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Language, Childhood, and Fire: How We Learned to Love Sharing Stories
Stories do not fossilize. Thus, exploring tales shared during prehistory, the longest part of human history inevitably becomes speculative. Nevertheless, various attempts have been made to find a more scientifically valid way into our deep human past of storytelling. Following the social brain hypot...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8828489/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35153908 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.787203 |
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author | Lauer, Gerhard |
author_facet | Lauer, Gerhard |
author_sort | Lauer, Gerhard |
collection | PubMed |
description | Stories do not fossilize. Thus, exploring tales shared during prehistory, the longest part of human history inevitably becomes speculative. Nevertheless, various attempts have been made to find a more scientifically valid way into our deep human past of storytelling. Following the social brain hypothesis, we suggest including into the theory of human storytelling more fine-grained and evidence-based findings (from archaeology, the cognitive sciences, and evolutionary psychology) about the manifold exaptation and adaptation, genetic changes, and phenotypic plasticity in the deep human past, which all shaped the emergence of storytelling in hominins. We identify three preconditions for humans sharing stories: first, the long evolution of language in the different taxa as one of the preconditions of ostensive signaling; second, the pivotal role of childhood in the evolution of collaborative intentionality; and third, the role of fireside chats in the rise of elaborative (i.e., narrative) sharing of stories. We propose that humans, albeit perhaps no other hominins learned to understand others through sharing stories, not only as intentional agents, but also as mental ones. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8828489 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-88284892022-02-11 Language, Childhood, and Fire: How We Learned to Love Sharing Stories Lauer, Gerhard Front Psychol Psychology Stories do not fossilize. Thus, exploring tales shared during prehistory, the longest part of human history inevitably becomes speculative. Nevertheless, various attempts have been made to find a more scientifically valid way into our deep human past of storytelling. Following the social brain hypothesis, we suggest including into the theory of human storytelling more fine-grained and evidence-based findings (from archaeology, the cognitive sciences, and evolutionary psychology) about the manifold exaptation and adaptation, genetic changes, and phenotypic plasticity in the deep human past, which all shaped the emergence of storytelling in hominins. We identify three preconditions for humans sharing stories: first, the long evolution of language in the different taxa as one of the preconditions of ostensive signaling; second, the pivotal role of childhood in the evolution of collaborative intentionality; and third, the role of fireside chats in the rise of elaborative (i.e., narrative) sharing of stories. We propose that humans, albeit perhaps no other hominins learned to understand others through sharing stories, not only as intentional agents, but also as mental ones. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8828489/ /pubmed/35153908 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.787203 Text en Copyright © 2022 Lauer. https://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) and the copyright owner(s) 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 Lauer, Gerhard Language, Childhood, and Fire: How We Learned to Love Sharing Stories |
title | Language, Childhood, and Fire: How We Learned to Love Sharing Stories |
title_full | Language, Childhood, and Fire: How We Learned to Love Sharing Stories |
title_fullStr | Language, Childhood, and Fire: How We Learned to Love Sharing Stories |
title_full_unstemmed | Language, Childhood, and Fire: How We Learned to Love Sharing Stories |
title_short | Language, Childhood, and Fire: How We Learned to Love Sharing Stories |
title_sort | language, childhood, and fire: how we learned to love sharing stories |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8828489/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35153908 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.787203 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT lauergerhard languagechildhoodandfirehowwelearnedtolovesharingstories |