1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910254803503321

Autore

Aboitiz Francisco

Titolo

A Brain for Speech : A View from Evolutionary Neuroanatomy / / by Francisco Aboitiz

Pubbl/distr/stampa

London : , : Palgrave Macmillan UK : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2017

ISBN

1-349-71226-4

Edizione

[1st ed. 2017.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (XXIV, 505 p. 22 illus.)

Disciplina

612.8

Soggetti

Neuropsychology

Cognitive psychology

Biological psychology

Psycholinguistics

Historical linguistics

Cognitive Psychology

Biological Psychology

Historical Linguistics

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: The beginning of words -- 1. Pandora’s box -- 2. A matter of size -- 3. Broken symmetry -- 4. Bridging hemispheres -- 5. A loop for speech -- 6. Monkey brain, human brain -- 7. Grasping mirrors -- 8. Of birds and men -- 9. Talking heads -- 10. Taming ourselves -- Epilogue.

Sommario/riassunto

This book discusses evolution of the human brain, the origin of speech and language. It covers past and present perspectives on the contentious issue of the acquisition of the language capacity. Divided into two parts, this insightful work covers several characteristics of the human brain including the language-specific network, the size of the human brain, its lateralization of functions and interhemispheric integration, in particular the phonological loop. Aboitiz argues that it is the phonological loop that allowed us to increase our vocal memory capacity and to generate a shared semantic space that gave rise to



modern language. The second part examines the neuroanatomy of the monkey brain, vocal learning birds like parrots, emergent evidence of vocal learning capacities in mammals, mirror neurons, and the ecological and social context in which speech evolved in our early ancestors. This book's interdisciplinary topic will appeal to scholars of psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, biology and history.