The co-evolution of language and emotions

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Volumn 367, Issue 1599, 2012, Pages 2152-2159

  Jablonka, Eva ^a   Ginsburg, Simona ^b   Dor, Daniel ^a  

^a TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

^b OPEN UNIVERSITY OF ISRAEL   (Israel)

Author keywords

Gene culture co evolution; Genetic assimilation; Language evolution; Plasticity; Self domestication; Social emotions

Indexed keywords

ALLOPARENTAL CARE; BRAIN; COEVOLUTION; CULTURAL CHANGE; EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY; HUMAN BEHAVIOR; HUMAN EVOLUTION; LANGUAGE; PHENOTYPIC PLASTICITY; PSYCHOLOGY;

EID: 84863482515     PISSN: 09628436     EISSN: 14712970     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0117     Document Type: Review

References (67)

1. Pinker, S. 1995 The language instinct: how the mind creates language. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
2. Pinker, S. 2010 The cognitive niche: coevolution of intelligence, sociality and language. Proc. Natl Acad. USA 107, 8993-8999. (doi:10.1073/pnas.0914630107)
3. Dor, D. 2011 Language as a communication technology: a proposal for a new general linguistic theory. See http://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/danield/files/2010/11/abstractfor-site3.pdf.
4. Vygotsky, L. S. 1934/1986 Thought and language (trans. A. Kozulin). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
5. Vygotsky, L. S. 1978 Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
6. Tomasello, M. 2008 Origins of human communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
7. Tomasello, M. 2011 Human culture in evolutionary perspective. In Advances in culture and psychology (ed. M. Gelfand), pp. 5-51. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
8. West-Eberhard, M. J. 2003 Developmental plasticity and evolution. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
9. Savage-Rumbaugh, S., Shanker, S. G. & Taylor, T. J. 1998 Apes, language and the human mind. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
10. Dehaene, S. 2009 Reading in the brain. New York, NY: Viking.
11. Dehaene, S. et al. 2010 How learning to read changes the cortical networks for vision and language. Science 330, 1359-1364. (doi:10.1126/science.1194140)
12. Thaler, L., Arnott, S. R. & Goodale, M. A. 2011 Neural correlates of natural human echolocation in early and late blind echolocation experts. PLoS ONE 6, e20162. (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020162)
13. Currie, T. E. & Mace, R. 2011 Mode and tempo in the evolution of socio-political organization: reconciling 'Darwinian' and 'Spencerian' evolutionary approaches in anthropology. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 1108-1117. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0318)
14. Dor, D. & Jablonka, E. 2010 Canalization and plasticity in the evolution of linguistic communication. In The evolution of human language (eds R. K. Larson, V. Deprez & H. Yamakido), pp. 135-147. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
15. Waddington, C. H. 1975 The evolution of altruism and language. In The evolution of an evolutionist. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.
16. Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. 1990 Natural language and natural selection. Behav. Brain Sci. 13, 707-784. (doi:10.1017/S0140525X00081061)
17. Maynard Smith, J. & Szathmáry, E. 1995 The major transitions in evolution. Oxford,UK: Oxford University Press.
18. Jablonka, E. & Rechav, G. 1996 The evolution of language in light of the evolution of literacy. In Origins of language (ed. J. Trabant), pp. 70-88. Collegium Budapest, Workshop Series no. 2. Budapest, Hungary: Collegium Budapest.
19. Deacon, W. T. 1997 The symbolic species: the co-evolution of language and the brain. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
20. Kirby, S. 1999 Function, selection and innateness: the emergence of language universals. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
21. Briscoe, T. 2003 Grammatical assimilation. In Language evolution (eds M. A. Christiansen & S. Kirby), pp. 295-316. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
22. Christiansen, M. H. & Chater, N. 2008 Language as shaped by the brain. Behav. Brain Sci. 31, 489-558.
23. Everett, D. 2005 Another look at the design features of human language. Curr. Anthropol. 46, 621-646. (doi:10.1086/431525)
24. Goody, J. 1977 The domestication of the savage mind. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
25. Donald, M. 1991 The origin of the modern mind: three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
26. Evans, N. & Levinson, S. C. 2009 The myth of language universals: language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behav. Brain Sci. 32, 429-492. (doi:10.1017/S0140525X0999094X)
27. Dunn, M., Greenhill, S. J., Levinson, S. C. & Gray, R. D. 2011 Evolved structure of language shows lineagespecific trends in word-order universals. Nature 473, 79-82. (doi:10.1038/nature09923)
28. Avital, E. & Jablonka, E. 2000 Animal traditions: behavioral inheritance in evolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
29. Ruhlen, M. 1994 Origin of language. New York, NY: Wiley.
30. Bickerton, D. 2009 Adam's tongue: how humans made language, how language made humans. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.
31. Whiten, A. & Erdal, D. 2012 The human socio-cognitive niche and its evolutionary origin. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 367, 2119-2129. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2012.0114)
32. Tomasello, M. 2009 Why we cooperate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
33. Dessalles, J.-L. 2009 Why we talk: the evolutionary origins of language. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
34. Richerson, P. & Boyd, R. 2005 Not by genes alone: how culture transformed human evolution. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
35. Sterelny, K. 2012 Language, gesture, skill: the coevolutionary foundations of language. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 367, 2141-2151. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2012.0116)
36. Csibra, G. & Gergely, G. 2011 Natural pedagogy as evolutionary adaptation. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 1149-1157. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0319)
37. Corballis, M. C. 2009 The evolution of language. Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 1156, 19-43. (doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04423.x)
38. Greenfield, P. 1991 Language, tools and brain: the ontogeny and phylogeny of hierarchically organized sequential behavior. Behav. Brain Sci. 14, 531-595. (doi:10.1017/S0140525X00071235)
39. Arbib, M. A. 2005 From monkey-like action recognition to human language: an evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics. Behav. Brain Sci. 2, 105-124.
40. Higuichi, S., Chaminade, T., Imamizua, H. & Kawato, M. 2009 Shared neural correlates for language and tool use in Broca's area. Neuroreport 20, 1376-1381. (doi:10.1097/WNR.0b013e3283315570)
41. Steele, J., Ferrari, P. F. & Fogassi, L. 2012 From action to language: comparative perspective on primate tool use, gesture and the evolution of human language. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 367, 4-9. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2011.0295)
42. Holzhaider, J. C., Hunt, J. R. & Russell, D. G. 2010 The development of pandanus tool manufacture in wild New Caledonian crows. Behaviour 147, 553-586. (doi:10.1163/000579510X12629536366284)
43. Vaesen, K. In press. The cognitive bases of human tool use. Behav. Brain Sci.
44. Hrdy, S. B. 2009 Mothers and others: the evolutionary origins of joint understanding. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
45. Reddy, V. 2003 On being an object of attention: implications for self-other-consciousness. Trends Cogn. Sci. 7, 397-402. (doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00191-8)
46. Fessler, D. M. T. 2007 From appeasement to conformity: evolutionary and cultural perspectives on shame, competition and cooperation. In The self-conscious emotions: theory and research (eds J. L. Tracey, R. W. Robins & J. P. Tangeny), pp. 174-193. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
47. Goetz, J. L. & Keltner, D. 2007 Shifting meanings of selfconscious emotions across cultures. In The self-conscious emotions: theory and research (eds J. L. Tracey, R. W. Robins & J. P. Tangeny), pp. 153-173. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
48. Darwin, C. 1872 The expression of emotions in man and animals. London, UK: John Murray.
49. Crozier, W. R. 2006 Blushing and the social emotions: the self unmasked. London, UK: Pallgrave Macmillan.
50. Brüne, M. 2007 On human self-domestication, psychiatry, and eugenics. Phil. Ethics Humanit. Med. 2, 21. (doi:10.1186/1747-5341-2-21)
51. Belyaev, D. K. 1979 Destabilizing selection as a factor in domestication. J. Hered. 70, 301-308.
52. Pennisi, E. 2011 On the trail of brain domestication genes. Science 332, 1030-1031. (doi:10.1126/science.332.6033.1030-b)
53. Hare, B., Wobber, V. & Wrangham, R. In press. The selfdomestication hypothesis: evolution of bonobo psychology is due to selection against aggressions. Anim. Behav.
54. Premack, D. 1986 Gavagai! or the future history of the animal language controversy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
55. Boysen, S.T., Berntson, G. G., Hannan, M. B. & Cacioppo, J. T. 1996 Quantity-based interference and symbolic representations in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). J. Exp. Psychol: Anim. Behav. Process. 22, 76-86. (doi:10.1037/0097-7403.22.1.76)
56. Tomonaga, M. & Matsuzawa, T. 2000 Sequential responding to Arabic numerals with wild cards by the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). Anim. Cogn. 3, 1-11. (doi:10.1007/s100710050045)
57. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 2003 Metaphors we live by, 2nd edn. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
58. Theodoropoulou, M. 2012 Metaphor-metonymies of joy and happiness in Greek: towards an interdisciplinary perspective. Rev. Cog. Linguist. 10, 156-183.
59. Barrett, L., Dunbar, R. & Lycett, J. 2002 Human evolutionary psychology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
60. Berger, P. L. 1997 Redeeming laughter. Berlin, Germany: Walter Grutyer.
61. Martin, R. A. 2007 The psychology of humor: an integrative approach. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier Academic Press.
62. Frith, C. D. 2012 The role of metacognition in human social interaction. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 367, 2213-2223. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2012.0123)
63. Barrett, L. F. 2006 Are emotions natural kinds. Persp. Psychol. Sci. 1, 28-58. (doi:10.1111/j.1745-6916.2006.00003.x)
64. Barrett, L. F. 2009 Variety is the spice of life: a psychological construction approach to understanding variability in emotion. Cogn. Emot. 23, 1284-1306. (doi:10.1080/02699930902985894)
65. Lindquist, K. A., Wager, T. D., Kober, H., Bliss-Moreau, E. & Barrett, L. F. 2012 The brain basis of emotion: a meta-analytic review. Behav. Brain Sci.
66. Hauser, M. D., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W. T. 2002 The faculty of language: what it is, who has it, and how did it evolve. Science 298, 1569-1579. (doi:10.1126/science.298.5598.1569)
67. Cushing, B. S., Kristin, M. & Kramer, K. M. 2005 Mechanisms underlying epigenetic effects of early social experience: the role of neuropeptides and steroids. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 29, 1089-1105. (doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2005.04.001)