Recursive language and modern imagination were acquired simultaneously 70,000 years ago

The lion-man sculpture from Germany (dated to 37,000 years ago) must have been first imagined by the artist by mentally synthesizing parts of the man and beast together and then executing the product of this mental creation in ivory. The composite artworks provide a direct evidence that by 37,000 years ago humans have acquired prefrontal synthesis.
Image by JDuckeck
[Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lion_man_photo.jpg, Wikimedia Commons]

A genetic mutation that slowed down the development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in two or more children may have triggered a cascade of events leading to acquisition of recursive language and modern imagination 70,000 years ago.

This new hypothesis, called Romulus and Remus and coined by Dr. Vyshedskiy, a neuroscientist from Boston University, might be able to solve the long-standing mystery of language evolution. It is published in the open-science journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO).

Numerous archeological and genetic evidence have already convinced most paleoanthropologists that the speech apparatus has reached essentially modern configurations before the human line split from the Neanderthal line 600,000 years ago. Considering that the chimpanzee communication system already has 20 to 100 different vocalizations, it is likely that the modern-like remodeling of the vocal apparatus extended our ancestors’ range of vocalizations by orders of magnitude. In other words, by 600,000 years ago, the number of distinct verbalizations used for communication must have been on par with the number of words in modern languages.

On the other hand, artifacts signifying modern imagination, such as composite figurative arts, elaborate burials, bone needles with an eye, and construction of dwellings arose not earlier than 70,000 years ago. The half million-year-gap between the acquisition of the modern speech apparatus and modern imagination has baffled scientists for decades.

While studying acquisition of imagination in children, Dr. Vyshedskiy and his colleagues discovered a temporal limit for the development of a particular component of imagination. It became apparent that modern children who have not been exposed to full language in early childhood never acquire the type of active constructive imagination essential for juxtaposition of mental objects, known as Prefrontal Synthesis (PFS).

Dr. Vyshedskiy explains:

“To understand the importance of PFS, consider these two sentences: “A dog bit my friend” and “My friend bit a dog.” It is impossible to distinguish the difference in meaning using words or grammar alone, since both words and grammatical structure are identical in these two sentences. Understanding the difference in meaning and appreciating the misfortune of the 1st sentence and the humor of the 2nd sentence depends on the listener’s ability to juxtapose the two mental objects: the friend and the dog. Only after the PFC forms the two different images in front of the mind’s eye, are we able to understand the difference between the two sentences. Similarly, nested explanations, such as “a snake on the boulder to the left of the tall tree that is behind the hill,” force listeners to use PFS to combine objects (a snake, the boulder, the tree, and the hill) into a novel scene. Flexible object combination and nesting (otherwise known as recursion) are characteristic features of all human languages. For this reason, linguists refer to modern languages as recursive languages.”

Unlike vocabulary and grammar acquisition, which can be learned throughout one’s lifetime, there is a strong critical period for the development of PFS and individuals not exposed to conversations with recursive language in early childhood can never acquire PFS as adults. Their language is always lacking understanding of spatial prepositions and recursion that depend on the PFS ability. In a similar manner, pre-modern humans would not have been able to learn recursive language as adults and, therefore, would not be able to teach recursive language to their own children, who, as a result, would not acquire PFS. Thus, the existence of a strong critical period for PFS acquisition creates a cultural evolutionary barrier for acquisition of recursive language.

The second predicted evolutionary barrier was a faster PFC maturation rate and, consequently, a shorter critical period. In modern children the critical period for PFS acquisition closes around the age of five. If the critical period in pre-modern children was over by the age of two, they would have no chance of acquiring PFS. A longer critical period was imperative to provide enough time to train PFS via recursive conversations.

An evolutionary mathematical model, developed by Dr. Vyshedskiy, predicts that humans had to jump both evolutionary barriers within several generations since the “PFC delay” mutation that is found in all modern humans, but not in Neanderthals, is deleterious and is expected to be lost in a population without an associated acquisition of PFS and recursive language. Thus, the model suggests that the “PFC delay” mutation triggered simultaneous synergistic acquisition of PFS and recursive language.

This model calls for:

  • two or more children with extended critical period due to “PFC delay” mutation;
  • these children spending a lot of time talking to each other;
  • inventing the recursive elements of language, such as spatial prepositions;
  • acquiring recursive-conversations-dependent PFS;
  • teaching recursive language to their offsprings.

The hypothesis is named after the celebrated twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. Similar to legendary Romulus and Remus, whose caregiver was a wolf, the real children’s caregivers had an animal-like communication system with many words, but no recursion. Their parents could not have taught them spatial prepositions or recursion; children had to invent recursive elements of language themselves. Such an invention of a new recursive language has been observed in contemporary children, for example among deaf children in Nicaragua.

“The acquisition of PFS and recursive language 70,000 years ago resulted in what was in essence a behaviorally new species: the first behaviorally modern Homo sapiens,” concludes Dr. Vyshedskiy. “This newly acquired power for fast juxtaposition of mental objects in the process of PFS dramatically facilitated mental prototyping and led to fast acceleration of technological progress. Armed with the unprecedented ability to mentally simulate any plan and equally unprecedented ability to communicate it to their companions, humans were poised to quickly become the dominant species.”

Humans acquired an ability to trap large animals and therefore gained a major nutritional advantage. As the population grew exponentially, humans diffused out of Africa and quickly settled in the most habitable areas of the planet, arriving in Australia around 50,000 years ago. These humans were very much like modern humans since they possessed both components of full language: the culturally transmitted recursive language along with the innate predisposition towards PFS, enabled by the “PFC delay” mutation.

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Original source:

Vyshedskiy A (2019) Language evolution to revolution: the leap from rich-vocabulary non-recursive communication system to recursive language 70,000 years ago was associated with acquisition of a novel component of imagination, called Prefrontal Synthesis, enabled by a mutation that slowed down the prefrontal cortex maturation simultaneously in two or more children – the Romulus and Remus hypothesis. Research Ideas and Outcomes 5: e38546. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.5.e38546

FIT Project turns to interdisciplinarity to understand injury factors in youth football

To address the alarming injury rate in youth footballers in Sweden, the project Injury-Free Children and Adolescents: Towards Better Practice in Swedish Football (FIT project) seeks to fill in the knowledge gaps by bringing biomedical and social science together.

With its multi-angled and interdisciplinary approach, the project involves a sample of male and female Swedish football players aged 10 to 19, in order to provide concrete, evidence-based recommendations for injury prevention strategies for the use of sporting federations, sport education institutions, coaches, sport support staff, as well as players.

Strength sub-study

Having received funding by the Swedish Research Council for Sport Science, the grant proposal is published in the open-access journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO Journal). Currently finalising its data collection stage, FIT project is being conducted at the Department of Food and Nutrition, and Sport Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, by PhD student Solveig Hausken, Dr Natalie Barker-Ruchti, Dr Astrid Schubring and Prof Stefan Grau.

While injuries in youth athletes could potentially instigate injuries later on in their careers or even force them to drop out of sport, so far, research has focused almost exclusively on the biomedical perspective and the identification of clinical and mechanical risk factors. However, little is known about the role of socio-cultural risk factors.

Image 1

In contrast, FIT Project turns simultaneously to the disciplines of biomechanics, sport medicine, sport coaching and sport sociology. The researchers conducted laboratory tests to determine the physical and sport-specific dispositions of each player; handed out questionnaires to register details about experienced injury; performed interviews with both coaches and players to shed light on the coaching-training dynamics; and made direct observations on the coaching methods and coach-athlete relationships within the sporting context. Each of these sub-studies is meant to produce a separate dataset to be subjected to an interdisciplinary analysis.

“The FIT project is a rare example of how injury research can integrate biomedical and social science disciplines to produce multiple data sets and an interdisciplinary data analysis procedure,” the team explains.

The researchers expect to identify injury risk factors including: growth and maturation; injury history and general health; biomechanical and clinical parameters; training factors such as training intensity and recovery time between trainings; and contextual factors such as pressure to perform, athletic ideals and knowledge of coaches about injury prevention.Movement analysis sub-study

Starting in January 2019, a pilot analysis including the multiple datasets will be conducted. The team will be publishing updates on the FIT project’s progress on its website.

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Original source:

Hausken S, Barker-Ruchti N, Schubring A, Grau S (2018) Injury-Free Children and Adolescents: Towards Better Practice in Swedish Football (FIT project). Research Ideas and Outcomes 4: e30729. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.4.e30729

Advancing the science and management of European intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams

A COST Action set to bring together scientists and stakeholders from across 14 countries within Europe

Intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams (IRES) are waterways that cease to flow and sometimes dry. However, there is much left to learn about them, including their occurrence in the landscape, ecology, economic and societal values and incredible biodiversity. For efficient and adequate management and protection actions, these knowledge gaps need to be closed sooner rather than later.

In a call for a better understanding of IRES and their vital role in nature, a large international team, led by Dr. Thibault Datry, a freshwater ecologist working at IRSTEA, Lyon, France, has initiated the “Science and Management of Intermittent Rivers and Ephemeral Streams (SMIRES)” project. Their grant proposal, as approved for funding by the European framework COST, is published in the open science journal Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO).

This COST Action brings together hydrologists, biogeochemists, ecologists, modellers, environmental economists, social researchers and stakeholders from 14 countries from around the continent. The aim of the interdisciplinary team is to develop a research network for synthesising the fragmented knowledge on IRES. In turn, improved understanding of IRES will translate to a science-based, sustainable management of river networks.

Along with networking between scientists and stakeholders, the Action will accommodate a whole set of good practices, including data sharing, technology development and citizen science.

The Calavon River, a Mediterranean IRES, during flowing (left) and dry phases (right).
The Calavon River, a Mediterranean IRES, during flowing (left) and dry phases (right).

Amongst the goals of the project are the creation of two meta-databases providing open data about IRES research activities and flow stations with intermittent flows; a proposal for novel indicators and technologies to assess changes and associated ecological responses in IRES; and the development of a European-scale network of citizen scientists to monitor, locate and map river flow states with the help of smartphone technology.

Having been ignored in conservation policies and initiatives, IRES are being degraded at an alarming rate. Water extraction, flood harvesting, river impoundment, channel modification, land-use change and mining are only part of the threats faced by IRES across Europe. In many areas, they are even used as disposal areas. For others, they are channelled underground or connected to larger water bodies as a means of flow augmentation, which could potentially lead to the spread of invasive species.

The researchers point out that lack of recognition and understanding lead to the rapid degradation of IRES.

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Original source:

Datry T, Singer G, Sauquet E, Jorda-Capdevilla D, Von Schiller D, Subbington R, Magand C, Pa?il P, Miliša M, Acuña V, Alves M, Augeard B, Brunke M, Cid N, Csabai Z, England J, Froebrich J, Koundouri P, Lamouroux N, Martí E, Morais M, Munné A, Mutz M, Pesic V, Previši? A, Reynaud A, Robinson C, Sadler J, Skoulikidis N, Terrier B, Tockner K, Vesely D, Zoppini A (2017) Science and Management of Intermittent Rivers and Ephemeral Streams (SMIRES). Research Ideas and Outcomes 3: e21774. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e21774