The DOI matches its Crossref record; 256 of the 257 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Social Cognition and the Evolution of Language: Constructing Cognitive Phylogenies
Open accessAbstract
Human language and social cognition are closely linked: advanced social cognition is necessary for children to acquire language, and language allows forms of social understanding (and, more broadly, culture) that would otherwise be impossible. Both "language" and "social cognition" are complex constructs, involving many independent cognitive mechanisms, and the comparative approach provides a powerful route to understanding the evolution of such mechanisms. We provide a broad comparative review of mechanisms underlying social intelligence in vertebrates, with the goal of determining which human mechanisms are broadly shared, which have evolved in parallel in other clades, and which, potentially, are uniquely developed in our species. We emphasize the importance of convergent evolution for testing hypotheses about neural mechanisms and their evolution.
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“Humans are not the only species in which communicative learning is affected by social interaction (see Fitch et al., 2010 for review).”
From Brain mechanisms in early language acquisition (2010) · cites this paper as Fitch et al., 2010
In the citing paper
“The social intelligence hypothesis proposes that increased social complexity (frequently indexed by social group size) was the major selective pressure in primate cognitive evolution (6, 44, 48, 50, 87, 115, 120, 125-141).”
From The evolution of self-control. (2014) · cites this paper as [48]
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“The lack of cognitive data collected with similar methods across large samples of species precludes meaningful species comparisons that can reveal the major forces shaping cognitive evolution across species, including humans (48,70,89,(93)(94)(95)(96)(97)(98).”
From The evolution of self-control. (2014) · cites this paper as [48]
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Citations
Cites
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“Since Premack and Woodruff’s (Premack and Woodruff, 1978) seminal paper asked ‘‘Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?’’”
Rizzolatti, G., & Craighero, L. (2004) · Annual Review of Neuroscience · doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144230 · Cited by 7,433 · cited 3×
“Also, the discovery of mirror neurons (neurons that fire both when monkeys watch another animal perform a goal-directed action and when they perform the same action) in rhesus monkeys suggests that they possess the neural framework for the matching system of imitation (Ferrari et al., 2009; Rizzolatti and Craighero, 2…”
The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition
Tomasello, M. (2009) · doi:10.2307/j.ctvjsf4jc · Cited by 6,368 · cited 1×
“Human cultural evolution also allows for accumulation of good ideas, a fact that is central to human cultural progress (Tomasello, 1999).”
Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (2005) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x05000129 · Cited by 4,882 · cited 3×
“…elements of a TOM in some nonhuman primates, striking differences exist from the human system of understanding mental states and intentional agency (Csibra and Gergely, 2006, 2009; Tomasello et al., 2005), especially in their use of such understanding in communication (Seyfarth and Cheney, 2005).”
The chameleon effect: the perception–behavior link and social interaction
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“However, research on the chameleon effect in human adults (Chartrand and Bargh, 1999; van Baaren et al., 2009) and ‘‘overcopying’’ in children (Whiten et al., 2009) suggests that, even when control is limited, imitation can have systematic and far-reaching effects on cooperative behavior and the…”
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Cited by
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Millan, M. J., Agid, Y., Brüne, M., Bullmore, E. T., Carter, C. S., Clayton, N. S., Connor, R., Davis, S., Deakin, B., DeRubeis, R. J., et al. (2012) · Nature Reviews Drug Discovery · doi:10.1038/nrd3628 · Cited by 1,292
“Finally, social cognition must be intact to appropriately decode verbal languag”
BackgroundThe evolution of self-control.
MacLean, E. L., Hare, B., Nunn, C. L., Addessi, E., Amici, F., Anderson, R. C., Aureli, F., Baker, J. M., Bania, A. E., Barnard, A. M., et al. (2014) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1323533111 · Cited by 819
“The social intelligence hypothesis proposes that increased social complexity (frequently indexed by social group size) was the major selective pressure in primate cognitive evolution (6, 44, 48, 50, 87, 115, 120, 125 – 141).”
Brain mechanisms in early language acquisition
Kuhl, P. K. (2010) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2010.08.038 · Cited by 798
“Humansarenot theonly species inwhichcommunicative learning is affected by social interaction (see Fitch et al., 2010, for review).”
BackgroundWild Chimpanzees Inform Ignorant Group Members of Danger
Crockford, C., Wittig, R. M., Mundry, R., & Zuberbühler, K. (2011) · Current Biology · doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.11.053 · Cited by 512
Brain Lateralization: A Comparative Perspective.
Güntürkün, O., Ströckens, F., & Ocklenburg, S. (2020) · Physiological Reviews · doi:10.1152/physrev.00006.2019 · Cited by 412
“, emotional state), humans can use language to basically communicate about any concept (131).”
Background
Metadata
- Authors
- Fitch, W. T., Huber, L., & Bugnyar, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Vienna (AT)
- Corresponding author
- Fitch, W. Tecumseh
- Venue
- Neuron
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-03
- Volume
- 65
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 795-814
- ISSN
- 0896-6273 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4415479
- OpenAlex
- W2141160550
- Cited by
- 264
- References
- 257
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 17.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Neuron (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Phaidra (Universität Wien) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- social cognition, language evolution, social intelligence, vertebrates, convergent evolution, comparative cognition, language acquisition, culture
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cognition, Cultural Evolution, Humans, Language, Phylogeny, Species Specificity, Emotional Intelligence
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