Atypical birdsong and artificial languages provide insights into how communication systems are shaped by learning, use, and transmission.
Atypical birdsong and artificial languages provide insights into how communication systems are shaped by learning, use, and transmission.
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DOI：
10.3758/s13423-016-1107-5
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发表时间：
2017-02
影响因子：
3.5
通讯作者：
Fehér O
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fehér O
在这篇文章中，我认为，一个比较的方法专注于认知能力和行为机制，在鸣禽和人类的声乐学习可以提供有价值的见解语言的进化起源。我讨论的实验方法使用异常的歌曲和非典型的语言输入来研究个人学习，社会互动和文化传播的过程。非典型输入增加了学习者的学习和交流压力，因此，探索他们如何应对这种类型的输入提供了一个特别清晰的图片在学习和使用过程中的偏见和限制。此外，在实验室中模拟这些非自然沟通系统的文化传播，让我们了解学习和社会偏见如何影响沟通系统的长期结构。基于这些方法的研究结果表明，鸟类和人类发声学习的基本社会认知机制具有根本的相似性，持续的研究有望深入了解人类独特的机制以及人类认知和社会行为如何相互作用，并最终影响语言的进化。
In this article, I argue that a comparative approach focusing on the cognitive capacities and behavioral mechanisms that underlie vocal learning in songbirds and humans can provide valuable insights into the evolutionary origins of language. The experimental approaches I discuss use abnormal song and atypical linguistic input to study the processes of individual learning, social interaction, and cultural transmission. Atypical input places increased learning and communicative pressure on learners, so exploring how they respond to this type of input provides a particularly clear picture of the biases and constraints at work during learning and use. Furthermore, simulating the cultural transmission of these unnatural communication systems in the laboratory informs us about how learning and social biases influence the structure of communication systems in the long run. Findings based on these methods suggest fundamental similarities in the basic social–cognitive mechanisms underlying vocal learning in birds and humans, and continuing research promises insights into the uniquely human mechanisms and into how human cognition and social behavior interact, and ultimately impact on the evolution of language.