Précis of How the brain got language: The Mirror System Hypothesis

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 107-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Arbib
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Short Answer ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Brain

The short answer to the question of How the Brain Got Language is “through biological and cultural evolution.” The challenge is to be more specific. I use the term “the language-ready brain” to suggest that the brain of early Homo sapiens was adequate to support language but that it required tens of millennia for humans to be able to exploit these innate neural capabilities to develop, cumulatively, languages and the societies that made languages possible and necessary. The ability to surf the World Wide Web is a recent example of society's expanding ability to develop technologies and social structures which allow humans to exploit their neural capabilities in ways that were not part of the adaptive pressures for biological evolution.The two-fold challenge of the book, then, is to understand (i) what are the mechanisms of the language-ready brain and what adaptive pressures evolved them biologically; and (ii) how did those mechanisms support the emergence of language as well as modern-day patterns of language change, acquisition and use, and the social interactions which support them?

Complex imitation and the language-ready brain

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 273-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Arbib
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Mirror System ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language Emergence ◽  
The Brain

AbstractThe 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.

scholarly journals Language is shaped for social interactions, as well as by the brain

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 536-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Wallentin ◽  
Chris D. Frith
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Motor System ◽  
Strong Force ◽  
Invariant Features ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Brain

AbstractLanguage learning is not primarily driven by a motivation to describe invariant features of the world, but rather by a strong force to be a part of the social group, which by definition is not invariant. It is not sufficient for language to be fit for the speaker's perceptual motor system. It must also be fit for social interactions.

Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 22-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Arbib
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Semantic Representation ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Brain System ◽  
Dorsal Pathway ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ventral Pathway ◽  
Grammar Model

Abstract A theory of evolving the language-ready brain requires a theory of what it is that evolved. We offer the TCG (Template Construction Grammar) model of comprehension and production of utterances to exhibit hypotheses on how utterances may link to “what language is about.” A key subsystem of TCG is the SemRep system for semantic representation of a visual scene. We offer an account of how it may have evolved as an expansion of the ventral pathway supporting the planning of manual actions, complemented by a dorsal pathway for articulation. The Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) claims that early Homo sapiens had protolanguage but not language and that cultural evolution yielded the social structures within which children could indeed acquire language. The article poses the challenge of understanding how a brain system could be innately specified that could develop into a TCG-like form, posing a range of questions for future research.

Social Glocalisation and Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Hobelsberger
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Practical Theology ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Local Effects ◽  
Local Identities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Work Health

This book discusses the local effects of globalisation, especially in the context of social work, health and practical theology, as well as the challenges of higher education in a troubled world. The more globalised the world becomes, the more important local identities are. The global becomes effective in the local sphere. This phenomenon, called ‘glocalisation’ since the 1990s, poses many challenges to people and to the social structures in which they operate.

scholarly journals Seven Computations of the Social Brain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanaz Molapour ◽  
Cindy C Hagan ◽  
Brian Silston ◽  
Haiyan Wu ◽  
Maxwell Ramstead ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Verbal Cues ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Multiple Modalities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Processing Demands ◽  
Social Signaling ◽  
The Brain

ABSTRACT The social environment presents the human brain with the most complex of information processing demands. The computations that the brain must perform occur in parallel, combine social and nonsocial cues, produce verbal and non-verbal signals, and involve multiple cognitive systems; including memory, attention, emotion, learning. This occurs dynamically and at timescales ranging from milliseconds to years. Here, we propose that during social interactions, seven core operations interact to underwrite coherent social functioning; these operations accumulate evidence efficiently – from multiple modalities – when inferring what to do next. We deconstruct the social brain and outline the key components entailed for successful human social interaction. These include (1) social perception; (2) social inferences, such as mentalizing; (3) social learning; (4) social signaling through verbal and non-verbal cues; (5) social drives (e.g., how to increase one’s status); (6) determining the social identity of agents, including oneself; and (7) minimizing uncertainty within the current social context by integrating sensory signals and inferences. We argue that while it is important to examine these distinct aspects of social inference, to understand the true nature of the human social brain, we must also explain how the brain integrates information from the social world.

The human brain: Chairman’s introduction

1981 ◽  
Vol 292 (1057) ◽  
pp. 151-153
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Positive Feedback ◽  
Time Scale ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Internal Models ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Myelin Sheaths ◽  
The Brain

Much has been said at the symposium about the pre-eminent role of the brain in the continuing emergence of man. Tobias has spoken of its explosive enlargement during the last 1 Ma, and how much of its enlargement in individual ontogeny is postnatal. We are born before our brains are fully grown and ‘wired up ’. During our long adolescence we build up internal models of the outside world and of the relations of parts of our bodies to it and to one another. Neurons that are present at birth spread their dendrites and project axons which acquire their myelin sheaths, and establish innumerable contacts with other neurons, over the years. New connections are formed; genetically endowed ones are stamped in or blanked off. People born without arms may grow up to use their toes in skills that are normally manual. Tobias, Darlington and others have stressed the enormous survival value of adaptive behaviour and the ‘positive feedback’ relation between biological and cultural evolution. The latter, the unique product of the unprecedentedly rapid biological evolution of big brains, advances on a time scale unknown to biological evolution.

scholarly journals Conceptual Usage of Systems Dynamics in Patients Rehabilitation Management

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Tudor Irimiaș ◽  
Giuseppe Carbone ◽  
Adrian Pîslă
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Systems Dynamics ◽  
Rehabilitation Management ◽  
Major Research ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Brain

The essence of social sciences is well encompassed in Green’s (2006) quote “People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used. ” For this reason, social sciences are important, as major research paradigm on how and why individuals interrelate. The aim of the actual research is to look for a conceptual approach activity, as part of a larger project focused on individual rehabilitation. The brain is trained to react to the stimulus and command a behavior. The premise, for the considered approach, is understanding the social sciences as revealing the individuals interests for self conscience, well being and moral values and drawing the line to it’s importance for governments authorities, policymakers or NGO’s.

scholarly journals Self-Organized Societies: On the Sakoda Model of Social Interactions

Complexity ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Medina ◽  
Eric Goles ◽  
Roberto Zarama ◽  
Sergio Rica
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Periodic Lattice ◽  
Long Range Order ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Self Organized ◽  
Dynamical Behaviors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Interacting Populations ◽  
Simple Rules

We characterize the behavior and the social structures appearing from a model of general social interaction proposed by Sakoda. The model consists of two interacting populations in a two-dimensional periodic lattice with empty sites. It contemplates a set of simple rules that combine attitudes, ranges of interactions, and movement decisions. We analyze the evolution of the 45 different interaction rules via a Potts-like energy function which drives the system irreversibly to an equilibrium or a steady state. We discuss the robustness of the social structures, dynamical behaviors, and the existence of spatial long range order in terms of the social interactions and the equilibrium energy.

The Dawn of Civilization

2018 ◽  
pp. 234-263
Author(s):  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Slow Rate ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Morphological Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Adaptive Challenges

This chapter traces the evolution of human civilization from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to the advent of agriculture and its large-scale impacts on the world. It describes this history in three ages of adaptive evolution. First, there was the age in which biological evolution dominated, in which we adapted to the circumstances of life in a manner no different from every other creature. Second came the age when gene–culture coevolution was in the ascendency. Through cultural activities, our ancestors set challenges to which they adapted biologically. In doing so, they released the brake that the relatively slow rate of independent environmental change imposes on other species. The results are higher rates of morphological evolution in humans compared to other mammals, with human genetic evolution reported as accelerating more than a hundredfold over the last 40,000 years. Now we live in the third age, where cultural evolution dominates. Cultural practices provide humanity with adaptive challenges, but these are then solved through further cultural activity, before biological evolution gets moving.

Transforming Universities in the Online World

2011 ◽  
pp. 2135-2140
Author(s):  
Stewart Marshall ◽  
Shirley Gregor
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Global Competition ◽  
Government Regulations ◽  
Business Market ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theory Of Structuration ◽  
The World ◽  
Market Pressures

As the world moves online, various pressures drive changes in the way industries and organizations do business: market pressures, for example, global competition; technological pressures, for example, the use of e-commerce to lower the costs of production; and societal pressures, for example, government regulations (Turban, King, Lee, & Viehland, 2004). In considering the implications of the online world for industry, it is necessary to consider both structure and process, where process includes change processes (Gregor & Johnston, 2000, 2001; Johnston & Gregor, 2000). In Giddens’ (1977, 1984, 1991) theory of structuration, process (activity) and structure are reciprocal. As Giddens (1977) states, “social structures are both constituted by human agency, and yet at the same time are the very medium of this constitution”(p. 121) or, as Rose (1999) puts it, “agents in their actions constantly produce and reproduce and develop the social structures which both constrain and enable them” (p.643).

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