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What happened to Homo habilis? (Language and mirror neurons)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 1998

Giacomo Rizzolatti
Giacomo Rizzolatti
Affiliation:
Instituto di Fisiologia Umana, Università di Parma, 43100 Parma, Italy fisioum@symbolic.pr.it
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Abstract

The evolutionary continuity between the prespeech functions of premotor cortex and its new linguistic functions, the main thesis of MacNeilage's target article, is confirmed by the recent discovery of “mirror” neurons in monkeys and a corresponding action-observation/action-execution matching system in humans. Physiological data (and other considerations) appear to indicate, however, that brachiomanual gestures played a greater role in language evolution than MacNeilage would like to admit.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , August 1998 , pp. 527 - 528
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

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