Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T00:08:22.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human tool-making capacities reflect increased information-processing capacities: Continuity resides in the eyes of the beholder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2012

Kathleen R. Gibson
Kathleen R. Gibson
Affiliation:
Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Texas–Houston Medical School, Houston, TX, 77030. kathleen.r.gibson@uth.tmc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Chimpanzee/human technological differences are vast, reflect multiple interacting behavioral processes, and may result from the increased information-processing and hierarchical mental constructional capacities of the human brain. Therefore, advanced social, technical, and communicative capacities probably evolved together in concert with increasing brain size. Interpretations of these evolutionary and species differences as continuities or discontinuities reflect differing scientific perspectives.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , August 2012 , pp. 225 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bickerton, D. (2009) Adam's tongue: How humans made language, how language made humans. Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Case, R. (1985) Intellectual development: Birth to adulthood. Developmental Psychology Series. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, K. R. (1990) Neurological perspectives on comparative animal and human intelligence: New approaches to the instinct versus learning controversy. In: “Language” and intelligence in monkeys and apes: Comparative developmental perspectives, ed. Parker, S. & Gibson, K., pp. 97–128. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, K. R. (1991) Tools, language and intelligence, evolutionary implications. Man (N.S.) 26:255–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, K. R. (1993) Tool use, language and social behavior in relationship to information processing capacities. In: Tools, language and cognition in human evolution, ed. Gibson, K. R. & Ingold, T., pp. 251–69. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, K. R. (1996) The ontogeny and evolution of the brain, cognition and language, In: Handbook of symbolic intelligence, ed. Lock, A. & Peters, C., pp. 409–33. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, K. R. (2002) Evolution of human intelligence: The roles of brain size and mental construction. Brain, Behavior and Evolution 59: 10–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, K. R. & Jessee, S. (1999) Language evolution and expansions of multiple neural processing areas. In: The evolution of language: Assessing the evidence from the non-human primates, ed. King, B., pp. 189–228. School for American Research.Google Scholar
Gibson, K. R., Rumbaugh, D. & Beran, M. (2001) Bigger is better: Primate brain size in relationship to cognition. In: Evolutionary anatomy of the primate cerebral cortex, ed. Falk, D. & Gibson, K. R., pp. 79–97. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S. (2011) What modern-day gesture can tell us about language evolution. In: Handbook of language evolution, ed. Tallerman, M. & Gibson, K. R., pp. 545–56. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hewes, G. (1973) Primate communication and the gestural origin of language. Current Anthropology 14:5–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, W. D. & Vauclair, J. (2011) Evolution of behavioural and brain asymmetries in primates. In: Handbook of language evolution, ed. Tallerman, M. & Gibson, K. R., pp. 184–96. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Parker, S. T. & Gibson, K. R. (1979) A model of the evolution of language and intelligence in early hominids. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 2:367–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slocombe, K. (2011) Have we underestimated great ape vocal capacities? In: Handbook of language evolution, ed. Tallerman, M. & Gibson, K. R., pp. 90–95. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar