Sequence representation as an early step in the evolution of language.

ABSTRACT: Human language is unique in its compositional, open-ended, and sequential form, and its evolution is often solely explained by advantages of communication. However, it has proven challenging to identify an evolutionary trajectory from a world without language to a world with language, especially while at the same time explaining why such an advantageous phenomenon has not evolved in other animals. Decoding sequential information is necessary for language, making domain-general sequence representation a tentative basic requirement for the evolution of language and other uniquely human phenomena. Here, using formal evolutionary analyses of the utility of sequence representation we show that sequence representation is exceedingly costly and that current memory systems found in animals may pre

SUBMITTER: Jon-And A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10752568 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature