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Beyond the mirror neuron – the smoke neuron?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2005

Derek Bickerton
Derek Bickerton*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI96822
*
[email protected]
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Abstract:

Mirror neurons form a poor basis for Arbib's account of language evolution, failing to explain the creativity that must precede imitation, and requiring capacities (improbable in hominids) for categorizing situations and unambiguously miming them. They also commit Arbib to an implausible holophrastic protolanguage. His model is further vitiated by failure to address the origins of symbolization and the real nature of syntax.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 2005 , pp. 126
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2005

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References

Note

1. It is surely worth reminding readers that all the features of mirror neurons (except for their catchy title) were described by David Perrett and his associates (Perrett et al. 1982; 1985) more than two decades ago – a fact seldom acknowledged in contemporary accounts, including Arbib’s.