Rácz Dorottya S, Boros Marianna, Andics Attila
Neuroethology of Communication Lab, Department of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
Doctoral School of Biology, Institute of Biology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
Biol Futur. 2025 Jun 25. doi: 10.1007/s42977-025-00267-1.
Language-readiness entails the ability to segment holistic events into discrete concepts, learn signals for such concepts, and combine them in a rule-based manner to create composite meanings. There is much debate about whether, and to what extent, the brain mechanisms that enable concept manipulation abilities in humans are unmatched in the animal kingdom. Challenging human-uniqueness theories, we propose a social cognition-mediation account hypothesizing that concept manipulation abilities essential for language-readiness could also emerge in other species with a sufficient level of certain prerequisite social-cognitive skills, namely goal-representation, intentionality-attribution, and mentalization. We argue for the involvement of a new species in comparative studies on language evolution to evaluate this hypothesis: the domestic dog, a species that has undergone selective pressures for prosociality during domestication similar to those experienced by early humans, as well as shows a natural propensity to communicate their experiences. As a consequence, dogs may possess the necessary social-cognitive capacities to develop concept manipulation skills. Dogs' concept manipulation abilities have never been systematically investigated, nor directly compared to those of humans. Capitalizing on recent advances in comparative non-invasive neuroimaging and behavioural measures, here we propose feasible, promising experimental approaches for such investigations.
语言准备能力需要具备将整体事件分割为离散概念、学习这些概念的信号并以基于规则的方式将它们组合起来以创造复合意义的能力。关于人类中实现概念操纵能力的大脑机制在动物界是否无与伦比以及在何种程度上无与伦比，存在很多争论。为了挑战人类独特性理论，我们提出了一种社会认知中介解释，假设对于语言准备至关重要的概念操纵能力也可能在具有足够水平的某些先决社会认知技能（即目标表征、意图归因和心理化）的其他物种中出现。我们主张在语言进化的比较研究中纳入一个新物种来评估这一假设：家犬，这一物种在驯化过程中经历了与早期人类相似的亲社会选择压力，并且表现出交流其经历的自然倾向。因此，狗可能具备发展概念操纵技能所需的社会认知能力。狗的概念操纵能力从未被系统地研究过，也从未与人类的概念操纵能力进行过直接比较。利用比较性非侵入性神经成像和行为测量方面的最新进展，我们在此提出用于此类研究的可行且有前景的实验方法。
