The human infant matures more slowly than other apes. Motoric helplessness and an elaboration of vocal patterns of communication between infant and adult become the parameters within which the cortex matures. Changes in neural development, functioning and structure are inevitable given the changed conditions of growth. The present paper explores the possibility that the human capacity for language emerges early in hominid evolution. However, I argue that a critical level of social complexity is necessary for the elaboration of this capacity into language and culture.
Language emerges to reflect and schematize the patterns of an intangible social interaction.
Advances in neurobiological technology and the growing consensus in the behavioral and brain sciences on a dual-aspect monist position. Tulsa, Oklahoma 74107. An information processing model is proposed to account for the dissociation of amnesia and spared learning capacity in hippocampectomized organisms, including human bitemporal amnesiacs and their animal analogues. According to the model, the hippocampus is critically involved in an integrative cognitive process termed chunking, which mediates propositional learning, complex conditioning, and cognitive mapping. Hippocampectomy selectively impairs the chunking process, leaving intact pre-operatively consolidated information, and also hierarchical perceptual and motor systems.