大脑与语言的进化。

Evolution of brain and language.

机构信息

Department of Anthropology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.

出版信息

Prog Brain Res. 2012;195:443-59. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-53860-4.00022-2.

Abstract

In this chapter evolutionary changes in the human brain that are relevant to language are reviewed. Most of what is known involves assessments of the relative sizes of brain regions. Overall brain size is associated with some key behavioral features relevant to language, including complexity of the social environment and the degree of conceptual complexity. Prefrontal cortical and temporal lobe areas relevant to language appear to have increased disproportionately. Areas relevant to language production and perception have changed less dramatically. The extent to which these changes were a consequence specifically of language versus other behavioral adaptations is a good question, but the process may best be viewed as a complex adaptive system, whereby cultural learning interacts with biology iteratively over time to produce language. Overall, language appears to have adapted to the human brain more so than the reverse.

摘要

在这一章中，我们回顾了与语言相关的人类大脑的进化变化。其中大部分知识都涉及对大脑区域相对大小的评估。总的来说，大脑的大小与一些与语言相关的关键行为特征有关，包括社会环境的复杂性和概念的复杂性。与语言相关的额前皮质和颞叶区域似乎不成比例地增加了。与语言产生和感知相关的区域变化则不那么显著。这些变化是语言特有的结果，还是其他行为适应的结果，这是一个很好的问题，但这个过程最好被视为一个复杂的自适应系统，在这个系统中，文化学习随着时间的推移与生物学相互作用，产生了语言。总的来说，语言似乎比相反的情况更适应人类的大脑。