Department of Psychology and Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104, USA.
Brain Lang. 2010 Oct;115(1):92-100. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2009.10.003. Epub 2009 Nov 26.
In this review, we place equal emphasis on production, usage, and comprehension because these components of communication may exhibit different developmental trajectories and be affected by different neural mechanisms. In the animal kingdom generally, learned, flexible vocal production is rare, appearing in only a few orders of birds and few species of mammals. Compared with humans, the majority of species produce a limited repertoire of calls that show little modification during development. Call usage is also highly constrained. Unlike humans, most animals use specific call types only in a limited range of contexts. In marked contrast to production and usage, animals' comprehension of vocalizations, as measured by their responses, are highly flexible, modifiable as a result of experience, and show the most parallels with human language. The differences among vocal production, usage, and comprehension create an oddly asymmetric system of communication in which a small repertoire of relatively fixed calls, each linked to a particular context, can nonetheless give rise to an open-ended, highly modifiable, and cognitively rich set of meanings. Recent studies of baboons and eavesdropping songbirds provide two examples.
在这篇综述中，我们同等重视产生、使用和理解这三个方面，因为这些交流组成部分可能表现出不同的发展轨迹，并受到不同神经机制的影响。一般来说，在动物王国中，习得的、灵活的发声是罕见的，仅出现在少数鸟类目和少数种类的哺乳动物中。与人类相比，大多数物种只能产生有限的叫声，而且在发育过程中很少有变化。叫声的使用也受到高度限制。与人类不同，大多数动物仅在有限的情境中使用特定的叫声类型。与产生和使用形成鲜明对比的是，动物对发声的理解，即通过它们的反应来衡量，具有高度的灵活性，可以通过经验进行修改，并且与人类语言最为相似。发声的产生、使用和理解之间的差异，造就了一个奇特的不对称的交流系统，其中相对固定的、有限的叫声组合，每一个都与特定的情境相关联，但却能产生出无限扩展的、高度可修改的、富有认知内涵的一系列意义。狒狒和偷听鸣禽的最近研究提供了两个例子。
