Hostname: page-component-669899f699-cf6xr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T13:15:07.847Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How the language capacity was naturally selected: Altriciality and long immaturity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2006

D. Kimbrough Oller  and
Ulrike Griebel
D. Kimbrough Oller*
Affiliation:
School of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN38105http://www.ausp.memphis.edu/people/kimoller.html
Ulrike Griebel*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN38152
*
[email protected]
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Critical factors that appear to encourage vocal development in humans are altriciality and long immaturity. Hominid infants appear to have evolved a specific tendency to use elaborate vocalization as a means of soliciting long-term investment from caregivers. The development of such vocal capacity provides necessary infrastructure for language development across human life history.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , June 2006 , pp. 293 - 294
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable