Cargando…
Can vocal conditioning trigger a semiotic ratchet in marmosets?
The complexity of human communication has often been taken as evidence that our language reflects a true evolutionary leap, bearing little resemblance to any other animal communication system. The putative uniqueness of the human language poses serious evolutionary and ethological challenges to a ra...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2015
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4596241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26500583 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01519 |
_version_ | 1782393730587688960 |
---|---|
author | Turesson, Hjalmar K. Ribeiro, Sidarta |
author_facet | Turesson, Hjalmar K. Ribeiro, Sidarta |
author_sort | Turesson, Hjalmar K. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The complexity of human communication has often been taken as evidence that our language reflects a true evolutionary leap, bearing little resemblance to any other animal communication system. The putative uniqueness of the human language poses serious evolutionary and ethological challenges to a rational explanation of human communication. Here we review ethological, anatomical, molecular, and computational results across several species to set boundaries for these challenges. Results from animal behavior, cognitive psychology, neurobiology, and semiotics indicate that human language shares multiple features with other primate communication systems, such as specialized brain circuits for sensorimotor processing, the capability for indexical (pointing) and symbolic (referential) signaling, the importance of shared intentionality for associative learning, affective conditioning and parental scaffolding of vocal production. The most substantial differences lie in the higher human capacity for symbolic compositionality, fast vertical transmission of new symbols across generations, and irreversible accumulation of novel adaptive behaviors (cultural ratchet). We hypothesize that increasingly-complex vocal conditioning of an appropriate animal model may be sufficient to trigger a semiotic ratchet, evidenced by progressive sign complexification, as spontaneous contact calls become indexes, then symbols and finally arguments (strings of symbols). To test this hypothesis, we outline a series of conditioning experiments in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus). The experiments are designed to probe the limits of vocal communication in a prosocial, highly vocal primate 35 million years far from the human lineage, so as to shed light on the mechanisms of semiotic complexification and cultural transmission, and serve as a naturalistic behavioral setting for the investigation of language disorders. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4596241 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-45962412015-10-23 Can vocal conditioning trigger a semiotic ratchet in marmosets? Turesson, Hjalmar K. Ribeiro, Sidarta Front Psychol Psychology The complexity of human communication has often been taken as evidence that our language reflects a true evolutionary leap, bearing little resemblance to any other animal communication system. The putative uniqueness of the human language poses serious evolutionary and ethological challenges to a rational explanation of human communication. Here we review ethological, anatomical, molecular, and computational results across several species to set boundaries for these challenges. Results from animal behavior, cognitive psychology, neurobiology, and semiotics indicate that human language shares multiple features with other primate communication systems, such as specialized brain circuits for sensorimotor processing, the capability for indexical (pointing) and symbolic (referential) signaling, the importance of shared intentionality for associative learning, affective conditioning and parental scaffolding of vocal production. The most substantial differences lie in the higher human capacity for symbolic compositionality, fast vertical transmission of new symbols across generations, and irreversible accumulation of novel adaptive behaviors (cultural ratchet). We hypothesize that increasingly-complex vocal conditioning of an appropriate animal model may be sufficient to trigger a semiotic ratchet, evidenced by progressive sign complexification, as spontaneous contact calls become indexes, then symbols and finally arguments (strings of symbols). To test this hypothesis, we outline a series of conditioning experiments in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus). The experiments are designed to probe the limits of vocal communication in a prosocial, highly vocal primate 35 million years far from the human lineage, so as to shed light on the mechanisms of semiotic complexification and cultural transmission, and serve as a naturalistic behavioral setting for the investigation of language disorders. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-10-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4596241/ /pubmed/26500583 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01519 Text en Copyright © 2015 Turesson and Ribeiro. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Turesson, Hjalmar K. Ribeiro, Sidarta Can vocal conditioning trigger a semiotic ratchet in marmosets? |
title | Can vocal conditioning trigger a semiotic ratchet in marmosets? |
title_full | Can vocal conditioning trigger a semiotic ratchet in marmosets? |
title_fullStr | Can vocal conditioning trigger a semiotic ratchet in marmosets? |
title_full_unstemmed | Can vocal conditioning trigger a semiotic ratchet in marmosets? |
title_short | Can vocal conditioning trigger a semiotic ratchet in marmosets? |
title_sort | can vocal conditioning trigger a semiotic ratchet in marmosets? |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4596241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26500583 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01519 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT turessonhjalmark canvocalconditioningtriggerasemioticratchetinmarmosets AT ribeirosidarta canvocalconditioningtriggerasemioticratchetinmarmosets |