Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University Medical School, Henry Wellcome Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4HH, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2012 Jul 19;367(1598):2077-88. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0073.
Songbirds have become impressive neurobiological models for aspects of human verbal communication because they learn to sequence their song elements, analogous, in some ways, to how humans learn to produce spoken sequences with syntactic structure. However, mammals such as non-human primates are considered to be at best limited-vocal learners and not able to sequence their vocalizations, although some of these animals can learn certain 'artificial grammar' sequences. Thus, conceptual issues have slowed the progress in exploring potential neurobiological homologues to language-related processes in species that are taxonomically closely related to humans. We consider some of the conceptual issues impeding a pursuit of, as we define them, 'proto-syntactic' capabilities and their neuronal substrates in non-human animals. We also discuss ways to better bridge comparative behavioural and neurobiological data between humans and other animals. Finally, we propose guiding neurobiological hypotheses with which we aim to facilitate the future testing of the level of correspondence between the human brain network for syntactic-learning and related neurobiological networks present in other primates. Insights from the study of non-human primates and other mammals are likely to complement those being obtained in birds to further our knowledge of the human language-related network at the cellular level.
鸣禽在人类言语交流的某些方面已成为令人印象深刻的神经生物学模型，因为它们学会了按顺序排列其鸣叫元素，在某些方面类似于人类学习用句法结构生成口语序列的方式。然而，哺乳动物（如非人类灵长类动物）被认为最多是有限的发声学习者，无法按顺序发出它们的叫声，尽管这些动物中的一些可以学习某些“人工语法”序列。因此，概念问题阻碍了在与人类在分类上密切相关的物种中探索与语言相关过程的潜在神经生物学同源物的研究进展。我们考虑了一些概念问题，这些问题阻碍了我们定义的“原始句法”能力及其在非人类动物中的神经元基质的研究。我们还讨论了如何更好地弥合人类与其他动物之间的比较行为和神经生物学数据之间的差距。最后，我们提出了一些神经生物学假说，旨在促进未来测试人类句法学习的大脑网络与其他灵长类动物中存在的相关神经生物学网络之间的对应程度。来自非人类灵长类动物和其他哺乳动物的研究结果可能会补充鸟类研究所获得的结果，从而进一步了解人类语言相关网络在细胞水平上的情况。
