Elizabeth Bates and the Search for the Roots of Human Language
Quick attempt to write out the logic beyond my Food of the Gods review:
Starting 2 million years ago, homo Habilis emerges from grasslands as meat eaters. This is cited as the main explanation for the growth of the brain, but it's not clear how eating meat led to genetic changes that would pass down to offspring.
However, in hunting mammals (ie: cat
The new developmental research tells us that Baby 0.0 must have some pretty special features. First, it must already have a great deal of knowledge about the world built into its original program. The experiments we will describe show that even newborns already know a great deal about people and objects and language. But more significant, babies an
... See moreAlison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff, • The Scientist In The Crib: Minds, Brains, And How Children Learn
Children who observed their parents using language as a tool for cognitive exploration, rather than just control, were more likely to emulate that usage.