title: From action to language: comparative perspectives on primate tool use, gesture and the evolution of human language.
abstract: The papers in this Special Issue examine tool use and manual gestures in primates as a window on the evolution of the human capacity for language. Neurophysiological research has supported the hypothesis of a close association between some aspects of human action organization and of language representation, in both phonology and semantics. Tool use provides an excellent experimental context to investigate analogies between action organization and linguistic syntax. Contributors report and contextualize experimental evidence from monkeys, great apes, humans and fossil hominins, and consider the nature and the extent of overlaps between the neural representations of tool use, manual gestures and linguistic processes.
authors: AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity, Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31-34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK. j.steele@ucl.ac.uk
authors: James
authors: J
authors: Steele
authors: Pier Francesco
authors: PF
authors: Ferrari
authors: Leonardo
authors: L
authors: Fogassi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D007839:Functional Laterality; D005868:Gestures; D015186:Hominidae / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology; D053001:Tool Use Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D014828:Vocalization, Animal