New Frontiers in Language Evolution and Development

This article introduces the Special Issue and its focus on research in language evolution with emphasis on theory as well as computational and robotic modeling. A key theme is based on the growth of evolutionary developmental biology or evo-devo. The Special Issue consists of 13 articles organized in two sections: A) Theoretical foundations and B) Modeling and simulation studies. All the papers are interdisciplinary in nature, encompassing work in biological and linguistic foundations for the study of language evolution as well as a variety of computational and robotic modeling efforts shedding light on how language may be developed and may have evolved.

[1]  Bart de Boer.  Modeling Co-evolution of Speech and Biology. , 2016, Topics in cognitive science.

[2]  Heather L. Ramsdell,et al.  Functional flexibility of infant vocalization and the emergence of language , 2013, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[3]  Susan Oyama.  The Ontogeny of Information: Developmental Systems and Evolution , 2000 .

[4]  S. Pinker,et al.  Natural language and natural selection , 1990, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[5]  Bodo Winter,et al.  The Co-evolution of Speech and the Lexicon: The Interaction of Functional Pressures, Redundancy, and Category Variation , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[6]  Morten H. Christiansen,et al.  Language as shaped by the brain. , 2008, The Behavioral and brain sciences.

[7]  Seth Love,et al.  Genetic Evidence Implicates the Immune System and Cholesterol Metabolism in the Aetiology of Alzheimer's Disease , 2010, PloS one.

[8]  S. Carroll.  Endless forms most beautiful : the new science of evo devo and the making of the animal kingdom , 2005 .

[9]  Vittorio Loreto,et al.  On the emergence of syntactic structures: quantifying and modelling duality of patterning , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[10]  D. Kimbrough Oller,et al.  Vocabulary Learning in a Yorkshire Terrier: Slow Mapping of Spoken Words , 2012, PloS one.

[11]  Bob McMurray,et al.  Defusing the Childhood Vocabulary Explosion , 2007, Science.

[12]  M. West-Eberhard.  Developmental plasticity and evolution , 2003 .

[13]  Morten H. Christiansen,et al.  Language Evolution: Constraints and Opportunities From Modern Genetics , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[14]  James Steele,et al.  CULTURAL EVOLUTION IN SPATIALLY STRUCTURED POPULATIONS: A REVIEW OF ALTERNATIVE MODELING FRAMEWORKS , 2012 .

[15]  Cynthia Breazeal,et al.  Young Children Treat Robots as Informants , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[16]  D. Kimbrough Oller,et al.  Developmental Plasticity and Language: A Comparative Perspective , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[17]  Vittorio Loreto,et al.  Modeling the emergence of universality in color naming patterns , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[18]  D. Lewkowicz,et al.  A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action. , 2007, Journal of cognitive neuroscience.

[19]  G. Müller,et al.  Origination of organismal form : beyond the gene in developmental and evolutionary biology , 2003 .

[20]  Simon E Fisher,et al.  Decoding the genetics of speech and language , 2013, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[21]  Larissa K. Samuelson,et al.  Short arms and talking eggs: Why we should no longer abide the nativist-empiricist debate. , 2009, Child development perspectives.

[22]  James L. McClelland,et al.  Letting structure emerge: connectionist and dynamical systems approaches to cognition , 2010, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[23]  Bob McMurray,et al.  Language at Three Timescales: The Role of Real-Time Processes in Language Development and Evolution , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[24]  G. Lupyan,et al.  Language Structure Is Partly Determined by Social Structure , 2010, PloS one.

[25]  J. Boyles,et al.  Temperature-Dependent Growth of Geomyces destructans, the Fungus That Causes Bat White-Nose Syndrome , 2012, PloS one.

[26]  G. Gottlieb.  Probabilistic epigenesis. , 2007, Developmental science.

[27]  Rick Dale,et al.  Seeking Synthesis: The Integrative Problem in Understanding Language and Its Evolution , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[28]  Ulrike Griebel,et al.  Vocal Development as a Guide to Modeling the Evolution of Language , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[29]  Pierre-Yves Oudeyer,et al.  How Evolution May Work Through Curiosity-Driven Developmental Process , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[30]  A. Wedel.  Feedback and regularity in the lexicon* , 2007, Phonology.

[31]  Pierre-Yves Oudeyer,et al.  Discovering communication , 2006, Connect. Sci..

[32]  Larissa K. Samuelson,et al.  Word learning emerges from the interaction of online referent selection and slow associative learning. , 2012, Psychological review.

[33]  Gary Lupyan,et al.  Understanding the Origins of Morphological Diversity: the Linguistic Niche Hypothesis , 2012, Adv. Complex Syst..

[34]  T. Johnston,et al.  Genes, interactions, and the development of behavior. , 2002, Psychological review.

[35]  Gert Westermann,et al.  Experience-Dependent Brain Development as a Key to Understanding the Language System , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[36]  Carlos Gussenhoven,et al.  Foundations of Intonational Meaning: Anatomical and Physiological Factors , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[37]  Dan Dediu,et al.  Are Languages Really Independent from Genes? If Not, What Would a Genetic Bias Affecting Language Diversity Look Like? , 2011, Human biology.

[38]  D. Kimbrough Oller,et al.  Evolution of Communicative Flexibility - Complexity, Creativity, and Adaptability in Human and Animal Communication. , 2008 .

[39]  Gary Lupyan,et al.  How Language Programs the Mind , 2016, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[40]  Irene M. Pepperberg,et al.  Vocal learning in Grey parrots: A brief review of perception, production, and cross-species comparisons , 2010, Brain and Language.

[41]  W. Wimsatt,et al.  Developing scaffolds in evolution, culture, and cognition , 2013 .

[42]  M. Feldman,et al.  The extended evolutionary synthesis: its structure, assumptions and predictions , 2015, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.