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Book: The Evolution of Social Communication in Primates

Jul 11

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Title: The Evolution of Social Communication in Primates
Series Title: Interdisciplinary Evolution Research

Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Springer
http://www.springer.com

Book URL: http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/evolutionary+%26+developmental+biology/book/978-3-319-02668-8

Editor: Marco Pina
Editor: Nathalie Gontier

Electronic: ISBN:  9783319026695 Pages:  Price: —-
Paperback: ISBN:  9783319026688 Pages:  Price: —-

Abstract:

How did social communication evolve in primates? In this volume,
primatologists, linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists and
philosophers of science systematically analyze how their specific disciplines
demarcate the research questions and methodologies involved in the study of
the evolutionary origins of social communication in primates in general, and
in humans in particular. In the first part of the book, historians and
philosophers of science address how the epistemological frameworks associated
with primate communication and language evolution studies have changed over
time, and how these conceptual changes affect our current studies on the
subject matter. In the second part, scholars provide cutting-edge insights
into the various means through which primates communicate socially in both
natural and experimental settings. They examine the behavioral building blocks
by which primates communicate, and they analyze what the cognitive
requirements are for displaying communicative acts. Chapters highlight
cross-fostering and language experiments with primates, primate mother-infant
communication, the display of emotions and expressions, manual gestures and
vocal signals, joint attention, intentionality and theory of mind. The primary
focus of the third part is on how these various types of communicative
behavior possibly evolved, and how they can be understood as evolutionary
precursors to human language.  Leading scholars analyze how both manual and
vocal gestures gave way to mimetic and imitational protolanguage, and how the
latter possibly transitioned into human language. In the final part, we turn
to the hominin lineage, and anthropologists, archeologists and linguists
investigate what the necessary neurocognitive, anatomical and behavioral
features are in order for human language to evolve, and how language differs
from other forms of primate communication.