Neuroscience
Book Review: The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker
(out of 5 stars)
Cognitive scientist and evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker presents a compelling argument for the existence of a language instinct in humans. Pinker relies heavily on the shoulders of Noam Chomsky, whose theories of language, especially Universal Grammar, revolutionized thinking about the ways in which humans learn to convey thoughts vocally via grammar and symbolism. Pinker's thesis is backed up by numerous studies and decades of research from many disciplines.
The book starts by laying out the argument that there exists an instinct derived through evolutionary natural selection which predisposes humans to acquire and utilize vocalized language. Pinker uses a myriad of studies as well as anecodotal accounts which illustrate the ways in which this process works well, works poorly, or is hindered following accidents and brain disorders.
A bit of a dry section follows as Pinker gets into an advanced discussion of grammar and how the brain may decide how to structure sentences. While many readers while feel their eyes grow fuzzy through these three or so chapters, the section lays the ground work for many of the remaining chapters. Pinker shows that complex language constructions, including the irregular nature of many English verbs and constructs, can be simplified into a few very basic rules and procedures which we understand as basic grammar.
From there, Pinker describes work on language itself, including the meanings and utilization of words, the similarities and diversities of languages, and the nature of baby talk. The rest of the book offers the reader the closing arguments as Pinker describes the biology behind his theory, including how genes might control the language instinct, and how natural selection may have acted upon genetic variety. The last two chapters deal with 'grammar police' (called 'Language Mavens' by Pinker) and the polishing of the main thesis with a chapter titled 'Mind Design.'
I loved the entire book, even the somewhat dry grammar chapters. I know some readers will not make it past that part, and it is understandable since it is dense and deals with a subject most of us hated in school. However, The Language Instinct stands as an amazing argument in favor of a genetic basis for the nature of language and for the ability of very young children to acquire and thrive with a few inate grammatical concepts. Recommended for anyone interested in psychology, linguistics, brain and mind, education, or philosophy of science. Four and one-half stars.
Ants and Neurons: Emergent Decision Making
This is a fascinating article about the emergent decision making of ant (and bee) colonies and how this can shed light on the decision making of neurons in the brain.
The efficiency of a social insect democracy is largely a product of the simplicity of its constituents. "Human groups have factions with conflicting agendas, whereas social insects in a colony have much less self-interest and genuinely 'want' to converge on the best option," Marshall says. Still, Seeley believes that there is much to be learned about decision making from honeybees. "I have learned several things from the bees that I have employed as department chair," he says. Seeley cites a number of what he terms "swarm smarts," such as the honeybee’s ability to avoid groupthink by having each "voter" assess options independently. Furthermore, when disaster strikes, the honeybees adapt their decision making by lowering their threshold levels and deliberation time. While we, as individuals, do this constantly (rushing to meet deadlines, ordering quickly in a crowded deli instead of weighing our options), our democracy can be slow and ungainly, endlessly logjammed over issues of immediate need.
The similarities between ants and neurons "suggest there are general principles of organization for building groups far smarter than the smartest individuals in them," Seeley says. Group decision making is occurring constantly at different levels of complexity and across different scales of space and time; understanding how it works in one context can inform our understanding of other systems that might be more complicated or difficult to explore. By looking at decision making in all of its diverse incarnations, we can step outside of standard modes of reasoning and find new ways to talk about complexity in our ecosystems, our communities, our governments, and our minds.
V.S. Ramachandran Discusses the Neurology of Perception and Interpretation
Great hour-and-a-half-long lecture by Ramachandran on the neurological basic for perception, art, interpretation, judgement, and such. (via Aine)
The Glitch That's In Demand?
Maybe 'glitch' isn't accurate, but synesthsia is an interesting phenomenon experienced by a surprising 1 in 20 people, according to an interview in Seed Magazine with researcher David Eagleman:
What quickly struck me is that synesthesia is a fantastic inroad into understanding consciousness because it’s a private, subjective experience that’s a little bit different. You have some change in the physical structure — we think it’s a genetic change — and all of a sudden you’re seeing the world very differently. That gives us a really neat path into correlating physical/genetic differences with differences in how we perceive the world. That’s the goal of consciousness research.
If you've ever seen Dan Dennett's talks on why things appeal to our senses, such as why some things taste sweet to us (watch a short clip of this below), you're already primed for understanding that senses are not necessarily reflective of some deeper truth about subjective realities.
I'm curious of synesthsia's role in human evolution. Could we discover that early humans were extremely likely to have this characteristic, perhaps leading to development of language? Or maybe we've only recently developed this reasonably wide-spread ability. If so, is there an evolutionary advantage to having this ability in nature? Lots of unknowns about this one.
