Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T06:49:11.854Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Expression unleashed: The evolutionary and cognitive foundations of human communication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2022

Christophe Heintz Open the ORCID record for Christophe Heintz [Opens in a new window]  and
Thom Scott-Phillips Open the ORCID record for Thom Scott-Phillips [Opens in a new window]
Christophe Heintz
Affiliation:
Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Quellenstraße 51, 1100 Wien, Austria. christophe.heintz@gmail.com http://christophe.heintz.free.fr/
Thom Scott-Phillips
Affiliation:
Institute for Logic, Cognition, Language & Information, Carlos Santamaria Zentroa 2, Plaza de Elhuyar, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain thom.scottphillips@gmail.com; https://thomscottphillips.com/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Human expression is open-ended, versatile, and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how expression is unleashed in humans. The relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species' social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use, but also novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society, and culture.

Keywords

cognitive anthropologycommunicationcomparative cognitionevolutionary psychologyinformative intentionlanguage evolutionlanguagepragmaticsrelevancesocial cognition
Type
Target Article
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 46 , 2023 , e1
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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.)

References

Allott, N., & Wilson, D. (2021). Chomsky and pragmatics. In Allott, N., Lohndal, T., & Rey, G. (Eds.), A companion to Chomsky (pp. 433–447). Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
André, J. B., & Baumard, N. (2011). The evolution of fairness in a biological market. Evolution, 65(5), 1447–1456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrews, K. (2017). Chimpanzee mindreading: Don't stop believing. Philosophy Compass, 12(1), e12394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbib, M. A. (2012). How the brain got language: The mirror system hypothesis. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bach, K., & Harnish, R. M. (1979). Linguistic communication & speech acts. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Barclay, P. (2013). Strategies for cooperation in biological markets, especially for humans. Evolution & Human Behavior, 34(3), 164–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barclay, P. (2016). Biological markets and the effects of partner choice on cooperation and friendship. Current Opinion in Psychology, 7, 33–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-On, D. (2013). Origins of meaning: Must we “go Gricean”? Mind & Language, 28(3), 342–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-On, D. (2021). How to do things with nonwords: Pragmatics, biosemantics, and origins of language in animal communication. Biology & Philosophy, 36(6), 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, H. C., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2010). Coevolution of cooperation, causal cognition and mindreading. Communicative & Integrative Biology, 3(6), 522–524.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, E. (1979). The emergence of symbols: Cognition & communication in infancy. Academic Press.Google Scholar
Baumard, N., André, J. B., & Sperber, D. (2013). A mutualistic approach to morality: The evolution of fairness by partner choice. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 36(1), 59–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berkeley, G. (1709). An essay towards a new theory of vision. Aaron Rhames.Google Scholar
Berman, J. Z., Levine, E. E., Barasch, A., & Small, D. A. (2015). The Braggart's dilemma: On the social rewards and penalties of advertising prosocial behavior. Journal of Marketing Research, 52(1), 90–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berwick, R. C., & Chomsky, N. (2016). Why only us? Language & evolution. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berwick, R. C., & Chomsky, N. (2017). Why only us: Recent questions and answers. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 43, 166–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bettle, R., & Rosati, A. G. (2021). The primate origins of human social cognition. Language Learning & Development, 17(2), 96–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blakemore, D. (2002). Relevance & linguistic meaning: The semantics & pragmatics of discourse markers. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, P. (2002). How children learn the meanings of words. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bohn, M., & Frank, M. C. (2019). The pervasive role of pragmatics in early language. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 1, 223–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonalumi, F., Michael, J., & Heintz, C. (2021). Perceiving commitments: When we both know that you are counting on me. Mind & Language, 37(4), 502–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonalumi, F., Tacha, J., Scott-Phillips, T., & Heintz, C. (2020). Commitment and communication: Are we committed to what we mean or what we say? Language & Cognition, 12(2), 360–384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyer, P. (2020). Why divination? Evolved psychology and strategic interaction in the production of truth. Current Anthropology, 61(1), 100–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bray, E. E., Gnanadesikan, G. E., Horschler, D. J., Levy, K. M., Kennedy, B. S., Famula, T. R., & MacLean, E. L. (2021). Early-emerging and highly-heritable sensitivity to human communication in dogs. Current Biology, 31(14), 3132–3136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brentari, D., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2017). Language emergence. Annual Review of Linguistics, 3, 363–388.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bugnyar, T., Reber, S. A., & Buckner, C. (2016). Ravens attribute visual access to unseen competitors. Nature Communications, 7, 10506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bybee, J. L., & Beckner, C. (2010). Usage-based theory. In Heine, B. & Narrog, H. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis (2nd ed., pp. 827–855). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Calcott, B. (2009). Lineage explanations: Explaining how biological mechanisms change. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 60(1), 51–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Call, J. (2011). How artificial communication affects the communication and cognition of the great apes. Mind & Language, 26(1), 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years later. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(5), 187–192.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carey, S. (2009). The origin of concepts. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carston, R. (2002). Thoughts & utterances. Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carston, R. (2004). Review of S. Levinson, “Presumptive Meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature.” Journal of Linguistics, 40(1), 181–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartmill, E. A., & Byrne, R. W. (2010). Semantics of primate gestures: Intentional meanings of orangutan gestures. Animal Cognition, 13(6), 793–804.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cave, T., & Wilson, D. (Eds.). (2018). Reading beyond the code: Literature & relevance theory. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, S., & Clark, B. (Eds.). (2019). Pragmatics & literature. John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chudek, M., & Henrich, J. (2011). Culture-gene coevolution, norm-psychology and the emergence of human prosociality. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15(5), 218–226.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, B. (2013). Relevance theory. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. (2003). First language acquisition. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, H., Elsherif, M. M., & Leavens, D. A. (2019). Ontogeny vs. phylogeny in primate/canid comparisons: A meta-analysis of the object choice task. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 105, 178–189.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clay, Z., & Tennie, C. (2018). Is overimitation a uniquely human phenomenon? Insights from human children as compared to bonobos. Child Development, 89(5), 1535–1544.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cornell, L., & Wharton, T. (2021). Before meaning: Creature construction, sea-sponges, lizards and humean projection. In Ifantidou, E., de Saussure, L., & Wharton, T. (Eds.), Beyond meaning (pp. 177–198). John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Csibra, G. (2010). Recognizing communicative intentions in infancy. Mind & Language, 25(2), 141–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Csibra, G., & Gergely, G. (2009). Natural pedagogy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(4), 148–153.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Csibra, G., & Gergely, G. (2011). Natural pedagogy as evolutionary adaptation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1149–1157.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Curioni, A., Vesper, C., Knoblich, G., & Sebanz, N. (2019). Reciprocal information flow and role distribution support joint action coordination. Cognition, 187, 21–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Curry, O. S., Mullins, D. A., & Whitehouse, H. (2019). Is it good to cooperate? Testing the theory of morality-as-cooperation in 60 societies. Current Anthropology, 60, 47–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cushman, F., Sarin, A., & Ho, M. (2022). Punishment as communication. In Doris, J. & Vargas, M. (Eds.), Oxford handbook of moral psychology (pp. 197–209). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Danto, A. (1964). The artworld. Journal of Philosophy, 61(19), 571–584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, R., & Krebs, J. R. (1978). Animal signals: Information or manipulation? In J. Krebs & N. Davies (Eds.), Behavioural ecology: An evolutionary approach (pp. 282–309). Blackwell.Google Scholar
Debove, S., André, J. B., & Baumard, N. (2015). Partner choice creates fairness in humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 282(1808), 20150392.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Delton, A. W., & Robertson, T. E. (2012). The social cognition of social foraging: Partner selection by underlying valuation. Evolution & Human Behavior, 33(6), 715–725.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dessalles, J.-L. (1998). Altruism, status, & the origin of relevance. In Hurford, J. R., Studdert-Kennedy, M., & Knight, C. (Eds.), Approaches to the evolution of language (pp. 130–147). Cambridge University Press..Google Scholar
Dezecache, G., Mercier, H., & Scott-Phillips, T. (2013). An evolutionary approach to emotional communication. Journal of Pragmatics, 59B, 221–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickie, G. (1987). The art circle. Philosophical Review, 96, 141–146.Google Scholar
Diggle, S. P., Gardner, A., West, S. A., & Griffin, A. S. (2007). Evolutionary theory of bacterial quorum sensing: When is a signal not a signal? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362(1483), 1241–1249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dissanayake, E. (1988). What is art for? University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Dissanayake, E. (2003). The core of art-making special. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 1(2), 13–38.Google Scholar
Doliński, D. (2018). Is psychology still a science of behaviour? Social Psychological Bulletin, 13(2), 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dor, D., Knight, C., & Lewis, J. (2014). Introduction: A social perspective on how language began. In Dor, D., Knight, C., & Lewis, J. (Eds.), The social origins of language (pp. 1–14). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downey, G. (2008). Scaffolding imitation in Capoeira: Physical education & enculturation in an Afro-Brazilian art. American Anthropologist, 110(2), 204–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duff, R. A. (2001). Punishment, communication & community. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Duranti, A. (2015). The anthropology of intentions. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Emery, N. J., & Clayton, N. S. (2009). Comparative social cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 87–113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Enfield, N. J. (2003). Linguistic epidemiology: Semantics & grammar of language contact in mainland Southeast Asia. Routledge.Google Scholar
Enfield, N. J. (2014). Natural causes of language. Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Engelmann, J. M., & Tomasello, M. (2019). Children's sense of fairness as equal respect. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(6), 454–463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fay, N., Arbib, M., & Garrod, S. (2013). How to bootstrap a human communication system. Cognitive Science, 37(7), 1356–1367.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feinberg, J. (1965). The expressive function of punishment. The Monist, 49(3), 397–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreira, F., & Patson, N. D. (2007). The “good enough” approach to language comprehension. Language & Linguistics Compass, 1(1–2), 71–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferriere, R., Bronstein, J. L., Rinaldi, S., Law, R., & Gauduchon, M. (2002). Cheating and the evolutionary stability of mutualisms. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 269(1493), 773–780.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fitch, W. T., Huber, L., & Bugnyar, T. (2010). Social cognition and the evolution of language: Constructing cognitive phylogenies. Neuron, 65(6), 795–814.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fodor, J. A. (2012). Déjà vu all over again: How Danto's aesthetics recapitulates the philosophy of mind. In Rollins, M. (Ed.), Danto & his critics (pp. 55–68). Wiley Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, R. H. (1988). Passions within reason. Norton.Google Scholar
Frith, U., & Frith, C. (2010). The social brain: Allowing humans to boldly go where no other species has been. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365(1537), 165–176.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fröhlich, M., & Hobaiter, C. (2018). The development of gestural communication in great apes. Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology, 72(12), 194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gärdenfors, P., & Högberg, A. (2017). The archaeology of teaching and the evolution of Homo docens. Current Anthropology, 58(2), 188–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Genty, E., & Zuberbühler, K. (2014). Spatial reference in a bonobo gesture. Current Biology, 24(14), 1601–1605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gergely, G. (2013). Ostensive communication and cultural learning: The natural pedagogy hypothesis. In Metcalfe, J. & Terrace, H. S. (Eds.), Agency & joint attention (pp. 139–151). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gergely, G., & Csibra, G. (2006). Sylvia's recipe: Human culture, imitation, and pedagogy. In Enfield, N. & Levinson, S. (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition & human interaction (pp. 229–255). Berg Press.Google Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. Jr, & Bryant, G. A. (2008). Striving for optimal relevance when answering questions. Cognition, 106(1), 345–369.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibbs, R. W. Jr, & Colston, H. L. (2020). Pragmatics always matters: An expanded vision of experimental pragmatics. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1619.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, A., & Suttle, L. (2010). Construction grammar. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 1(4), 468–477.Google ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, A. E. (2003). Constructions: A new theoretical approach to language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(5), 219–224.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldin-Meadow, S. (2005). The resilience of language. Psychology Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gómez, J. C. (1996). Ostensive behavior in great apes: The role of eye contact. In Russon, A., Bard, K., & Parker, S. (Eds.), Reaching into thought (pp. 131–151). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goodman, N. D., & Frank, M. C. (2016). Pragmatic language interpretation as probabilistic inference. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(11), 818–829.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Graham, K. E., Hobaiter, C., Ounsley, J., Furuichi, T., & Byrne, R. W. (2018). Bonobo and chimpanzee gestures overlap extensively in meaning. PLoS Biology 16, e2004825.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Graham, K. E., Wilke, C., Lahiff, N. J., & Slocombe, K. E. (2020). Scratching beneath the surface: Intentionality in great ape signal production. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 375(1789), 20180403.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Granito, C., Tehrani, J., Kendal, J., & Scott-Phillips, T. (2019). Style of pictorial representation is shaped by intergroup contact. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 1, e8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, M. (2007). Self-expression. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1957). Meaning. The Philosophical Review, 66(3), 377–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic & conversation. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. (Eds.), Syntax & semantics III: Speech acts (pp. 41–58). Academic Press.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1989). Studies in the way of words. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Grosse, G., Scott-Phillips, T., & Tomasello, M. (2013). Three-year-olds hide their communicative intentions in appropriate contexts. Developmental Psychology, 49(11), 2095–2101.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guilford, T., & Dawkins, M. S. (1991). Receiver psychology and the evolution of animal signals. Animal Behaviour, 42(1), 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagoort, P. (2017). The core and beyond in the language-ready brain. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 81, 194–204.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Halina, M., Rossano, F., & Tomasello, M. (2013). The ontogenetic ritualization of bonobo gestures. Animal Cognition, 16(4), 653–666.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hampton, J. (1992). An expressive theory of punishment. In Cragg, W. (Ed.), Retributivism & its critics (pp. 1–21). Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Hare, B., Call, J., Agnetta, B., & Tomasello, M. (2000). Chimpanzees know what conspecifics do and do not see. Animal Behaviour, 59(4), 771–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartmann, S., & Pleyer, M. (2021). Constructing a protolanguage: Reconstructing prehistoric languages in a usage-based construction grammar framework. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376(1824), 20200200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hauser, M. D., Yang, C., Berwick, R. C., Tattersall, I., Ryan, M. J., Watumull, J., … Lewontin, R. C. (2014). The mystery of language evolution. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heintz, C. (2011). Presuming placeholders are relevant enables conceptual change (Commentary on S. Carey, “précis of The Origin of concepts”). Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 34(3), 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heintz, C., Karabegovic, M., & Molnar, A. (2016). The co-evolution of honesty and strategic vigilance. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1503.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heyes, C. (2019). Cognition blindness and cognitive gadgets. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 42, e187.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ho, M. K., Cushman, F., Littman, M. L., & Austerweil, J. L. (2019). People teach with rewards and punishments as communication, not reinforcements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(3), 520–549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoehl, S., Keupp, S., Schleihauf, H., McGuigan, N., Buttelmann, D., & Whiten, A. (2019). “Over-imitation”: A review and appraisal of a decade of research. Developmental Review, 51, 90–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, M., Yoeli, E., & Nowak, M. A. (2015). Cooperate without looking: Why we care what people think and not just what they do. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(6), 1727–1732.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoppitt, W. J., Brown, G. R., Kendal, R., Rendell, L., Thornton, A., Webster, M. M., & Laland, K. N. (2008). Lessons from animal teaching. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 23(9), 486–493.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Horner, V., & Whiten, A. (2005). Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens). Animal Cognition, 8(3), 164–181.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hrdy, S. B., & Burkart, J. M. (2020). The emergence of emotionally modern humans: Implications for language and learning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 375(1803), 20190499.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hurford, J. R. (2007). Origins of meaning. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ifantidou, E., de Saussure, L., & Wharton, T. (Eds.). (2021). Beyond meaning. John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1997). The architecture of the language faculty. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jacob, P., & Scott-Phillips, T. (2020). Is mindreading a gadget? Synthese, 199, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaeggi, A. V., Burkart, J. M., & van Schaik, C. P. (2010). On the psychology of cooperation in humans and other primates: Combining the natural history and experimental evidence of prosociality. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365(1553), 2723–2735.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johansson, S. (2021). The dawn of language. MacLehose Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, A. M., Holden, P. C., & Santos, L. R. (2017). Exploring the evolutionary origins of overimitation: A comparison across domesticated and non-domesticated canids. Developmental Science, 20(4), e12460.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Karabegovic, M., & Heintz, C. (under review). Changing the mind, not the heart: Credible evidence in prosocial displays.Google Scholar
Kegl, J., Senghas, A., & Coppola, M. (1999). Creation through contact: Sign language emergence & sign language change in Nicaragua. In DeGraff, M. (Ed.), Language creation & language change: Creolization, diachrony & development (pp. 179–237). MIT Press.Google Scholar
Király, I., Csibra, G., & Gergely, G. (2013). Beyond rational imitation: Learning arbitrary means actions from communicative demonstrations. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 116(2), 471–486.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kline, M. A. (2015). How to learn about teaching: An evolutionary framework for the study of teaching behavior in humans and other animals. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 38, e31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krebs, J. R., & Dawkins, R. (1984). Animal signals: Mindreading and manipulation. In Krebs, J. & Davies, N. (Eds.), Behavioural ecology: An evolutionary approach (2nd ed., pp. 380–402). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Krems, J. A., Williams, K. E. G., Aktipis, A., & Kenrick, D. T. (2021). Friendship jealousy: One tool for maintaining friendships in the face of third-party threats? Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 120(4), 977–1012.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lachmann, M., Szamado, S., & Bergstrom, C. T. (2001). Cost and conflict in animal signals and human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98(23), 13189–13194.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leaver, L. A., Hopewell, L., Caldwell, C., & Mallarky, L. (2007). Audience effects on food caching in grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis): Evidence for pilferage avoidance strategies. Animal Cognition, 10(1), 23–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Legare, C. H., & Nielsen, M. (2015). Imitation and innovation: The dual engines of cultural learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(11), 688–699.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leroux, M., & Townsend, S. W. (2020). Call combinations in great apes and the evolution of syntax. Animal Behavior & Cognition, 7(2), 131–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (2000). Presumptive meanings. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinson, S. C. (2006). On the human “interactional engine.” In Wenner-Gren international symposium series (pp. 39–69). Berg.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. C., & Holler, J. (2014). The origin of human multi-modal communication. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 369(1651), 20130302.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lyons, D. E., Young, A. G., & Keil, F. C. (2007). The hidden structure of overimitation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 19751–19756.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marchand, T. H. (2010). Embodied cognition and communication: Studies with British fine woodworkers. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16, S100–S120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maynard Smith, J., & Harper, D. (2003). Animal signals. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McCallum, K. (2019). Untangling knots: Embodied diagramming practices in knot theory. Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, 9(1), 178–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCallum, K., Mitchell, S., & Scott-Phillips, T. (2020). The art experience. Review of Philosophy & Psychology, 11, 21–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCullough, M. (2020). The kindness of strangers: How a selfish ape invented a new moral code. Basic Books.Google Scholar
McEllin, L., Knoblich, G., & Sebanz, N. (2018b). Distinct kinematic markers of demonstration and joint action coordination? Evidence from virtual xylophone playing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 44(6), 885–897.Google ScholarPubMed
McEllin, L., Sebanz, N., & Knoblich, G. (2018a). Identifying others’ informative intentions from movement kinematics. Cognition, 180, 246–258.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meir, I., Sandler, W., Padden, C., & Aronoff, M. (2010). Emerging sign languages. In Marschark, M. & Spencer, P. E. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of deaf studies, language & education (Vol. 2, pp. 267–280). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mercier, H. (2017). How gullible are we? A review of the evidence from psychology and social science. Review of General Psychology, 21(2), 103–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mercier, H., & Sperber, D. (2009). Intuitive and reflective inferences. In Evans, J. & Frankish, K. (Eds.), In two minds: Dual processes & beyond (pp. 149–170). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Millikan, R. (1984). Language, thought & other biological categories. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moll, H., & Tomasello, M. (2007). Cooperation and human cognition: The Vygotskian intelligence hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362(1480), 639–648.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moore, R. (2016). Meaning and ostension in great ape gestural communication. Animal Cognition, 19(1), 223–231.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moore, R. (2017). Convergent minds: Ostension, inference and Grice's third clause. Interface Focus, 7, 20160107.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moore, R. (2018). Gricean communication, language development, and animal minds. Philosophy Compass, 13(12), e12550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morin, O. (2016). How traditions live & die. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Motamedi, Y., Schouwstra, M., Smith, K., Culbertson, J., & Kirby, S. (2019). Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: From improvised gesture to systematic sign. Cognition, 192, 103964.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Newman-Norlund, S. E., Noordzij, M. L., Newman-Norlund, R. D., Volman, I. A., De Ruiter, J. P., Hagoort, P., & Toni, I. (2009). Recipient design in tacit communication. Cognition, 111(1), 46–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nielsen, M., & Tomaselli, K. (2010). Overimitation in Kalahari Bushman children and the origins of human cultural cognition. Psychological Science, 21(5), 729–736.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Noë, R., & Hammerstein, P. (1995). Biological markets. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 10(8), 336–339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Noveck, I. (2018). Experimental pragmatics: The making of a cognitive science. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nowak, M. A., Plotkin, J. B., & Jansen, V. A. (2000). The evolution of syntactic communication. Nature, 404(6777), 495–498.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nowak, M. A., & Sigmund, K. (2005). Evolution of indirect reciprocity. Nature, 437(7063), 1291–1298.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Origgi, G. (2004). Is trust an epistemological notion? Episteme; Rivista Critica di Storia Delle Scienze Mediche e Biologiche, 1(1), 61–72.Google Scholar
Origgi, G. (2005). A stance of trust. 9th International Pragmatics Conference (IPRA).Google Scholar
Origgi, G., & Sperber, D. (2000). Evolution, communication and the proper function of language. In Carruthers, P. & Chamberlain, A. (Eds.), Evolution & the human mind: Language, modularity & social cognition (pp. 140–169). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oude Maatman, F. (2021). Psychology's theory crisis, and why formal modelling cannot solve it. PsyArXiv. https://psyarxiv.com/puqvs/Google Scholar
Padilla Cruz, M. (Ed.). (2016). Relevance theory: Recent developments, current challenges & future directions. John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paunov, A. M., Blank, I. A., & Fedorenko, E. (2019). Functionally distinct language and theory of mind networks are synchronized at rest and during language comprehension. Journal of Neurophysiology, 121(4), 1244–1265.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pezzulo, G., Donnarumma, F., Dindo, H., D'Ausilio, A., Konvalinka, I., & Castelfranchi, C. (2019). The body talks: Sensorimotor communication and its brain and kinematic signatures. Physics of Life Reviews, 28, 1–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pignocchi, A. (2019). The continuity between art and everyday communication. In Cova, F. & Rehault, S. (Eds.), Advances in experimental philosophy of aesthetics (pp. 241–266). Bloomsbury.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pika, S., Liebal, K., Call, J., & Tomasello, M. (2005). Gestural communication of apes. Gesture, 5(1–2), 41–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Planer, R., & Sterelny, S. (2021). From signal to symbol: The evolution of language. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Primoratz, I. (1989). Punishment as language. Philosophy (London, England), 64(248), 187–205.Google Scholar
Progovac, L. (2015). Evolutionary syntax. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rai, T. S., Fiske, A. (2010). ODD (observation-and description-deprived) psychological research (Commentary on Henrich et al., “The weirdest people in the world?”). Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raviv, L., Meyer, A., & Lev-Ari, S. (2019). Larger communities create more systematic languages. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 286(1907), 20191262.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Royka, A., Aboody, R., & Jara-Ettinger, J. (2018). Movement as a message: Inferring communicative intent from actions. Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Rozin, P. (2001). Social psychology and science: Some lessons from Solomon Asch. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 5(1), 2–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sasamoto, R. (2019). Onomatopoeia & relevance: Communication of impressions via sound. Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmid, H.-J. (2020). The dynamics of the linguistic system: Usage, conventionalization, & entrenchment. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitz, L., Vesper, C., Sebanz, N., & Knoblich, G. (2018). When height carries weight: Communicating hidden object properties for joint action. Cognitive Science, 42(6), 2021–2059.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schouwstra, M., & de Swart, H. (2014). The semantic origins of word order. Cognition, 131(3), 431–436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott-Phillips, T. (2010). The evolution of relevance. Cognitive Science, 34(4), 583–601.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott-Phillips, T. (2015). Speaking our minds. Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott-Phillips, T., Blancke, S., & Heintz, C. (2018). Four misunderstandings about cultural attraction. Evolutionary Anthropology, 27(4), 162–173.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott-Phillips, T., Blythe, R., Gardner, A., & West, S. (2012). How do communication systems emerge? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B, 279, 1943–1949.Google ScholarPubMed
Scott-Phillips, T., Diggle, S., Gurney, J., Ivens, A., & Popat, R. (2014). Combinatorial communication in bacteria: Implications for the origins of linguistic generativity. PLoS ONE, 9(4), e95929.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott-Phillips, T., Kirby, S., & Ritchie, G. R. S. (2009). Signalling signalhood and the emergence of communication. Cognition, 113(2), 226–233.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Scott-Phillips, T. C. (2008). On the correct application of animal signalling theory to human communication. In Smith, A. D. M., Smith, K., & Ferrer i Cancho, R. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th international conference on the evolution of language (pp. 275–282). World Scientific.Google Scholar
Scott-Phillips, T. C., Dickins, T. E., & West, S. A. (2011). Evolutionary theory and the ultimate-proximate distinction in the human behavioral sciences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(1), 38–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Searcy, W. A., & Nowicki, S. (2005). The evolution of animal communication. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sebanz, N., Bekkering, H., & Knoblich, G. (2006). Joint action: Bodies and minds moving together. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(2), 70–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Seyfarth, R. M., & Cheney, D. L. (2018). The social origins of language. Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shafto, P., Goodman, N. D., & Griffiths, T. L. (2014). A rational account of pedagogical reasoning: Teaching by, and learning from, examples. Cognitive Psychology, 71, 55–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Singh, M., Acerbi, A., Caldwell, C., Danchin, E., Isabel, G., Molleman, L., … Derex, M. (2021). Beyond social learning. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 376, 20200050.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sommers, R. (2021). Experimental jurisprudence. Science (New York, N.Y.), 373(6553), 394–395.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spelke, E. S. (1990). Principles of object perception. Cognitive Science, 14(1), 29–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spelke, E. S., & Kinzler, K. D. (2007). Core knowledge. Developmental Science, 10(1), 89–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sperber, D. (2000). Metarepresentations in an evolutionary perspective. In Sperber, D. (Ed.), Metarepresentations: A multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 117–137). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. (2013). Speakers are honest because hearers are vigilant: Reply to Kourken Michaelian. Episteme; Rivista Critica di Storia Delle Scienze Mediche e Biologiche 10(1), 61–71.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. (2019). Personal notes on a shared trajectory. In Scott, K., B. Clark, & R. Carston (Eds.), Relevance, pragmatics & interpretation (pp. 13–20). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D., & Baumard, N. (2012). Moral reputation: An evolutionary and cognitive perspective. Mind & Language, 27(5), 495–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D., Clément, F., Heintz, C., Mascaro, O., Mercier, H., Origgi, G., & Wilson, D. (2010). Epistemic vigilance. Mind & Language, 25(4), 359–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986/1995). Relevance: Communication & cognition. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (2002). Pragmatics, modularity & mind-reading. Mind & Language 17, 3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (2007). Pragmatics. In Jackson, F. & Smith, M. (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of contemporary philosophy (pp. 468–502). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (2015). Beyond speaker's meaning. Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 15(44), 117–149.Google Scholar
Spotorno, N., Koun, E., Prado, J., van der Henst, J. B., & Noveck, I. A. (2012). Neural evidence that utterance-processing entails mentalizing: The case of irony. NeuroImage, 63(1), 25–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sripada, C. S. (2005). Punishment and the strategic structure of moral systems. Biology & Philosophy, 20(4), 767–789.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sterelny, K. (2012). Language, gesture, skill: The co-evolutionary foundations of language. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1599), 2141–2151.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sugiyama, M. S. (2021). Co-occurrence of ostensive communication and generalizable knowledge in forager storytelling. Human Nature, 32, 279–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tauzin, T., & Gergely, G. (2018). Communicative mind-reading in preverbal infants. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 1–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thornton, A., & Raihani, N. J. (2008). The evolution of teaching. Animal Behaviour, 75(6), 1823–1836.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of human communication. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., & Call, J. (2019). Thirty years of great ape gestures. Animal Cognition, 22(4), 461–469.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., & Liszkowski, U. (2007). A new look at infant pointing. Child Development, 78(3), 705–722.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Topál, J., Kis, A., & Oláh, K. (2014). Dogs’ sensitivity to human ostensive cues: A unique adaptation? In Kaminski, J. & Marshall-Pescini, S. (Eds.), The social dog: Behaviour & cognition (pp. 319–346). Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townsend, S. W., Koski, S. E., Byrne, R. W., Slocombe, K. E., Bickel, B., Boeckle, M., … Manser, M. B. (2017). Exorcising Grice's ghost: An empirical approach to studying intentional communication in animals. Biological Reviews, 92(3), 1427–1433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
van der Henst, J.-B., Carles, L., & Sperber, D. (2002). Truthfulness and relevance in telling the time. Mind & Language, 17, 457–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanlangendonck, F., Willems, R. M., & Hagoort, P. (2018). Taking common ground into account: Specifying the role of the mentalizing network in communicative language production. PLoS ONE, 13(10), e0202943.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vesper, C., Abramova, E., Bütepage, J., Ciardo, F., Crossey, B., Effenberg, A., … Wahn, B. (2017). Joint action: Mental representations, shared information and general mechanisms for coordinating with others. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 2039.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vesper, C., Butterfill, S., Knoblich, G., & Sebanz, N. (2010). A minimal architecture for joint action. Neural Networks, 23(8–9), 998–1003.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vesper, C., Morisseau, T., Knoblich, G., & Sperber, D. (2021). When is ostensive communication used for joint action? Cognitive Semiotics, 14(2), 101–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Völter, C. J., Rossano, F., & Call, J. (2015). From exploitation to cooperation: Social tool use in orangutan mother–offspring dyads. Animal Behaviour, 100, 126–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, E., & Call, J. (in revision). Inferential communication: Bridging the gap between intentional and ostensive communication in non-human primates.Google Scholar
Wharton, T. (2006). The evolution of pragmatics. In Brown, K. (Ed.), The Elsevier encyclopaedia of language & linguistics (pp. 338–345). Elsevier.Google Scholar
Wharton, T. (2009). Pragmatics & non-verbal communication. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wharton, T., Bonard, C., Dukes, D., Sander, D., & Oswald, S. (2021). Relevance and emotion. Journal of Pragmatics, 181, 259–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, B. C., & Fischer, J. (2012). Functionally referential signals: A promising paradigm whose time has passed. Evolutionary Anthropology, 21(5), 195–205.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, D. (2004). Relevance and lexical pragmatics. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics, 16, 343–360.Google Scholar
Wilson, D., & Sperber, D. (2012). Meaning & relevance. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynne, C. D. (2016). What is special about dog cognition? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25(5), 345–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yus, F. (2016). Humour & relevance. John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zlatev, J., Żywiczyński, P., & Wacewicz, S. (2020). Pantomime as the original human-specific communicative system. Journal of Language Evolution, 5(2), 156–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zuberbühler, K. (2018). Intentional communication in primates. Revue Tranel, 68, 69–75.Google Scholar