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Part of
How the Brain Got Language – Towards a New Road Map
Edited by Michael A. Arbib
[Benjamins Current Topics 112] 2020
► pp. 7–21

Computational challenges of evolving the language-ready brain

1. From manual action to protosign

| University of California at San Diego
Computational 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" in Homo sapiens, with the path to speech being indirect. The material poses new challenges for both experimentation and modeling.
Keywords: action pattern reorganization, computational comparative neuroprimatology, imitation, language evolution, mirror system hypothesis, mirror systems, modeling cerebellum, speech evolution
Article outline
  • 1.The Mirror System Hypothesis (MSH) introduced
  • 2.Introducing computational comparative neuroprimatology
  • 3.Setting a baseline for LCA-m
    • 3.1The FARS (Fagg-Arbib-Rizzolatti-Sakata) model
    • 3.2Modeling mirror systems in action recognition
    • 3.3Flexible action patterns and their rapid reorganization
  • 4.An LCA-c innovation built on LCA-m mechanisms
  • 5.Varieties of imitation
  • 6.From imitation to pantomime
  • 7.Is the path to speech indirect?
    • 7.1Some macaque premotor neurons may control vocalization
    • 7.2Case study: The role of the cerebellum in prism adaptation
  • 8.Towards a new road map
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 11 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.112.02arb
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