Is Language the Key to Human Intelligence?
Abstract
What factors make humans unique? Spoken language? Recursion? In his Perspective, Premack uses a recent study showing that tamarin monkeys can acquire nonrecursive but not recursive grammar ( Fitch et al.) as a springboard to discuss various aspects of human uniqueness.
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Engaging in joint attention lays the foundation for basic social-communicative functioning and language development.
“It is theorized that engaging in JA lays the foundation for prosocial cooperative behavior, from basic social-communicative functioning and language development (Premack 2004) to sophisticated forms of empathy (Mundy and Jarrold 2010) and theory of mind (Adolphs 2003).”
From Joint attention and brain functional connectivity in infants and toddlers (2017) · cites this paper as Premack 2004
Cites
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Children with autism can track others' beliefs in a competitive game
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- Authors
- Premack, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- Corresponding author
- Premack, David
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2004-01-16
- Volume
- 303
- Issue
- 5656
- Pages
- 318-320
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W1568515499
- Cited by
- 201
- References
- 25
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 13
- FWCI
- 296.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Language and cultural evolution
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Keywords
- human uniqueness, spoken language, recursion, language evolution, primate cognition
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Animal Communication, Pan troglodytes, Biological Evolution, Facial Expression, Humans, Imitative Behavior, Intelligence, Language, Learning, Linguistics, Papio, Saguinus, Speech, Teaching, Vocabulary, Vocalization, Animal
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