Language serves as a cornerstone for human cognition, yet much about its evolution remains
puzzling. Recent research on this question parallels Darwin's attempt to explain both the …

Vocal imitation in human infants and in some orders of birds relies on auditory-guided motor
learning during a sensitive period of development. It proceeds from 'babbling' (in humans) …

Unlike our primate cousins, many species of bird share with humans a capacity for vocal
learning, a crucial factor in speech acquisition. There are striking behavioural, neural and …

Filial imprinting is the process through which early social preferences become restricted to a
particular object or class of objects. Evidence is presented showing that filial preferences …

The process through which young male songbirds learn the characteristics of the songs of
an adult male of their own species has strong similarities with speech acquisition in human …

The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask
why. Language's evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any …

Evolutionary Psychology (EP) views the human mind as organized into many modules,
each underpinned by psychological adaptations designed to solve problems faced by our …

Songbirds (Oscines) learn their songs from a tutor. It is not known where in the brain the
memories of these learned sounds are stored. Recent evidence suggests that song perception …

Abstract Language serves as a cornerstone of human cognition. However, our knowledge
about its neural basis is still a matter of debate, partly because ‘language’ is often ill-defined. …

There are many questions one can ask about human language: its distinctive properties,
neural representation, characteristic uses including use in communicative contexts, variation, …