Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2012 Jul 5;367(1597):1785-801. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2011.0213.
The 'social complexity hypothesis' for communication posits that groups with complex social systems require more complex communicative systems to regulate interactions and relations among group members. Complex social systems, compared with simple social systems, are those in which individuals frequently interact in many different contexts with many different individuals, and often repeatedly interact with many of the same individuals in networks over time. Complex communicative systems, compared with simple communicative systems, are those that contain a large number of structurally and functionally distinct elements or possess a high amount of bits of information. Here, we describe some of the historical arguments that led to the social complexity hypothesis, and review evidence in support of the hypothesis. We discuss social complexity as a driver of communication and possible causal factor in human language origins. Finally, we discuss some of the key current limitations to the social complexity hypothesis-the lack of tests against alternative hypotheses for communicative complexity and evidence corroborating the hypothesis from modalities other than the vocal signalling channel.
“交际的社会复杂性假说”认为，具有复杂社会系统的群体需要更复杂的交际系统来调节群体成员之间的相互作用和关系。与简单的社会系统相比，复杂的社会系统是指个体在许多不同的情境中经常与许多不同的个体相互作用，并且随着时间的推移，通常会与许多相同的个体在网络中反复相互作用。与简单的交际系统相比，复杂的交际系统包含大量结构和功能不同的元素，或者具有大量信息位。在这里，我们描述了一些导致“社会复杂性假说”的历史论点，并回顾了支持该假说的证据。我们将社会复杂性作为沟通的驱动力以及人类语言起源的可能因果因素进行讨论。最后，我们讨论了“社会复杂性假说”目前存在的一些关键局限性，即缺乏对交际复杂性替代假说的检验，以及缺乏来自除发声信号通道以外的模态来支持该假说的证据。
