Subject: Evolution of Speech Production: BBS Call for Commentators
Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article on:
The Frame/Content Theory of Evolution of Speech Production
by Peter F. MacNeilage
This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing
Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in
the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences.
Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To
be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other
appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS
Associate, please send EMAIL to:
bbs(a)cogsci.soton.ac.uk
or write to:
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Department of Psychology
University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/
ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/
gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals
If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a
BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is
familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators
are eligible to become BBS Associates.
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give
some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring
your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator.
An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection
with a WWW browser, anonymous ftp or gopher according to the
instructions that follow after the abstract.
____________________________________________________________________
The Frame/Content Theory of Evolution of Speech Production
Peter F. MacNeilage
Department of Psychology
University of Texas at Austin
Austin TX 78712
USA
macneilage(a)mail.utexas.edu
KEYWORDS: speech, language, evolution, communication,
neuropsychology
ABSTRACT: The species-specific organizational property of speech is a
continual mouth open-close alternation, the two phases of which are
subject to continual articulatory modulation. The cycle constitutes the
syllable and the open and closed phases are segments - vowels and
consonants respectively. The fact that segmental serial ordering
errors in normal adults obey syllable structure constraints suggests
that syllabic "Frames" and segmental "Content" elements are
separately
controlled in the speech production process. The frames may derive
from cycles of mandibular oscillation, present in humans from babbling
onset, which are responsible for the open-close alternation. These
communication-related frames perhaps first evolved when the
ingestion-related cyclicities of mandibular oscillation (associated
with mastication (chewing) sucking and licking) took on communicative
significance as lipsmacks, tonguesmacks and teeth chatters - displays
which are prominent in many nonhuman primates. The new role of Broca's
area and its surround in human vocal communication may have derived
from its evolutionary history as the main cortical center for the
control of ingestive processes. The frame and content components of
speech may have subsequently evolved separate realizations within two
general-purpose primate motor control systems: (1) A motivation-related
medial "intrinsic" system, including anterior cingulate cortex and the
supplementary motor area, for self-generated behavior, formerly
responsible for ancestral vocalization control and now also responsible
for frames, and (2) a lateral "extrinsic" system, including Broca's
area and surround, and Wernicke's area, specialized for response to
external input (and therefore the emergent vocal learning capacity) and
more responsible for Content.
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To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for
this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide
Web or by anonymous ftp or gopher from the US or UK BBS Archive.
Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on
this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant
expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the
article.
The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive:
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.macneilage.html
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.macneilage
ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/Archive/bbs.macneilage
gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals
To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either:
ftp
ftp.princeton.edu
or
ftp 128.112.128.1
When you are asked for your login, type:
anonymous
Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid:
yourlogin(a)yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@")
cd /pub/harnad/BBS
To show the available files, type:
ls
Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example):
get bbs.macneilage
When you have the file(s) you want, type:
quit