Learning and the Evolution of Language: The Role of Cultural Variation and Learning Costs in the Baldwin Effect

2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 311-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Munroe ◽  
Angelo Cangelosi
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Structural Properties ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Baldwin Effect ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Acquisition Device ◽  
The Baldwin Effect

The Baldwin effect has been explicitly used by Pinker and Bloom as an explanation of the origins of language and the evolution of a language acquisition device. This article presents new simulations of an artificial life model for the evolution of compositional languages. It specifically addresses the role of cultural variation and of learning costs in the Baldwin effect for the evolution of language. Results show that when a high cost is associated with language learning, agents gradually assimilate in their genome some explicit features (e.g., lexical properties) of the specific language they are exposed to. When the structure of the language is allowed to vary through cultural transmission, Baldwinian processes cause, instead, the assimilation of a predisposition to learn, rather than any structural properties associated with a specific language. The analysis of the mechanisms underlying such a predisposition in terms of categorical perception supports Deacon's hypothesis regarding the Baldwinian inheritance of general underlying cognitive capabilities that serve language acquisition. This is in opposition to the thesis that argues for assimilation of structural properties needed for the specification of a full-blown language acquisition device.

The Role of Musical Development in Early Language Acquisition

2018 ◽  
pp. 565-591
Author(s):  
Anthony Brandt ◽  
L. Robert Slevc ◽  
Molly Gebrian
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Infant Brain

Language and music are readily distinguished by adults, but there is growing evidence that infants first experience speech as a special type of music. By listening to the phonemic inventory and prosodic patterns of their caregivers’ speech, infants learn how their native language is composed, later bootstrapping referential meaning onto this musical framework. Our current understanding of infants’ sensitivities to the musical features of speech, the co-development of musical and linguistic abilities, and shared developmental disorders, supports the view that music and language are deeply entangled in the infant brain and modularity emerges over the course of development. This early entanglement of music and language is crucial to the cultural transmission of language and children’s ability to learn any of the world’s tongues.

scholarly journals The Cultural Evolution of Language

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachael Bailes ◽  
Christine Cuskley
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
The Relationship

Language is one of only a handful of human cultural systems that is both unique to our species, and universal. This chapter will focus on the cultural evolution of language, situating this alongside the phylogenetic and developmental timescales which also feed into the evolution of language. The chapter begins by outlining the relationship between the emergence of human language and the language faculty and the more rapid, ongoing processes of language change, which are often framed as predominantly cultural. In particular, previous work has emphasised how these timescales interact, and how cultural factors in particular shape which aspects of language exhibit broad cross-cultural variation or stability. This is followed by detailed evidence for this relationship from three domains, focusing on the role of cultural evolution in language as observed in natural language (both historical corpora and cross linguistic data), the cultural evolution of language in agent-based models, and finally, experimental studies of the cultural evolution of language. We conclude that the study of the cultural evolution of language forms an important data-rich model for the study of the evolution of cultural systems more generally, while also providing key insights into the specific dynamics of this uniquely human behaviour.

scholarly journals A Critique to Fundamental Differences Hypothesis

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Jing Ding
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Theoretical Explanation ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Logical Problem ◽  
Acquisition Device ◽  
Influential Theory

Chomsky’s Theory of Universal Grammar was proposed in response to “the logical problem of language acquisition”, that is, how children come to acquire L1with ease and complete success despite the insufficiency of the L1 stimulus. Chomsky attributes the phenomenon to the Language Acquisition Device or UG inherited by human brain. Since “the logical problem” exists in SLA. What is the role of LAD or UG in SLA? Or, is UG accessible to L2 learners? This is a question that has attracted SLA researchers since the establishment of UG theory. This paper gives some own analysis of one of the most influential theory of UG accessibility—Fundamental Difference Hypothesis, which belongs to the no-access views and points out its weakness by discussing its theoretical explanation as well as the supporting evidence. To be more specific, this paper will discuss mainly 2 points, one is the nine fundamental characters of foreign language learning and the other is its theoretical explanation related to the Critical Period Hypothesis.

scholarly journals Microbiome-mediated plasticity directs host evolution along several distinct time scales

2020 ◽  
Vol 375 (1808) ◽  
pp. 20190589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oren Kolodny ◽  
Hinrich Schulenburg
Keyword(s):  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Time Scales ◽  
Generation Time ◽  
Experimental Tests ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Baldwin Effect ◽  
Host Genetic ◽  
Host Evolution ◽  
The Baldwin Effect

Host-associated microbiomes influence their host's fitness in myriad ways and can be viewed as a source of phenotypic plasticity. This plasticity may allow the host to accommodate novel environmental challenges and thus influence the host's evolutionary adaptation. As with other modalities of phenotypic plasticity in phenomena such as the Baldwin effect and genetic assimilation, the microbiome-mediated plasticity may influence host genetic adaptation by facilitating and accelerating it, by slowing it down, or even by preventing it. The dynamics involved are likely more complex than those of previously studied phenomena related to phenotypic plasticity, and involve different processes on each time scale, such as acquired recognition of newly associated microbes by the host's immune system on single- and multiple-generation time scales, or selection on transmission dynamics of microbes between hosts, acting on longer time scales. To date, it is unclear if and how any of these processes shape host evolution. This opinion piece article provides a conceptual framework for considering the processes by which microbiome-mediated plasticity directs host evolution and concludes with suggestions for key experimental tests of the presented ideas. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The role of the microbiome in host evolution’.

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