From action to language: comparative perspectives on primate tool use, gesture and the evolution of human language

Steele, James; Ferrari, Pier Francesco; Fogassi, Leonardo

doi:10.1098/rstb.2011.0295

Cited by 39 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Assuming particular prominence in relation to the general theory that the emergence of cognitive faculties was driven by exaptation -the exploitation of existing neural resources that had evolved to serve a specific motoric purpose, is the supposition that there exists a common brain architecture for language and certain key aspects of motor control (e.g. Steele et al, 2012). In providing a source of evidence that complements and extends inferences drawn on the basis of paleoneurological work on hominin fossils and the archaeological record of tool use and manufacture, with respect to this issue more so than any other, modern neuroimaging techniques have permitted the development and evaluation of coherent and physiologically grounded hypotheses (e.g.…”

Section: Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Get a grip: individual variations in grip strength are a marker of brain health

Carson

2018

Neurobiology of Aging

165

137

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Demonstrations that grip strength has predictive power in relation to a range of health conditions-even when these are assessed decades later-has motivated claims that hand-grip dynamometry has the potential to serve as a "vital sign" for middle-aged and older adults. Central to this belief has been the assumption that grip strength is a simple measure of physical performance that provides a marker of muscle status in general, and sarcopenia in particular. It is now evident that while differences in grip strength between individuals are influenced by musculoskeletal factors, "lifespan" changes in grip strength within individuals are exquisitely sensitive to integrity of neural systems that mediate the control of coordinated movement. The close and pervasive relationships between age-related declines in maximum grip strength and expressions of cognitive dysfunction can therefore be understood in terms of the convergent functional and structural mediation of cognitive and motor processes by the human brain. In the context of aging, maximum grip strength is a discriminating measure of neurological function and brain health.

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Section: Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Get a grip: individual variations in grip strength are a marker of brain health

Carson

2018

Neurobiology of Aging

165

137

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“…Language belongs to ‘communicative niche construction’, as the passing down of encoded information in material form across generations, constructing inheritable cultures which can endure far beyond the life-time of the individual and which are themselves operative in the shaping of our environment. It has multiple ancient origins, which include primate calls (Nóbrega and Miyagawa 2015), lip-smacking (Ghazanfar et al 2012), mutual grooming (Dunbar 1996) and dexterity (Cartmill et al 2012; Steele et al 2012), as well as our capacity to produce musical sounds (Masataka 2009) and to dance (Hagendoorn 2010). These origins place language within the ‘face-to-face’ of our social bonding, or what Sloterdijk calls the ‘species-wide, interfacial, greenhouse effect’ (Dor et al 2014; Sloterdijk 2011: 169).…”

Section: Niche Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche construction, social cognition, and language: hypothesizing the human as the production of place

Davies

2016

Cult. Brain

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New data is emerging from evolutionary anthropology and the neuroscience of social cognition on our species-specific hyper-cooperation (HC). This paper attempts an integration of third-person archaeological and second-person, neuroscientific perspectives on the structure of HC, through a post-Ricoeurian development in hermeneutical phenomenology. We argue for the relatively late evolution of advanced linguistic consciousness (ALC) (Hiscock in Biological Theory 9:27–41, 2014), as a reflexive system based on the ‘in-between’ or ‘cognitive system’ as reported by Vogeley et al. (in: Interdisziplinäre anthropologie, Heidelberg, Springer, 2014) of face-to-face social cognition, as well as tool use. The possibility of a positive or negative tension between the more recent ALC and the more ancient, pre-thematic, self-organizing ‘in-between’ frames an ‘internal’ niche construction. This indexes the internal structure of HC as ‘convergence’, where complex, engaged, social reasoning in ALC mirrors the cognitive structure of the pre-thematic ‘in-between’, extending the bio-energy of our social cognition, through reflexive amplification, in the production of ‘social place’ as ‘humanized space’. If individual word/phrase acquisition, in contextual actuality, is the distinctive feature of human language (Hurford in European Reviews 12:551–565, 2004), then human language is a hyperbolic, species-wide training in particularized co-location, developing consciousness of a shared world. The humanization of space and production of HC, through co-location, requires the ‘disarming’ of language as a medium of control, and a foregrounding of the materiality of the sign. The production of ‘hyper-place’ as solidarity beyond the face-to-face, typical of world religions, becomes possible where internal niche construction as convergence with the ‘in-between’ (world in us) combines with religious cosmologies reflecting an external ‘cosmic’ niche construction (world outside us).

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“…Hand gestures are important for nonverbal communication (Cartmill, Beilock, & Goldin-Meadow, 2012). In addition, gestures allow studying cerebral action representation in health and disease, such as apraxia (Steele, Ferrari, & Fogassi, 2012). Gesturing can be elicited either by a verbal command that specifies the content of the gesture or by demonstration and subsequent imitation of the gesture.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%