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A Developmental Model for the Evolution of Language And rilE BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1979), 2, 367-408 Printed in the United States of Amenca A develOI)mental model for the evolution of language and intelliJgence in early hominids Sue Taylor Parker Department of Anthropology, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, Calif. 94928 Kathleen Rita Gibson Department of Anatomy, University of Texas, Dental Branch, Houston, Texas 77025 Abstract: This paper presents a model for the nature and adaptive significance of intelligence and language in early hominids based on comparative developmental, ecological, and neurological data. We propose that the common ancestor of the great apes and man displayed rudimentary forms of late sensorimotor and early preoperational intelligence similar to that of one- to four-year-old children. These abilities arose as adaptations for extractive foraging with tools, which requires a long postweaning apprenticeship. They were elaborated in the first hominids with the: shift to primary dependence on this feeding strategy. These first hominids evolved a protolanguage, similar to that of two-year-old human children, with which they could describe the nature and location of food and request help in obtaining it. The descendents of the first hominJids displayed intuitive intelligence, similar to that of four- to seven-year-old children, which arose as an adaptation for complex hunting involving aimed-missile throwing, stone-tool manufacture, animal butchery, food division, and shelter construction. The comparative developmental and paleontological data are consistent with the hypothesis that the stages of development of intelligence and language and their neural substrates in our species recapitulate the stages of their evolution. Keywords: brain; development; evolution; hominids; intelligence; language; Piaget; play; recapitulation One major obstacle to attempts to reconstruct the evolution of The subsequent period of intellectual development is the preoper­ intelligence is a failure to distinguish different types and levels of ations period, spanning from 18 to 24 months to 6 or 7 years of age. intellectual achievement. We can hardly determine the stages of the During this period children extend their new symbolic capacities in evolution of intelligence before we know which achievements are language, drawing, and make-believe play, constructing preconcepts more advanced than others, which are prerequisites for others, which (interiorized actions) concerning object relations and causal relations are correlated with others, and most basically, which imply intelli­ between events (Piaget & Inhelder 1967; Inhelder & Piaget 1964). gence. A Piagetian model for human cognitive development (Cowan During the early part of this period (the symbolic subperiod) they are 1978) is useful in such a reconstruction because it provides a preoccupied with simple topological relations between objects (such taxonomy for the various kinds of intellectual achievement and their as proximity and enclosure). During the later part (the intuitive interrelations, as well as a stage system indicating their structural subperiod) they are emancipated from this preoccupation and begin prerequisites and the sequence in which they tend to emerge [see to construct simple Euclidean spatial notions such as angularity and also: Brainerd: "The Stage Question in Cognitive-Developmental straightness. They also begin to construct simple classes of objects Theory" BBS 1(2) 1978]. based on a single criterion. In subsequent periods they develop true Intellectual deve.lopment in human children occurs in three major concepts based on reversible mental operations, and finally they domains: (l) the physical domain, including object concepts (perma­ develop hypothetical-deductive reasoning. nence, identity, and quantity), space, time, and causality; (2) the Intellectual development occurs through the differentiation and interpersonal domain, including imitation, the symbolic functions of coordination of actions (and interiorized mental representations of drawing, language, and symbolic play, and moral judgment; (3) the actions) on objects: Intelligence arises from action rather than from intrapersonal domain, including imagery, memory, consciousness, perception (Piaget & Inhelder 1971). These coordinations create and dreams. The earliest period of intellectual development is called classes of objects (classification) and relations between objects (seria­ the sensorimotor period, spanning from birth to 18 or 24 months of tion), revealing properties (quantity) that did not exist before; they age. During this period the human infant achieves the ability to also reveal the nature of physical causality (gravity, inertia, equal remember the spatial location of a hidden object, to retrieve it, and and opposite forces, transmission of forces, etc.). The coordinations finally to search for an invisibly displaced object in a series of create feedback, which the agent tries to assimilate to his sensorimo­ loeations (object pelrmanence). He also achieves the ability to place tor and mental "schemes" (repeatable action patterns). When the objects inside, outside, before, behind, underneath, and on top of feedback does not fit his schemes, he accommodates his schemes to eacb other, and to understand simple means-end relationships as the phenomena as best he can. Mismatches between his schemes and revealed, for example, by using a stick as a tool to rake in an the world create disequilibration and give rise to attempts to re­ OUt-of-reach object. He also achieves the ability to imitate novel equilibrate on a higher level. Feedback from other people in the actions long after he has seen them, and to mentally represent actions form of disagreement also plays an important role in creating and images. The achievements of this period can be divided into six disequilibration (Piaget 1977). lequential stages occurring in six series: sensorimotor intelligence, Recent research on the course of intellectual development in SJlace, time, causality, imitation, and object concept. monozygotic versus dizygotic twins reveals a strong genetic canaliza- 197 e 9 Cambridge Unive!fsity Press 0 140-525X/79/SPAGI 022$04.00 367 Parker and Gibson: Evolution of language and intelligence Table I. Piaget 's model of cognmve development Domains of cognition Periods of devdopment Types of logic Physical Interpersonal lntrapersonal Sensorimotor period sensorimotor trial­ object permanence; deferred imitation of first evoked images (birth to 2 yrs ) and-error, externalized time, novel schemes; experimentation; space, & causality sensorimotor games discovery of new means Preoperatwns period nonreversible object identity; make-believe games; static evoked images Symbolic subperiod interiorized action topological space; language; drawing (2 to 4 yrs.) schemes, i.e., graphic collections preconcepts with Intuitive subperiod transductive incipient projective and construction games (4 to 7 yrs.) reasoning Euclidean space; nongraphic collections Concrete operatjons reversible interiorized object quantity; true games with rules dynamic evoked imager. period action schemes, i.e., classification with (7 to 12 yrs) true concepts with inclusion deductive reasoning about concrete phenomenon Formal operations period abstract reasoning true measurement; universal rules (12 yrs. on) systematic hypothesis formation and testing of causality 1 tion of intellectual development analogous to the genetic canalization groups. rf :' of morphological development in the embryo (Wilson 1978). This Studies of problem-solving and object manipulation in lemurs and :11:1 research supports the notion that the sequences of intellectual devel­ lorises (Jolly 1964) suggest that prosimians display neither the object "n opment in human childrcm are products of a species-specific permanence characteristic of the fourth and fifth stages of the object , !( ! constructive propensity that produces a standard schedule of devel­ conrept series, nor the object manipulation schemes characteristic of ,·I< 1 opment, given appropriate environmental stimulation. Comparative stages three through six in various other series in the sensorimotor ·;!/! data from studies of intellectual development in other societies period. They do seem to display reflex grasping and the simple 1 ;!.: ~ confirm the existence of an invariant sequence of human cognitive prehensive adaptations characteristic of the first and second stages of '1l i development (Cowan 1978; Piaget 1976; Dasen 1972). Although the sensorimotor period. This pattern correlates with their heavy 'jl there are conflicting data as to specific ages of development and relianre on olfaction and their use of their mouths rather than hands ( 1 highest levels of achievement in different societies (Cowan 1978; as primary foraging and grooming organs. Reflex grasping occurs in i!: Piaget 1972), research based on naturalistic tasks administered by insect catching, and simple prehensive adaptations occur in climbing jj native speakers reveals a more consistent pattern (Cole & Scribner and bringing food objects to the mouth. (1 1974; Nyiti 1976; Deavilla & Pulos 1977; Ogbu 1978; Kamara & Stumptail macaques display a mosaic of sensorimotor period i1: }) Easley 1977). abilities more advanced than those of prosimians and less advanced' i>1 i A developmental model is useful for cross-species as well as than those of the great apes. They complete stage five or six of the :;j; . cross-cultural comparisons (Jolly, 1972; Parker, 1977). Piagetian object concept series,
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