Origins of the Human Brain PDF
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Title Pages University Press Scholarship Online Oxford Scholarship Online Origins of the Human Brain Jean-Pierre Changeux and Jean Chavaillon Print publication date: 1996 Print ISBN-13: 9780198523901 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198523901.001.0001 Title Pages Origins of the Human Brain Origins of the Human Brain Discussion Discussion 1995 (p.iv) This book has been printed digitally and produced to a standard design in order to ensure its continuing availability Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Page 1 of 5 Title Pages Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto with an associated company in Berlin Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © The editors and the various contributors listed on pp. ix-x, 1995 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) Reprinted 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Origins of the human brain / edited by Jean- Pierre Changeux and Jean Chavaillon. (Symposia of the Fyssen Foundation.) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Brain-Evolution-Congresses. I. Changeux, Jean-Pierre. II. Chavaillon, Jean. III. Series: Fyssen Foundation symposium. [DNLM: 1. Brain-anatomy & histology-congresses. 2. Cultural Evolution-congresses. 3. Evolution-Congresses. 4. Intelligence- Congresses. 5. Genetics, Population-congresses. WL 300 069 1995] QP376.075 1995 612.8’2—dc20 94–38955 Page 2 of 5 Title Pages ISBN 0-19- 852390-4 Participants: J.P. Changeux, J. Chavaillon, C. Cohen, H. Delporte, G. Giacobini, J. Kozlowski, D. Premack Premack: Your speculations or conjectures about the necessity of mental imagery is important. There is a body of evidence that children’s representational drawings clearly show that mental image is required. If a child is asked to draw something in front of him, but other evidence indicates he lacks a mental representation for, despite the physical presence of the object, he cannot draw it. Some time ago, I was interested in discovering if representational drawing is among a number of faculties which are supposed to be unique to our species, such as language and social skills of various types. The question is to find out if it is cognitive in nature or motor. So, we reduced the motor demand of the task of representational drawing by simply giving a chimpanzee an outline of a face together with facial elements. The task was merely to re-assemble a face. One subject was really successful. It is not to say that the animal can produce representational drawing, it is a case of reconstruction as opposed to creation. If you give the animal the elements, it is capable of veridical accurate re-assembling. We made the same observations for analogies. The chimpanzee does not create analogies, but if you give it the elements, it can arrange them analogically. Furthermore, we also found pre-artistic skills in chimpanzees. The main point concerning the necessity for a mental image is that we already find in the chimpanzee the ability for recreation if representational, but not creation. In addition, I can say that there is evidence for motivational factors in the chimpanzee. It is spontaneous manipulation because the chimpanzee is not reinforced or trained to do this. In conclusion, at least some elements of the mental image are already present in a rather distant precursor of Homo sapiens sapiens. Changeux: You told us that the four lines on the lamp represent a mountain ship. This looks more like cuneiform signs than hieroglyphic-like representations of animals. So, they had the possibility to achieve symbolic representation of animals. Furthermore, we saw a series of incisions which resemble the ones we can see on a shepherd stick. I do not want to extrapolate too much, but would it be reasonable to recognize some process of writing or numbering? Cohen: In his study, Leroi-Gourhan thought that the artistic representation was not arranged as a linear succession of signs, as in writing, but according (p.212) to a pattern where organization radiates in all directions. This pattern was not representative of speech, but rather of supported speech. Delporte: Many interpretations go too far. Nevertheless, these incisions may have a mnemonic function. We do not know yet if these representations should be called mythograms or pictograms. We do not understand their meaning, but we can understand their organization or pattern. We continue to make progress and I think that we are slowly getting closer to the meaning of these representations. ChavailIon: All prehistoric human representations, but Brassempouy, are very Page 3 of 5 Title Pages caricature-like. We have to assume some kind of sense of humour or the fear of making realistic human representations, as is still frequent today in many populations, especially when you attempt to take a photograph. The Palaeolithic artists had all the technical capabilities to make realistic representations of humans as well as of bisons or horses. Delporte: This is quite possible. I used to think that the Palaeolithic artist did not represent humans, i.e. man, woman, and child, because they did not want to expose their image to magic forces. I no longer believe this hypothesis. In prehistory, we are only able to suggest hypotheses and one should always bear this in mind. Giacobini: You have presented many examples of extensive art of the Palaeolithic. But how do you explain, that by the end of this period, the art is still very poor. Delporte: If artistic expression was conceived as a means of communication, we can explain this by its replacement by more symbolic means of representation. For instance, the Azilian pebbles show marks only. These changes are certainly related to new environmental conditions and new psychological processes. But we do not know the exact reasons. Kozlowski: It is now clear that biological changes are not directly involved with the emergence of art. Both phenomena are well separated. I even think, especially after David Premack’s comments that Homo habilis was able to construct images, but the conditions were not suitable. Conditions emerged because of the necessity to communicate when the frequency of inter-group encounters became important, together with seasonal gathering and the stability of the habitat. The Upper Palaeolithic societies were semi- nomadic. The emergence of artistic expression and communication took a long time, about 10 000 years during the Aurignacian. This necessity to communicate raises the question of the origin of writing. Participants: R. Boyd, J.-P. Changeux, A. Roch Lecours, S. Pinker, M.P. Stryker Selection and Language Evolution Stryker: Can you give us some idea of how something like language, but more primitive, might be a path via which language might evolve? Pinker: There are two questions there. First, can you imagine a language less complex than a modern human language? My abilities in French would be a good example of an intermediate communication system. I think that a whole range of communication systems are conceivable, although I would not want to speculate as to what they might be. Secondly, could language have evolved? The human language faculty is not the only kind of system that is capable of processing language. We can also use general intelligence, for instance, as adults do when acquiring a second language. This process is however much slower, more taxing, and less reliable than our native language competence. Acquisition, through genetic change, of automatic dedicated machinery, could therefore be a way in which language might follow a gradual course of evolution in a conventional Darwinian way. Page 4 of 5 Title Pages Answering questions from Changeux, Pinker suggested that language in young children goes through a succession of consistent communication systems. It cannot be excluded that these stages may correspond to phylogenetically early stages of language evolution. Answering a question from Boyd, Pinker analysed what could be the evolutionary advantage of the fact that there are many different languages, and not just one: ‘We have only two guesses. One of them is that you have to synchronize your output with the listener’s input. Since you cannot guarantee that every listener is genetically identical to you, there may be a necessity for a tuning process, to make sure that we agree on words, word order, and things like that. The other possibility is that our ability to learn the differences between languages is related to more general abilities. They were there first and we evolved only as much specific language machinery as we needed to do the rest’. Explicit and Implicit Language Knowledge Lecours: What about the relationship between implicit learning of language (p.285) rules by children, and explicit learning of grammar at school? Could the latter include more complex rules? Pinker: I think that what the 3½-year-old knows is more complex than what your grammar teachers teach you. For instance, the past tense of the verb ‘to highstick’ is ‘highsticked’, not ‘highstuck’. Basically, it is because any verb that comes from a noun in its derivation is automatically regular. We find that 4-year-olds obey this principle, as well as people without college education. The only people who do not understand this principle are the people who write grammar books. Page 5 of 5 PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordschoarshp.com). (c) Copyrght Oxford Unversty Press, 2014. A Rghs Reserved. Under the terms of the cence agreement, an ndvdua user may prnt out a PDF of a snge chapter of a monograph n OSO for persona use (for deta s see Symposia of the Fyssen Foundation University Press Scholarship Online Oxford Scholarship Online Origins of the Human Brain Jean-Pierre Changeux and Jean Chavaillon Print publication date: 1996 Print ISBN-13: 9780198523901 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198523901.001.0001 (p.ii) Symposia of the Fyssen Foundation Social Relationships and Cognitive Development Edited by Robert A. Hinde, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont, and Joan Stevenson-Hinde Thought Without Language Edited by L Weiskrantz The Use of Tools by Human and Non-human Primates Edited by Arlette Berthelet and Jean Chavaillon Origins of the Human Brain Edited by Jean-Pierre Changeux and Jean Chavaillon Page 1 of 2 Foreword University Press Scholarship Online Oxford Scholarship Online Origins of the Human Brain Jean-Pierre Changeux and Jean Chavaillon Print publication date: 1996 Print ISBN-13: 9780198523901 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198523901.001.0001 (p.v) Foreword The resulting work of the fifth interdisciplinary Fyssen symposium is the basis of this publication. This symposium took place between the 14 and 17 December 1990 in the Pavilion Henri IV at St Germain en Laye. It was officially opened with the speech to the participants by Mme Fyssen, the President of the Foundation. She expressed the wish that ‘the issues dealt with in these discussions should be considered at a major international level, thus focusing on the scientific activity of the Foundation and the success of the work it fosters’. Professors Jean-Pierre Changeux and Jean Chavaillon chaired the symposium. They also actively participated in its organization, ably assisted by the Fyssen Foundation secretarial department. There is an obvious direct link between the central theme of the symposium, The Origins of the Human Brain: Palaeontogy, Molecular Biology and Developmental Genetics’ and the aims of the Foundation itself. These aims are to ‘encourage all forms of scientific enquiry into cognitive mechanisms that underly animal and human behaviour and into their ontogenetic and phylogenetic development’ and are particularly concerned with ‘animal reasoning ability, and on a wider level, animal and human cognitive processes, and their Page 1 of 2 Foreword biological and cultural bases’. Summaries of the papers were sent to all symposium participants beforehand. The papers were presented both in English and in French. Simultaneous translation was carried out thanks to the competence, particularly in the more problematic fields, of Mme Candelier, Mme Sartin, and M Pinhas whose contributions were invaluable. Subsequent to the symposium, the participants revised all texts so that points put forward during the discussions could be taken into account. All the debates were recorded. The difficult task of preparing a condensed overview was undertaken by Catherine Vidal and Laurent Cohen for the section on neurobiology and by Pascal Picq for the section on palaeontology. Julie Pattinson carried out the French-English translation of the papers and their successive updated versions, with unfailing patience. The paper by Professor Roger Saban was translated by Anthony Saul. Lastly, we should like to acknowledge our grateful thanks to Mme Fyssen for her constant attendance at meetings, her active and gracious participation in the symposium itself, and her continual encouragement of our work. Participants University Press Scholarship Online Oxford Scholarship Online Origins of the Human Brain Jean-Pierre Changeux and Jean Chavaillon Print publication date: 1996 Print ISBN-13: 9780198523901 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: March 2012 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198523901.001.0001 (p.ix) Participants Robert Boyd Department of Anthropology, University of California, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 900–1553, USA Rebecca L. Cann Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology, J. A. Burns School of Medicine. University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1960 West Road, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96822, USA Jean-Pierre Changeux (co-editor) Laboratoire de Neurobiologie Moléculaire, Institut Pasteur, 25/28 rue du Docteur Roux, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France Jean Chavaillon (co-editor) Laboratoire de Recherche sur l’Afrique Orientale, UPR 311-CNRS, 1 Place Aristide Briand, 92195 Meudon, France Yves Coppens Chaire de Paléoanthropologie et Préhistoire, Collége de France, Laboratoire d’Anthropologic Biologique, Musée de l’Homme, 17 Place du Trocadéro, 75116 Paris, France Henri Delporte Page 1 of 3 Participants Le Perron, Lezigneux, 42600 Montbrisson, France Robert A. Hinde St John’s College, Cambridge CB2 1TP, UK Ralph L. Holloway Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA Bernardo A. Huberman Dynamics of Computation Group, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA Claudia Kappen Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, 13400 East Shea Boulevard, Scottsdale, A285259, USA Janusz K. KozJowski lnstytut Archeology, Jagiellonski Uniwersytet, ul. Golebia 11, 31–007 W. Krakow, Poland Jean-Louis Mandel Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire des Eucaryotes, Institut de Chimie Biologique, Faculté de Médecine, 11 rue Human, 67085 Strasbourg Cedex, France (p.x) Steven Pinker Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA David Premack Laboratoire de Psycho-Biologie du Developpment-CNRS-EPHE, 41 rue Gay- Lussac, 7005 Paris, France Pasko Rakic Section of Anatomy, Yale University School of Medicine, P.O. Box 3333, New Haven, CT 06510–8001, USA André Roch Lecours Laboratoire Théophile-Alajouanine, Centre de recherche du Centre hospitalier Côte-des-Neiges, Université de Montréal, 4565 Chemin de la Reine Marie, Montréal, Québec H3W 1W5, Canada Peter J. Richerson Centre for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA Frank H. Ruddle Department of Biology and Department of Human Genetics, Kline Biology Tower, Yale University, P.O. Box 6666, New Haven, CT 06511–8112, USA Roger Saban 111 rue de Cambronne, 75015 Paris, France Phillip V. Tobias Department of Anatomy and Human Biology, Palaeo-Anthropology Research Unit, University of the Witwatersrand, 7 York Road, Parktown, 2193 Johannesburg, South Africa Bernard Vandermeersch Laboratoire d’Anthropologic, Université de Bordeaux, Avenue des Facultés, Page 2 of 3
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