Language and Skilled Activity

Stone tools, language and the brain in human evolution

“…It has been proposed that this superficial behavioural diversity stems from an underlying computational role of IFG in the supramodal processing of hierarchically structured information [23], leading to speculation that this function may have evolved first in the context of manual praxis before being co-opted to support other behaviours such as language [20]. Thus, current evidence and interpretation supports and refines various 'technological hypotheses' positing neural and evolutionary connections between language and technological praxis [2,[4][5][6].…”

Linguistic and manual evolution

“…In this scenario, neural organization of combinatorial manual activity serves as a preadaptation (or exaptation) for the combinatorial aspect of language, which subsequently develops by natural selection. This general scenario has been proposed by Reynolds (1976), Kimura (1979), and Lieberman (1990).…”

“…Although a number of authors have suggested parallels between the organization of complex goal directed actions and features of grammar (e.g., Deacon 1989;Greenfield 1978;Kimura 1979;Lieberman 1984;Reynolds 1976;, the account given here goes further toward specifying a precise class of behavioral strategies and their grammatical parallels. The argument differs from many earlier theories of this sort in its focus on what is more properly a cognitive task rather than a skilled motor task.…”

“I Wish I Could Grow a Full Beard”: The Amateur Pogonotropher on the Beardbrand YouTube Channel

“…There is a long and full history of beards. Although much has been speculated and said about beards, including why they grow, what they mean and to whom, and who wears them and why, only a handful of scholarly monographs have devoted attention to the subject (e.g., see Peterkin, 2001; Reynolds, 1976; and most meticulously, Oldstone-Moore, 2016). Other manuscripts devoted to beards, such as an 1845 72-page Victorian era manifesto by Thomas S. Gowing published as The Philosophy of Beards , mostly provide fodder for beard enthusiasts.…”