Dec 23, 2022 05:08 PM
(This post was last modified: Dec 23, 2022 05:13 PM by C C.)
Orangutan communication sheds light on human speech origins
https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pres...65951b113a
RELEASE: New research from The University of Warwick has revealed that orangutans, the most arboreal of the great apes, produce consonant-like calls more often and of greater variety than their African ground-dwelling cousins (gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees).
This contrasts with the expectation that, whilst being closely related to humans, African apes should have call repertoires which are more like our speech. Arboreal versus terrestrial lifestyles appear to have driven great apes to develop different vocal repertoires, with large and varied inventories of consonant-like calls arising from tree-dwelling apes like orangutans, rather than the ground-dwelling apes. The study suggests that our own evolutionary ancestors might have lived a more tree-dwelling lifestyle than previously thought.
Dr Adriano Lameira, Associate Professor of Psychology at The University of Warwick, investigated the origins of human spoken language, which is universally composed of vowels that take the form of voiced sounds, whereas voiceless sounds take the form of consonants.
Non-human primates have been studied for decades in search for clues about how speech and language evolved in our species. However, the calls of non-human primates are composed primarily or exclusively of voiced vowel-like sounds. "This raises questions about where all the consonants, that compose all the world's languages, originally come from," says Dr Adriano Lameira. "Existing theories of speech evolution have thus far, focused exclusively on the connection between primate laryngeal anatomy and human use of vowels. This doesn't explain though, how voice-less, consonant-like sounds became a fundamental component of every language spoken around the globe."
In order to understand the origins of human speech and the root-cause of consonant sounds in the human lineage, Dr Lameira compared patterns of consonant-like vocal production in the vocal repertoire of three major great ape lineages that survive today from a once-diverse family -- orangutans, gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees.
Unlike other primates, but similarly to any spoken human language, great ape call repertoires consist of both consonant-like and vowel-like calls. However, there are inconsistencies within great apes' use of consonant sounds in nature.
"Wild gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos don't use a huge variety of consonant-like calls," he explains.
"Gorillas for example, have been found to use a particular consonant-like call, but this is only prevalent in some gorilla populations and not others. Some chimpanzee populations produce one or two consonant-like calls associated with a single behaviour, for example while they are grooming, but these same grooming calls are uncommon in other chimpanzee populations.
"Wild orangutans, however, use consonant-like calls universally and consistently across different populations and for multiple behaviours, much like humans do with speech. Their vocal repertoire is a rich display of smacking, clicks, kiss-sounds, splutters and raspberries."
Professor Lameira has observed orangutans in their natural habitat throughout the last 18 years and says their arboreal lifestyle and feeding habits could help to explain the complexity and sophistication of their consonant-like calls.
"All apes are accomplished extractive foragers. They have developed complex mechanisms to access protected or hidden foods like nuts or plant piths, which often requires either meticulous use of hands or tools. Apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees need the stability of the ground in order to successfully handle these foods and use tools, however orangutans are largely tree-dwelling, and access their food up in the canopy, where at least one of their limbs is constantly used to provide stability among the trees.
"It is because of this limitation, that orangutans have developed greater control over their lips, tongue and jaw and can use their mouths as a fifth hand to hold food and manoeuvre tools. Orangutans are known for peeling an orange with just their lips so their fine oral neuro-motoric control is far superior to that of African apes, and it has evolved to be an integral part of their biology," states Dr Lameira.
The research suggests that living in trees could have been a preadaptation for the emergence of consonants, and by extension, for speech evolution in our human ancestors.
The paper, Arboreal origin of consonants, and thus, ultimately, speech, has been published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Study: Network neuroscience theory best predictor of intelligence
https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/937606375
RELEASE: Scientists have labored for decades to understand how brain structure and functional connectivity drive intelligence. A new analysis offers the clearest picture yet of how various brain regions and neural networks contribute to a person's problem-solving ability in a variety of contexts, a trait known as general intelligence, researchers report.
They detail their findings in the journal Human Brain Mapping.
The study used "connectome-based predictive modeling" to compare five theories about how the brain gives rise to intelligence, said Aron Barbey, a professor of psychology, bioengineering and neuroscience at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who led the new work with first author Evan Anderson, now a researcher for Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. working at the Air Force Research Laboratory.
"To understand the remarkable cognitive abilities that underlie intelligence, neuroscientists look to their biological foundations in the brain," Barbey said. "Modern theories attempt to explain how our capacity for problem-solving is enabled by the brain's information-processing architecture."
A biological understanding of these cognitive abilities requires "characterizing how individual differences in intelligence and problem-solving ability relate to the underlying architecture and neural mechanisms of brain networks," Anderson said.
Historically, theories of intelligence focused on localized brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex, which plays a key role in cognitive processes such as planning, problem-solving and decision-making. More recent theories emphasize specific brain networks, while others examine how different networks overlap and interact with one another, Barbey said. He and Anderson tested these established theories against their own "network neuroscience theory," which posits that intelligence emerges from the global architecture of the brain, including both strong and weak connections.
"Strong connections involve highly connected hubs of information-processing that are established when we learn about the world and become adept at solving familiar problems," Anderson said. "Weak connections have fewer neural linkages but enable flexibility and adaptive problem-solving." Together, these connections "provide the network architecture that is necessary for solving the diverse problems we encounter in life."
To test their ideas, the team recruited a demographically diverse pool of 297 undergraduate students, first asking each participant to undergo a comprehensive battery of tests designed to measure problem-solving skills and adaptability in various contexts. These and similarly diverse tests are routinely used to measure general intelligence, Barbey said.
The researchers next collected resting-state functional MRI scans of each participant.
"One of the really interesting properties of the human brain is how it embodies a rich constellation of networks that are active even when we are at rest," Barbey said. "These networks create the biological infrastructure of the mind and are thought to be intrinsic properties of the brain."
These include the frontoparietal network, which enables cognitive control and goal-directed decision-making; the dorsal attention network, which aids in visual and spatial awareness; and the salience network, which directs attention to the most relevant stimuli. Previous studies have shown that the activity of these and other networks when a person is awake but not engaged in a task or paying attention to external events "reliably predicts our cognitive skills and abilities," Barbey said.
With the cognitive tests and fMRI data, the researchers were able to evaluate which theories best predicted how participants performed on the intelligence tests.
"We can systematically investigate how well a theory predicts general intelligence based on the connectivity of brain regions or networks that theory entails," Anderson said. "This approach allowed us to directly compare evidence for the neuroscience predictions made by current theories."
The researchers found that taking into account the features of the whole brain produced the most accurate predictions of a person's problem-solving aptitude and adaptability. This held true even when accounting for the number of brain regions included in the analysis.
The other theories also were predictive of intelligence, the researchers said, but the network neuroscience theory outperformed those limited to localized brain regions or networks in a number of respects.
The findings reveal that "global information processing" in the brain is fundamental to how well an individual overcomes cognitive challenges, Barbey said.
"Rather than originate from a specific region or network, intelligence appears to emerge from the global architecture of the brain and to reflect the efficiency and flexibility of systemwide network function," he said.
Barbey also is a faculty member in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and a professor of speech and hearing science and a member of the neuroscience program at the U. of I.
Funders include the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity; and the Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Activity.
https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pres...65951b113a
RELEASE: New research from The University of Warwick has revealed that orangutans, the most arboreal of the great apes, produce consonant-like calls more often and of greater variety than their African ground-dwelling cousins (gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees).
This contrasts with the expectation that, whilst being closely related to humans, African apes should have call repertoires which are more like our speech. Arboreal versus terrestrial lifestyles appear to have driven great apes to develop different vocal repertoires, with large and varied inventories of consonant-like calls arising from tree-dwelling apes like orangutans, rather than the ground-dwelling apes. The study suggests that our own evolutionary ancestors might have lived a more tree-dwelling lifestyle than previously thought.
Dr Adriano Lameira, Associate Professor of Psychology at The University of Warwick, investigated the origins of human spoken language, which is universally composed of vowels that take the form of voiced sounds, whereas voiceless sounds take the form of consonants.
Non-human primates have been studied for decades in search for clues about how speech and language evolved in our species. However, the calls of non-human primates are composed primarily or exclusively of voiced vowel-like sounds. "This raises questions about where all the consonants, that compose all the world's languages, originally come from," says Dr Adriano Lameira. "Existing theories of speech evolution have thus far, focused exclusively on the connection between primate laryngeal anatomy and human use of vowels. This doesn't explain though, how voice-less, consonant-like sounds became a fundamental component of every language spoken around the globe."
In order to understand the origins of human speech and the root-cause of consonant sounds in the human lineage, Dr Lameira compared patterns of consonant-like vocal production in the vocal repertoire of three major great ape lineages that survive today from a once-diverse family -- orangutans, gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees.
Unlike other primates, but similarly to any spoken human language, great ape call repertoires consist of both consonant-like and vowel-like calls. However, there are inconsistencies within great apes' use of consonant sounds in nature.
"Wild gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos don't use a huge variety of consonant-like calls," he explains.
"Gorillas for example, have been found to use a particular consonant-like call, but this is only prevalent in some gorilla populations and not others. Some chimpanzee populations produce one or two consonant-like calls associated with a single behaviour, for example while they are grooming, but these same grooming calls are uncommon in other chimpanzee populations.
"Wild orangutans, however, use consonant-like calls universally and consistently across different populations and for multiple behaviours, much like humans do with speech. Their vocal repertoire is a rich display of smacking, clicks, kiss-sounds, splutters and raspberries."
Professor Lameira has observed orangutans in their natural habitat throughout the last 18 years and says their arboreal lifestyle and feeding habits could help to explain the complexity and sophistication of their consonant-like calls.
"All apes are accomplished extractive foragers. They have developed complex mechanisms to access protected or hidden foods like nuts or plant piths, which often requires either meticulous use of hands or tools. Apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees need the stability of the ground in order to successfully handle these foods and use tools, however orangutans are largely tree-dwelling, and access their food up in the canopy, where at least one of their limbs is constantly used to provide stability among the trees.
"It is because of this limitation, that orangutans have developed greater control over their lips, tongue and jaw and can use their mouths as a fifth hand to hold food and manoeuvre tools. Orangutans are known for peeling an orange with just their lips so their fine oral neuro-motoric control is far superior to that of African apes, and it has evolved to be an integral part of their biology," states Dr Lameira.
The research suggests that living in trees could have been a preadaptation for the emergence of consonants, and by extension, for speech evolution in our human ancestors.
The paper, Arboreal origin of consonants, and thus, ultimately, speech, has been published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Study: Network neuroscience theory best predictor of intelligence
https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/937606375
RELEASE: Scientists have labored for decades to understand how brain structure and functional connectivity drive intelligence. A new analysis offers the clearest picture yet of how various brain regions and neural networks contribute to a person's problem-solving ability in a variety of contexts, a trait known as general intelligence, researchers report.
They detail their findings in the journal Human Brain Mapping.
The study used "connectome-based predictive modeling" to compare five theories about how the brain gives rise to intelligence, said Aron Barbey, a professor of psychology, bioengineering and neuroscience at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who led the new work with first author Evan Anderson, now a researcher for Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. working at the Air Force Research Laboratory.
"To understand the remarkable cognitive abilities that underlie intelligence, neuroscientists look to their biological foundations in the brain," Barbey said. "Modern theories attempt to explain how our capacity for problem-solving is enabled by the brain's information-processing architecture."
A biological understanding of these cognitive abilities requires "characterizing how individual differences in intelligence and problem-solving ability relate to the underlying architecture and neural mechanisms of brain networks," Anderson said.
Historically, theories of intelligence focused on localized brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex, which plays a key role in cognitive processes such as planning, problem-solving and decision-making. More recent theories emphasize specific brain networks, while others examine how different networks overlap and interact with one another, Barbey said. He and Anderson tested these established theories against their own "network neuroscience theory," which posits that intelligence emerges from the global architecture of the brain, including both strong and weak connections.
"Strong connections involve highly connected hubs of information-processing that are established when we learn about the world and become adept at solving familiar problems," Anderson said. "Weak connections have fewer neural linkages but enable flexibility and adaptive problem-solving." Together, these connections "provide the network architecture that is necessary for solving the diverse problems we encounter in life."
To test their ideas, the team recruited a demographically diverse pool of 297 undergraduate students, first asking each participant to undergo a comprehensive battery of tests designed to measure problem-solving skills and adaptability in various contexts. These and similarly diverse tests are routinely used to measure general intelligence, Barbey said.
The researchers next collected resting-state functional MRI scans of each participant.
"One of the really interesting properties of the human brain is how it embodies a rich constellation of networks that are active even when we are at rest," Barbey said. "These networks create the biological infrastructure of the mind and are thought to be intrinsic properties of the brain."
These include the frontoparietal network, which enables cognitive control and goal-directed decision-making; the dorsal attention network, which aids in visual and spatial awareness; and the salience network, which directs attention to the most relevant stimuli. Previous studies have shown that the activity of these and other networks when a person is awake but not engaged in a task or paying attention to external events "reliably predicts our cognitive skills and abilities," Barbey said.
With the cognitive tests and fMRI data, the researchers were able to evaluate which theories best predicted how participants performed on the intelligence tests.
"We can systematically investigate how well a theory predicts general intelligence based on the connectivity of brain regions or networks that theory entails," Anderson said. "This approach allowed us to directly compare evidence for the neuroscience predictions made by current theories."
The researchers found that taking into account the features of the whole brain produced the most accurate predictions of a person's problem-solving aptitude and adaptability. This held true even when accounting for the number of brain regions included in the analysis.
The other theories also were predictive of intelligence, the researchers said, but the network neuroscience theory outperformed those limited to localized brain regions or networks in a number of respects.
The findings reveal that "global information processing" in the brain is fundamental to how well an individual overcomes cognitive challenges, Barbey said.
"Rather than originate from a specific region or network, intelligence appears to emerge from the global architecture of the brain and to reflect the efficiency and flexibility of systemwide network function," he said.
Barbey also is a faculty member in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and a professor of speech and hearing science and a member of the neuroscience program at the U. of I.
Funders include the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity; and the Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Activity.