The Evolution of Language: The Cerebro-Cerebellar Blending of Visual-Spatial Working Memory with Vocalizations

Journal of Mind and Behavior 32 (4):317 (2011)
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Abstract

Leiner, Leiner, and Dow proposed that the co-evolution of cerebral cortex and the cerebellum over the last million years gave rise to the unique cognitive capacities and language of humans. Following the findings of recent imaging studies by Imamizu and his colleagues, it is proposed that over the last million or so years language evolved from the blending of decomposed/re-composed contexts or "moments" of visual-spatial experience with those of sound patterns decomposed/re-composed from parallel context-appropriate vocalizations . It is further proposed that the adaptive value of this blending was the progressively rapid access to the control of detailed cause-and-effect relationships in working memory as it entered new and challenging environments. Employing the complex syntactical sequence of nut-cracking among capuchin monkeys it is proposed how cerebro-cerebellar blending of low-volume vocalization and visual-spatial working memory could have produced the beginnings of the phonological loop as proposed by Baddeley, Gathercole, and Papagno. It is concluded that the blending of cerebellar internal models in the cerebral cortex can explain the evolution of human advancements in the manipulation of cause-and-effect ideas in working memory, and, therefore, the emergence of the distinctive "cognitive niche" of humans proposed by Tooby and DeVore and supportively elaborated by Pinker

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