Department of Psychology, Northwestern University.
Institute of Policy Research, Northwestern University.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2024 Nov;19(6):978-992. doi: 10.1177/17456916231180589. Epub 2023 Aug 21.
Human language permits us to call to mind objects, events, and ideas that we cannot witness directly, either because they are absent or because they have no physical form (e.g., people we have not met, concepts like justice). What enables language to transmit such knowledge? We propose that a referential link between words, referents, and mental representations of those referents is key. This link enables us to form, access, and modify mental representations even when the referents themselves are absent ("absent reference"). In this review we consider the developmental and evolutionary origins of absent reference, integrating previously disparate literatures on absent reference in language and gesture in very young humans and gesture in nonhuman primates. We first evaluate when and how infants acquire absent reference during the process of language acquisition. With this as a foundation, we consider the evidence for absent reference in gesture in infants and in nonhuman primates. Finally, having woven these literatures together, we highlight new lines of research that promise to sharpen our understanding of the development of reference and its role in learning about the absent and the abstract.
人类语言使我们能够回忆起那些我们无法直接观察到的物体、事件和想法，无论是因为它们不存在，还是因为它们没有物理形式（例如，我们没有见过的人，正义等概念）。是什么使语言能够传递这种知识？我们提出，词、指涉物和这些指涉物的心理表象之间的参照关系是关键。这种联系使我们能够形成、访问和修改心理表象，即使指涉物本身不存在（“缺席参照”）。在这篇综述中，我们考虑了缺席参照在语言和手势中的发展和进化起源，整合了非常年幼的人类和非人类灵长类动物的语言和手势中的缺席参照的先前不同文献。我们首先评估了婴儿在语言习得过程中何时以及如何获得缺席参照。在此基础上，我们考虑了婴儿和非人类灵长类动物在手势中存在缺席参照的证据。最后，将这些文献编织在一起，我们强调了新的研究路线，有望更深入地了解参照的发展及其在了解缺席和抽象方面的作用。
