Mirror System Hypothesis Research Articles

The Emergence of Language: a Review of Ljiljana Progovac (2019); A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution: Current Controversies and Future Prospects

Arbib, M. A. (2012). How the brain got language: The mirror system hypothesis (Vol. 16). Oxford University press. Berwick, R. C., & Chomsky, N. (2016). Why only us: Language and evolution. MIT press. Burkart, J., Martins, E. G., Miss, F., & Zurcher, Y. (2018). From sharing food to sharing information: Cooperative breeding and language evolution. Interaction Studies, 19(1–2), 136–150. Article Google Scholar Chomsky, N. (2005). Three factors in language design. Linguistic Inquiry, 36(1), 1–22. Article Google Scholar Conway, C. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2001). Sequential learning in non-human primates. Trends in Cognitive Sciences., 5, 539–546. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01800-3. Article PubMed Google Scholar Coolidge, F. L., & Wynn, T. (2005). Working memory, its executive functions, and the emergence of modern thinking. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 15(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774305000016. Article Google Scholar Dediu, D., & Ladd, D. R. (2007). Linguistic tone is related to the population frequency of the adaptive haplogroups of two brain size genes, ASPM and microcephalin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(26), 10944–10949. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610848104. Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar Dediu, D., & Levinson, S. C. (2013). On the antiquity of language: The reinterpretation of Neanderthal linguistic capacities and its consequences. Frontiers in Psychology, 4(JUL). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00397. Heine, B., & Kuteva, T. (2007). The genesis of grammar: A reconstruction (Vol. 9). Oxford University press. Honing, H. (2019). The evolving animal orchestra: In search of what makes us musical. MIT Press. Manoochehri, M. (2020). The evolutionary starting point; musicality or language. a Review of Henkjan Honing (2019); The evolving animal orchestra: In search of what makes us musical. Evolutionary Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-020-00234-0. Pinker, S., & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13(4), 707–727. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x00081061. Article Google Scholar Progovac, L. (2019). A critical introduction to language evolution: Current controversies and future prospects. Springer. Smith, A. D. M., & Hofler, S. H. (2014). The cognitive underpinnings of metaphor as the driving force of language evolution. In Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference (EVOLANG10) (pp. 517–518). World scientific. Uriagereka, J., & Reggia, J. A. (2013). A framework for the comparative study of language. Evolutionary Psychology, 11(3), 147470491301100300. Article Google Scholar Download references Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Islamic Azad University, Kerman Branch, Emam Ali Blvd, Kerman, Iran Majid Manoochehri You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar Correspondence to Majid Manoochehri. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Reprints and Permissions Manoochehri, M. The Emergence of Language: a Review of Ljiljana Progovac (2019); A Critical Introduction to Language Evolution: Current Controversies and Future Prospects. Evolutionary Psychological Science (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-020-00258-6 Download citation Published: 22 August 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40806-020-00258-6

Archaeology and the evolutionary neuroscience of language

Abstract Comparative approaches to language evolution are essential but cannot by themselves resolve the timing and context of evolutionary events since the last common ancestor with chimpanzees. Archaeology can help to fill this gap, but only if properly integrated with evolutionary theory and the ethnographic, ethological, and experimental analogies required to reconstruct the broader social, behavioral, and neurocognitive implications of ancient artifacts. The current contribution elaborates a technological pedagogy hypothesis of language origins by developing the concept of an evolving human technological niche and applying it to investigate two key transitions posited by Arbib’s Mirror System Hypothesis: (1) from complex action recognition and imitation to proto-language, and (2) from proto-language to language.

Language origins

AbstractIn this paper, we complement proximate or ‘how’ explanations for the origins of language, broadening our perspective to include fitness-consequences explanations, i.e. ultimate, or ‘why’ explanations. We identify theplatform of trustas a fundamental prerequisite for the development of a language-like system of symbolic communication. The platform of trust is a social niche in which cheap but honest communication with non-kin is possible, because messages tend to be trusted as a default. We briefly consider the place of the platform of trust on the road map as laid out in the Mirror System Hypothesis. We then turn to recent research on turn-taking in primates, which has been proposed as a precursor of the cooperative structuring of conversation in humans. We suggest, instead, that human turn-taking, in its full richness that makes it an interesting explanatory target, may only appear in a communicative system that is already founded on a community-wide, cooperative platform of trust.

Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain

AbstractA theory of evolving the language-ready brain requires a theory of what it is that evolved. We offer the TCG (Template Construction Grammar) model of comprehension and production of utterances to exhibit hypotheses on how utterances may link to “what language is about.” A key subsystem of TCG is the SemRep system for semantic representation of a visual scene. We offer an account of how it may have evolved as an expansion of the ventral pathway supporting the planning of manual actions, complemented by a dorsal pathway for articulation. The Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) claims that earlyHomo sapienshad protolanguage but not language and that cultural evolution yielded the social structures within which children could indeed acquire language. The article poses the challenge of understanding how a brain system could be innately specified that could develop into a TCG-like form, posing a range of questions for future research.

From sharing food to sharing information

AbstractLanguage is a cognitively demanding human trait, but it is also a fundamentally cooperative enterprise that rests on the motivation to share information. Great apes possess many of the cognitive prerequisites for language, but largely lack the motivation to share information. Callitrichids (including marmosets and tamarins) are highly vocal monkeys that are more distantly related to humans than great apes are, but like humans, they are cooperative breeders and all group members help raising offspring. Among primates, this rearing system is correlated with proactive prosociality, which can be expressed as motivation to share information. We therefore propose that the unique coincidence of these two components in humans set the stage for language evolution: The cognitive component inherited from our great ape-like ancestors, and the motivational one added convergently as a result of cooperative breeding. We evaluate this scenario based on a review of callitrichd vocal communication and show that furthermore, they possess many of the mechanistic elements emphasized by the mirror system hypothesis of language evolution. We end by highlighting how more systematic phylogenetic comparisons will enable us to further promote our understanding of the role of cooperative breeding during language evolution.

Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain

AbstractComputational modeling of the macaque brain grounds hypotheses on the brain of LCA-m (the last common ancestor of monkey and human). Elaborations thereof provide a brain model for LCA-c (c for chimpanzee). The Mirror System Hypothesis charts further steps via imitation and pantomime to protosign and protolanguage on the path to a "language-ready brain" inHomo sapiens,with the path to speech being indirect. The material poses new challenges for both experimentation and modeling.

Voice, gesture and working memory in the emergence of speech

Abstract Language and speech depend on a relatively well defined neural circuitry, located predominantly in the left hemisphere. In this article, I discuss the origin of the speech circuit in early humans, as an expansion of an auditory-vocal articulatory network that took place after the last common ancestor with the chimpanzee. I will attempt to converge this perspective with aspects of the Mirror System Hypothesis, particularly those related to the emergence of a meaningful grammar in human communication. Basically, the strengthening of auditory-vocal connectivity via the arcuate fasciculus and related tracts generated an expansion of working memory capacity for vocalizations, that was key for learning complex utterances. This process was concomitant with the development of a robust interface with visual working memory, both in the dorsal and ventral streams of auditory and visual processing. This enabled the bidirectional translation of sequential codes into hierarchical visual representations, through the development of a multimodal interface between both systems.

Dorsal and ventral streams in the evolution of the language-ready brain: Linking language to the world

Abstract Many studies in neurolinguistics focus on the dorsal and ventral streams of the auditory system in language comprehension, but few address the production of language (whether spoken or signed). Moreover, almost no neurolinguistic studies addresses how language use is situated with respect to our perception of and action in the world around us, functions which depend (in part) on the dorsal and ventral streams of the visual system. The aim of this paper is to lay the foundations for an integrated account of situated language processing in the human brain that incorporates the dorsal and ventral streams for both vision and audition. Our further aim is to do so in a way which lays bare the challenges of offering an account of brain evolution in which the macaque brain is used as a surrogate for the brain of LCA-m (the last common ancestor of human and macaque). In particular, we assess the challenges to the mirror system hypothesis (MSH) of the evolution of the language-ready brain when data on auditory dorsal and ventral streams are taken into account. To this end, we compare two accounts of language comprehension and one account of language production (for the special case of describing a visual scene). It will be argued that much of syntactic and semantic processing is fed by ventral processes, that both operate at the level of words-as-signifiers, and that the dorsal path and its role in the perception and production of words-as-articulatory actions plays only a secondary role in such processing.

Toward the Language-Ready Brain: Biological Evolution and Primate Comparisons.

The approach to language evolution suggested here focuses on three questions: How did the human brain evolve so that humans can develop, use, and acquire languages? How can the evolutionary quest be informed by studying brain, behavior, and social interaction in monkeys, apes, and humans? How can computational modeling advance these studies? I hypothesize that the brain is language ready in that the earliest humans had protolanguages but not languages (i.e., communication systems endowed with rich and open-ended lexicons and grammars supporting a compositional semantics), and that it took cultural evolution to yield societies (a cultural constructed niche) in which language-ready brains could become language-using brains. The mirror system hypothesis is a well-developed example of this approach, but I offer it here not as a closed theory but as an evolving framework for the development and analysis of conflicting subhypotheses in the hope of their eventual integration. I also stress that computational modeling helps us understand the evolving role of mirror neurons, not in and of themselves, but only in their interaction with systems "beyond the mirror." Because a theory of evolution needs a clear characterization of what it is that evolved, I also outline ideas for research in neurolinguistics to complement studies of the evolution of the language-ready brain. A clear challenge is to go beyond models of speech comprehension to include sign language and models of production, and to link language to visuomotor interaction with the physical and social world.

The modern era of research on language evolution: Moving forward: Comment on “Towards a computational comparative neuroprimatology: Framing the language-ready brain” by Michael A. Arbib

Twenty-five years ago, Pinker and Bloom [1] helped reinvigorate research on language evolution by arguing that language “shows signs of complex design for the communication of propositional structures, and the only explanation for the origin of organs with complex design is the process of natural selection.” Since then, empirical research has tested the assertions of (cross-cultural) universality, (cross-species) uniqueness, and (cross-domain) specificity underpinning this argument from design. Appearances aside, points of consensus have emerged. The existence of a core computational and neural substrate unique to language and/or humans is still debated, but it is widely agreed that: 1) human language performance overlaps with behaviors in other domains and species, and 2) such general, pre-existing capacities provided the context for language-specific evolution (e.g. [2]). This progress has not occurred in isolation. Evolutionary theory has also undergone a renovation in the past 25 years, leading to calls for a new, “extended” evolutionary synthesis [3]. Recognition of processes such as reciprocal causation (organisms as active agents in evolution), inclusive inheritance (more than just genes), and developmental bias (including phenotypic accommodation) is rendering it increasingly untenable to speak of natural selection as the only (i.e. both necessary and sufficient) explanation for complex “design.” Recent decades have also seen a shift in our understanding of human prehistory, which is no longer consistent with either a sudden, recent appearance of “modern” behavior or a naively progressive gradualism. Rather, key elements of the human adaptation emerged in a piecemeal fashion over millions of years [4] with putative markers of behavioral modernity appearing and disappearing in a context-dependent way over at least the past 200,000 years [5]. In this new reality, where context is key, past is prologue, and diverse evolutionary processes are recognized, historical detail becomes paramount. Arbib’s [6] Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) currently provides one of the most explicit and detailed sequential accounts of language evolution. Moving forward, the neurobiological richness of the MSH could be complemented with a broader (cf. anthropological) evidential framework. One example is the MSH account of the transition from complex imitation to protospeech via pantomime and protosign. Perhaps because the utility of language seems so obvious to us, evolutionary scenarios do not always thoroughly develop the proposed

From Action-Oriented Perception to Language

AbstractThis article is primarily an extended summary of a talk presented to the Seventh Conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies (NASS), Lund University, Sweden in May 2011, presenting the Mirror System Hypothesis, which emphasizes the role of imitation and manual gesture in the evolution of the language-ready brain. An Afterword offers pointers to a number of subsequent publications that build upon the theory presented there.

Language is handy but is it embodied?

Part 1 provides Arbib's reflections on the influence of Marc Jeannerod on his career. Part 2 recalls the Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) for the evolution of the language-ready brain, a theory which emphasizes the role of manual action in grounding language evolution, thus giving one meaning for “language is handy”. Part 3 then joins in current debates over the notion of whether or not language is embodied. Our overall argument is that embodiment is a graded rather than binary concept, and that embodiment provides the evolutionary and developmental core of concepts and language, but that the modern human brain supports abstraction processes that make embodiment little relevant in a wide range of language use. We urge that, rather than debate the extent of embodiment, attention should turn to the integration of empirical studies with computational modeling to delineate in detail processes of abstraction, generalization, metaphor and more, bridging between modeling of neural mechanisms in macaque that may be posited for the brain of the last monkey–human common ancestor (LCA-m) and computational modeling of human language processing. Part 4 suggests that variants of construction grammar are well-suited to the latter task.

Vive la différence: Sign language and spoken language in language evolution

AbstractMichael Arbib's book proposes a scenario of language evolution that begins with pantomime, progresses to proto-sign, and then develops together with proto-speech in an “expanding spiral” to create a language-ready brain. The richness of detail in Arbib's hypothesis makes serious appraisal of each of its aspects possible. Here I describe findings about established and emerging sign languages that bear specifically upon the interaction between sign and speech proposed in the Mirror System Hypothesis. While supporting the central role that Arbib attributes to gestural/visual communication in understanding language and its evolution, I point out some kinks in the spiral that potentially disrupt its smooth expansion. One is the fact that each modality relies on an entirely different motor system. Another is the type of relation that holds between the articulators and grammatical structure, which is radically different in each system as well. A third kink disrupts the proposed continuity between holistic pantomime (gestural holophrases) and signs. Given such differences, instead of a scenario in which speech grew out of sign, it seems more likely that the two modalities complemented each other symbiotically throughout evolution as they do today. If so, then the modern ability to spontaneously create sign languages reveals the extraordinary richness and plasticity of human cognition, and not an evolutionary stepping stone to speech.

The neurobiology of sign language and the mirror system hypothesis

I suggest two puzzles for the Mirror System Hypothesis. First, there is little evidence that mirror neuron populations for words or for signs exist in Broca's area, and a mirror system is not critical for either speech or sign perception. Damage to Broca's area (or to the mirror system for human action) does not result in deficits in sign or speech perception. Second, the gesticulations of speakers are highly integrated with speech, but pantomimes and modern protosigns (conventional gestures) are not co-expressive with speech, and they do not co-occur with speech. Further, signers also produce global, imagistic gesticulations with their mouths and bodies simultaneously while signing with their hands. The expanding spiral of protosign and protospeech does not predict the integrated and co-expressive nature of modern gestures produced by signers and speakers.

Where does language come from? Some reflections on the role of deictic gesture and demonstratives in the evolution of language

AbstractThis paper considers Arbib's hypothesis that (oral) language has its roots in gesture in light of recent research on demonstratives, joint attention, and deictic pointing (Michael Arbib. 2012. How the brain got language: The Mirror System Hypothesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press). It is argued that demonstratives provide an important link between gesture, discourse, and grammar that rests on their communicative function to coordinate the interlocutors' focus of attention. Combining evidence from linguistic typology and historical linguistics with evidence from research on social cognition, the paper argues that demonstratives constitute a universal class of linguistic expressions that are commonly used in combination with a deictic pointing gesture to establish joint attention, a cognitive phenomenon that is closely related to Arbib's notion of “complex imitation”. No other class of linguistic expressions is so closely tied to the speaker's body and gesture than demonstratives. However, demonstratives are not only used to focus the language users' attention on concrete entities in the surrounding situation, they are also used to organize the information flow in discourse, which in turn underlies their frequent development into a wide range of grammatical markers, e.g. definite articles, third person pronouns, relative markers, complementizers, subordinate conjunctions, copulas, and focus markers. In this way, demonstratives provide an explicit link between gesture, imitation, and grammar that is consistent with Arbib's theory of the evolution of language.

Complex imitation and the language-ready brain

AbstractThe present article responds to commentaries from experts in anthropology, apraxia, archeology, linguistics, neuroanatomy, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, primatology, sign language emergence and sign language neurolinguistics on the bookHow the brain got language: The mirror system hypothesis(Arbib 2012). The role of complex imitation is discussed, and the distinction between protolanguage and language is emphasized. Issues debated include the role of protosign in scaffolding protospeech, the interplay between biological evolution of the brain and cultural evolution of the social interactions within groups, the relations brain mechanisms for action and language, and the question of when language first emerged.

A research program in neuroimaging for an evolutionary theory of syntax

AbstractThe Mirror System Hypothesis of Michael Arbib (2012), with respect to the cultural evolutionary origins of syntactic structure, allows to make a set of predictions about the neural mechanisms that govern the processing of modern human languages. Neuroimaging techniques may be employed to test these predictions and inform an evolutionary theory of language syntax. In this commentary, I will argue that future neuroimaging research needs in particular to: i) clarify whether linear sequential versus non-linear hierarchical structure differentially depend on mirror neurons as opposed to higher-order heteromodal cortices; ii) challenge current neuroscientific evidence on multilingualism: as it stands, syntactic processing appears to be mediated by the same neural mechanisms across languages, independently of cross-linguistic idiosyncrasies; iii) devise longitudinal studies of grammar acquisition in newborns and children; iv) recreate in the laboratory nearly-ecological conditions for the emergence of syntactic constructions through cultural and social interaction, and exploit the “experiment of nature” of pidgin and creole languages.

Lateralization, praxis, and communicative gestures: Developmental and comparative perspectives

This special issue is the result of a workshop held in the fall of 2012 at Paris Descartes Universite, Paris, France. The goal of the workshop was to explore the relationships between different aspects of hand-use lateralization, that is, hand preference for praxis and communication through their developments in human infants, and by comparing them with nonhuman primates who also lack language. The workshop brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars: comparative and developmental psychologists, ethologists, and neuroscientists convened for 1 day of talks and discussions. This special issue gathers the contributions of some of those participants. The first article (MacNeilage) places hand-use lateralization within a larger context by synthesizing evidence of left brain/right side asymmetries in routine whole-body actions in several species of marine mammals. The reported data suggest a commonality of patterns between humans and marine mammals for leading the right side in turning asymmetries. MacNeilage postulates that such asymmetries may be the result of a left-hemisphere intentional control and more generally, a left-hemisphere specialization for movement dynamics (Sainburg, 2005). Three articles are concerned with the lateralization of motor behavior in human fetuses and human infants. Hepper notes the early emergence of lateralized behaviors during the prenatal period (from 10 weeks gestation). He proposes that mediation of these behaviors is most likely genetic and that the pattern of fetal lateralization is the precursor of the laterality observed postnatally. Although it can be tempting to relate the behavioral biases with structural and functional differences between the hemispheres, Hepper cautions against interpreting the former as a casual effect of the latter. In her article, Fagard questions the relationships between hand preference and hemispheric specialization for language. Even as early fetal signs of lateralization become better known, she notes that there is still too little evidence about: (1) how genetic and environmental factors interact to lead to mature handedness and language lateralization; and (2) what exactly is the nature of the relationship between both processes of lateralization. Are handedness and hemispheric specialization for language causally related (and in which direction) or independent in origin? To answer these questions, Fagard calls for considering their codevelopment during early ontogeny. In their article, Michel and colleagues tackle the issue of the relationships of the development of handedness and that of hemispheric specialization for speech processing. They borrow the developmental sequence proposed by Arbib’s (2006) mirror system hypothesis about the linkage of action and language. This view is based on the idea that hand preference must reflect a lateralized difference in neural control of manual actions and speech actions (gestures) that will ultimately lead to speech. Michel and colleagues employ embodiment theory to suggest that Manuscript Received: 21 June 2013 Manuscript Accepted: 21 June 2013 Correspondence to: Jacques Vauclair Article first published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com): 19 July 2013 DOI 10.1002/dev.21152 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Developmental Psychobiology

Michael A. Arbib, How the Brain Got Language: The Mirror System Hypothesis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. xvii + 413.

A review of Arbib, M. A. 2012. How the Brain got Language: the mirror system hypothesis. Oxford University Press: Oxford

Mirror Neurons, Birdsong, and Human Language: A Hypothesis

The mirror system hypothesis and investigations of birdsong are reviewed in relation to the significance for the development of human symbolic and language capacity, in terms of three fundamental forms of cognitive reference: iconic, indexical, and symbolic. Mirror systems are initially iconic but can progress to indexical reference when produced without the need for concurrent stimuli. Developmental stages in birdsong are also explored with reference to juvenile subsong vs complex stereotyped adult syllables, as an analogy with human language development. While birdsong remains at an indexical reference stage, human language benefits from the capacity for symbolic reference. During a pre-linguistic “babbling” stage, recognition of native phonemic categories is established, allowing further development of subsequent prefrontal and linguistic circuits for sequential language capacity.