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Brain and behavior: Which way does the shaping go?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

A. Charles Catania
A. Charles Catania
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD 21250. [email protected]://www.umbc.edu/psyc/personal/catania/catanias.html
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Abstract

Evolutionary contingencies select organisms based on what they can do; brains and other evolved structures serve their behavior. Arguments that brains drive language structure get the direction wrong; with functional issues unacknowledged, interactions between central structures and periphery are overlooked. Evidence supports a peripherally driven central organization. If language modules develop like other brain compartments, then environmental consistencies can engender both structural and functional language units (e.g., the different phonemic, semantic, and grammatical structures of different languages).

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 5 , October 2008 , pp. 516 - 517
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

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