and the question of when language first emerged.

Keywords

language evolutionmirror neuronsmirror systemsbrainprimate communicationimitationschema theorypantomimeprotosignprotolanguageprotospeechsign languageaphasiaapraxiahuman origins
Type
Response to commentaries
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 5 , Issue 2-3: Special Issue , September 2013 , pp. 273 - 312
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2013

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

Aglioti, S. M., Cesari, P., Romani, M. & Urgesi, C.. 2008. Action anticipation and motor resonance in elite basketball players. Nature Neuroscience 11. 1109–1116.Google Scholar
Allen, K., Pereira, F., Botvinick, M. & Goldberg, A. E.. 2012. Distinguishing grammatical constructions with fMRI pattern analysis. Brain and Language 123. 174–182.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Almor, A., Smith, D. V., Bonilha, L., Fridriksson, J. & Rorden, C.. 2007. What is in a name? Spatial brain circuits are used to track discourse references. NeuroReport 18. 1215–1219.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. 1972. The metaphorical brain: An introduction to cybernetics as artificial intelligence and brain theory. New York: Wiley-Interscience.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. 2005. Beware the passionate robot. In Fellous, J.-M. & Arbib, M.A. (eds.), Who needs emotions? The brain meets the robot, 333–383. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. 2006. Aphasia, apraxia and the evolution of the language-ready brain. Aphasiology 20. 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbib, M. A. 2007. Autism – More than the mirror system. Clinical Neuropsychiatry 4. 208–222.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. 2008. From grasp to language: Embodied concepts and the challenge of abstraction. Journal of Physiology-Paris 102. 4–20.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. 2011. Niche construction and the evolution of language: Was territory scavenging the one key factor? Interaction Studies 12. 162–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbib, M. A. 2012. How the brain got language: The Mirror System Hypothesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. In press. Neurolinguistics. In Heine, B. & Narrog, H. (eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. & Bota, M.. 2003. Language evolution: Neural homologies and neuroinformatics. Neural Networks 16. 1237–1260.Google Scholar
Arbib, M.A., Ghanesh, V. & Gasser, B.. 2013. Dyadic Brain Modeling, Ontogenetic Ritualization of Gesture in Apes, and the Contributions of Primate Mirror Neuron Systems. Phil Trans Roy Soc B. to appear.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. & Fellous, J. M.. 2004. Emotions: From brain to robot. Trends in Cognitive Science 8. 554–561.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. & Iriki, A.. 2013. Evolving the language- and music-ready brain. In Arbib, M. A. (ed.), Language, music, and the brain: A mysterious relationship, Strngmann Forum Reports, vol. 10, 359–375. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Arbib, M. A. & Rizzolatti, G.. 1997. Neural expectations: A possible evolutionary path from manual skills to language. Communication and Cognition 29. 393–424.Google Scholar
Aziz-Zadeh, L., Sheng, T., Liew, S.-L. & Damasio, H.. 2012. Understanding otherness: The neural bases of action comprehension and pain empathy in a congenital amputee. Cerebral Cortex 22. 811–819.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. 2007. Working memory, thought, and action oxford. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barrès, V. & Lee, J. Y., 2013. From visual scenes to language and back via Template Construction Grammar. Neuroinformatics, DOI 10.1007/s12021-013-9197-y.Google Scholar
Bellugi, U. & Fischer, S.. 1972. A comparison of sign language and spoken language. Cognition 1. 173–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bickerton, D. 2009. Adams tongue. How humans made language, how language made humans. New York: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Buccino, G., Lui, F., Canessa, N., Patteri, I., Lagravinese, G., Benuzzi, F., Porro, C. A. & Rizzolatti, G.. 2004. Neural circuits involved in the recognition of actions performed by nonconspecifics: An FMRI study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16. 114–126.Google Scholar
Chen, Y., Fu, S., Iversen, S. D., Smith, S. M. & Matthews, P. M.. 2002. Testing for dual brain processing routes in reading: A direct contrast of chinese character and pinyin reading using fMRI. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 14. 1088–1098.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheney, D. L. & Seyfarth, R. M.. 2005. Constraints and preadaptations in the earliest stages of language evolution. The Linguistic Review 22. 135–159.Google Scholar
Cheney, D. L. & Seyfarth, R. M.. 2007. Baboon metaphysics: The evolution of a social mind. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chersi, F., Ferrari, P. F. & Fogassi, L.. 2011. Neuronal chains for actions in the parietal lobe: A computational model. PLoS One 6.e27652.Google Scholar
Cossu, G., Boria, S., Copioli, C., Bracceschi, R., Giuberti, V., Santelli, E. & Gallese, V.. 2012. Motor representation of actions in children with autism. PLoS One 7.e44779.Google Scholar
Dapretto, M., Davies, M. S., Pfeifer, J. H., Scott, A. A., Sigman, M., Bookheimer, S. Y. & Iacoboni, M.. 2006. Understanding emotions in others: Mirror neuron dysfunction in children with autism spectrum disorders. Nature Neuroscience 9. 28–30.Google Scholar
de Villiers, J. G. & de Villiers, P. A.. 2009. Complements enable representation of the contents of false beliefs: The evolution of a theory of theory of mind. In Foster-Cohen, S. H. (ed.), Language acquisition, 169–195. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Deacon, T. W. 1997. The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. New York: WW Norton.Google Scholar
Deacon, T. W. 1998. Language evolution and neuromechanisms. In Bechtel, W. & Graham, G. (eds.), A Companion to Cognitive Science, 21225. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Deacon, T. W. 2006. The aesthetic faculty. In Turner, M. (ed.), The artful mind: Cognitive science and the riddle of human creativity, 2153. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dominey, P. F., Hoen, M. & Inui, T.. 2006. A neurolinguistic model of grammatical construction processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18. 2088–2107.Google Scholar
Donald, M. 1991. Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dubreuil, B. 2010. Paleolithic public goods games: Why human culture and cooperation did not evolve in one step. Biology & Philosophy 25. 53–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunbar, R. 1993. Co-evolution of neocortex size, group size and language in humans. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16. 681–735.Google Scholar
Edwards, D. H. & Spitzer, N.. 2006. Social dominance and serotonin receptor genes in crayfish. Current Topics in Developmental Biology 74. 177–199.Google Scholar
Emmorey, K., Xu, J., Gannon, P., Goldin-Meadow, S. & Braun, A.. 2010. CNS activation and regional connectivity during pantomime observation: No engagement of the mirror neuron system for deaf signers. Neuroimage 49. 994–1005.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fay, N., Arbib, M.A. & Garrod, S.. 2013. How to Bootstrap a Human Communication System. Cognitive Science, DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12048.Google Scholar
Fay, N. & Lim, S.. 2012. From hand to mouth: An experimental simulation of language origin. In Smith, A. D. M., Schouwstra, M., de Boer, B. & Smith, K. (eds.), The evolution of language, 401–402. Singapore: World Scientific.Google Scholar
Feakins, S. J., de Menocal, P. B. & Eglinton, T. I.. 2013. Biomarker records of late Neogene changes in northeast African vegetation. Geology 33. 977–980.Google Scholar
Ferrari, P. F., Gallese, V., Rizzolatti, G. & Fogassi, L.. 2003. Mirror neurons responding to the observation of ingestive and communicative mouth actions in the monkey ventral premotor cortex. European Journal of Neuroscience 17. 1703–1714.Google Scholar
Fogassi, L. & Ferrari, P. F.. 2012. Cortical motor organization, mirror neurons, and embodied language: An evolutionary perspective. Biolinguistics 6. 308–337.Google Scholar
Gallese, V., Rochat, M., Cossu, G. & Sinigaglia, C.. 2009. Motor cognition and its role in the phylogeny and ontogeny of action understanding. Developmental Psychology 45. 103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gasser, B., Cartmill, E. & Arbib, M. A.. In Press. Ontogenetic ritualization of primate gesture as a case study in dyadic brain modeling. Neuroinformatics.Google Scholar
Hecht, E. E., Gutman, D. A., Preuss, T. M., Sanchez, M. M., Parr, L. A. & Rilling, J. K.. 2012. Process versus product in social learning: Comparative diffusion tensor imaging of neural systems for action executionobservation matching in macaques, chimpanzees, and humans. Cerebral Cortex 23(5). 1014–1024.Google Scholar
Hickok, G. & Poeppel, D.. 2004. Dorsal and ventral streams: A framework for understanding aspects of the functional anatomy of language. Cognition 92. 67–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hwang, S.-O.K. 2011. Windows into sensory integration and rates in language processing: insights from signed and spoken languages. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Linguistics, University of Maryland.Google Scholar
Iriki, A. & Taoka, M.. 2012. Triadic (ecological, neural, cognitive) niche construction: a scenario of human brain evolution extrapolating tool use and language from the control of reaching actions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367. 10–23.Google Scholar
Iverson, J. M., Capirci, O. & Caselli, M. C.. 1994. From communication to language in two modalities. Cognitive Development 9. 23–43.Google Scholar
Jeannerod, M. 2005. How do we decipher others minds? In Fellous, J.-M. & Arbib, M. A. (eds.), Who needs emotions: The brain meets the robot, 147–169. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Knapp, H. P. & Corina, D. P.. 2010. A human mirror neuron system for language: Perspectives from signed languages of the deaf. Brain and Language 112. 36–43.Google Scholar
Kuhl, P. K. & Miller, J. D.. 1975. Speech perception by the chinchilla: Voiced-voiceless distinction in alveolar plosive consonants. Science 190. 69–72.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C. 2013. Cross-cultural universals and communication structures. In Arbib, M. A. (ed.), Language, music, and the brain: A mysterious relationship. Strngmann Forum Reports, vol. 10, 67–80. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Liebal, K., Carpenter, M. & Tomasello, M.. 2010. Infants' use of shared experience in declarative pointing. Infancy 15. 545–556.Google Scholar
Liberman, A. M. & Mattingly, I. G.. 1989. A specialization for speech perception. Science 243. 489–494.Google Scholar
Meltzoff, A. N. 2005. Imitation and other minds: The like me hypothesis. In Hurley, S. & Chater, N. (eds.), Perspectives on imitation, 55–78. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Menenti, L., Garrod, S. C. & Pickering, M. J.. 2012. Towards a neural basis of interactive alignment in conversation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6.0.3389/fnhum.2012.00185.Google Scholar
Moulin-Frier, C. & Arbib, M. A.. 2013. Recognizing speech in a novel accent: The motor theory of speech perception reframed, DOI 10.1007/s00422-013-0557-3.Google Scholar
Oztop, E., Wolpert, D. & Kawato, M.. 2005. Mental state inference using visual control parameters. Cognitive Brain Research 22. 129–151.Google Scholar
Padden, C. A. 2000. Simultaneous Interpreting across Modalities. Interpreting 5. 169–185.Google Scholar
Penn, D. C. & Povinelli, D. J.. 2007. On the lack of evidence that non-human animals possess anything remotely resembling a theory of mind. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362. 731–744.Google Scholar
Pickering, M. J. & Garrod, S.. 2013. An integrated theory of language production and comprehension. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 36. 329–347.Google Scholar
Prather, J. F., Peters, S., Nowicki, S. & Mooney, R.. 2008. Precise auditory-vocal mirroring in neurons for learned vocal communication. Nature 451. 305–310.Google Scholar
Russon, A. & Andrews, K.. 2010. Orangutan pantomime: elaborating the message. Biology Letters 7. 627–630.Google Scholar
Seyfarth, R. M., Cheney, D. L. & Bergman, T. J.. 2005. Primate social cognition and the origins of language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9. 264–266.Google Scholar
Skipper, J. I., Goldin-Meadow, S., Nusbaum, H. C. & Small, S. L.. 2007. Speech-associated gestures, Broca's area, and the human mirror system. Brain and Language 101. 260–277.Google Scholar
Stanford, C. B. 1999. The hunting apes: Meat eating and the origins of human behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Steels, L. 2003. Evolving grounded communication for robots. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7. 308–312.Google Scholar
Stout, D. 2011. Stone toolmaking and the evolution of human culture and cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366. 1050–1059.Google Scholar
Syal, S. & Finlay, B. L.. 2011. Thinking outside the cortex: Social motivation in the evolution and development of language. Developmental Science 14. 417–430.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. 1999. The human adaptation for culture. Annual Reviews of Anthropology 28. 509–529.Google Scholar
Vigliocco, G., Vinson, D. P., Druks, J., Barber, H. & Cappa, S. F.. 2011. Nouns and verbs in the brain: A review of behavioural, electrophysiological, neuropsychological and imaging studies. Neuroscience Biobehavioral Reviews 35. 407–426.Google Scholar
Waddington, C. H. 1953. The “Baldwin Effect”, “Genetic Assimilation” and “Homeostasis.” Evolution 7. 386–387.Google Scholar
Waddington, C. H. 1957. The strategy of the genes. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Whitehead, C. 2010. The culture ready brain. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5. 168–179.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, J. H. G. 2008. Self-other relations in social development and autism: Multiple roles for mirror neurons and other brain bases. Autism Research 1. 73–90.Google Scholar
Williams, J. H. G., Whiten, A., Suddendorf, T. & Perrett, D. I.. 2001. Imitation, mirror neurons and autism. Neuroscience Biobehavioral Reviews 25. 287–295.Google Scholar
Zukow-Goldring, P. 2012. Assisted imitation: First steps in the seed model of language development. Language Sciences 34. 569–582.Google Scholar