Description: This reading seminar will compare human language with animal communication. Topics to be covered include the reliance of language on more general cognitive processes, the learnability of communicative systems, referential intent, honest signaling, and deception. These issues will be explored through readings that cover recent work at the intersection of human and animal communication.

Each week, students will be expected to bring written comments on that week's readings to class. For a final project, students will also be expected to search the literature in pursuit of a particular issue of interest to them, and report their findings to the class.

Jan. 6: Organizational meeting

Jan. 14: Introduction – Comparing language and animal communication

The big question: What is language, and how does it differ from communication in non-human animals? These papers are meant to set the general terms of debate.

Hockett, C. F. (1977). Logical considerations in the study of animal communication. In C. F. Hockett (ed.) The view from language : selected essays, 1948-1974. Athens : University of Georgia Press. pp. 124-162.

Sapir, Edward (1921). Language defined (chapter 1 of Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech.) New York: Harcourt Brace. pp. 3-23.

Evans, C.S. & Marler, P. (1995). Language and animal communication: parallels and contrasts. In: Comparative approaches to cognitive science. (Ed. by Roitblat, H. L. & Meyer, J.-A.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 341-382.

Jan 21: Linking form and meaning

The big question: The core of communication is the link between form and meaning. How is this very general link most appropriately viewed, in humans and in non-human animals? There are three general stances on this outlined in these papers: communicative signals (1) as "mere sounds" without any link to meaning (e.g. in infants), (2) as signals that are associated with the world but perhaps superficially (e.g. in non-human animals), and (3) as signals that penetrate into thought and change its character.

Owren, M. J., & Rendall, D. 2001. Sound on the rebound: Bringing form and function back to the forefront in understanding nonhuman primate vocal signaling. Evolutionary Anthropology, 10:58-71.

Naigles LR (2002). Form is easy, meaning is hard: resolving a paradox in early child language. Cognition 86 (2): 157-199.

Tomasello M, Akhtar N (2003). What paradox? A response to Naigles (2002). Cognition 88 (3): 317-323.

Naigles LR (2003). Paradox lost? No, paradox found! Reply to Tomasello and Akhtar (2003). Cognition 88 (3): 325-329.

Roger K. R. Thompson, David L. Oden and Sarah T. Boysen (1997). Language-Naive Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Judge Relations Between Relations in a Conceptual Matching-to-Sample Task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes Volume 23, Issue 1, January 1997, Pages 31-43.

Jan 28: Word-learning

The big question: When children learn new words, they are predisposed to consider some possible meanings over others. What is the source of these constraints, or biases, on word meaning? Are they specific to humans, or shared with non-human animals?

Premack, David. Words: What are they, and do animals have them? Cognition. Vol 37(3) Dec 1990, 197-212.

Bloom, P. and Markson, L. (1998). Capacities underlying word-learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2: 67-73.

Pepperberg IM, Wilcox SE (2000). Evidence for a form of mutual exclusivity during label acquisition by grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus)? Journal of Comparative Psychology 114 (3): 219-231.

Feb 4: Syntax: Poverty of the stimulus

The big question: It has been argued that the syntax of language would not be learnable unless humans had a specialized mental organ devoted to language acquisition. It has also been argued that non-human animals may lack this mental organ. This week's readings explore this question of an organism's prior bias for acquiring communicative systems, in humans, animals, and machines.

Suggestions: Read the Chomsky piece first.

Chomsky, N. (1986). Preface & Knowledge of language as a focus of inquiry. In Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use (pp. xxv-14). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Tomasello M (2000). The item-based nature of children's early syntactic development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4(4): 156-163.

Regier, T. and Gahl, S. (in press). Learning the unlearnable: The role of missing evidence. Cognition.

Soha, J. A. and Marler, P. 2000. A species-specific acoustic cue for selective song learning in the white-crowned sparrow. Animal Behaviour, 60: 297-306.

Feb 11: Syntax: Sequence learning and hierarchies

The big question: What differentiates human language from animal communication? A prominent argument is that human language has recursive hierarchical structure, while animal communication systems do not. This week's readings explore the question of whether non-human animals can learn to process auditory stimuli that exhibit recursive structure like that of human language.

Suggestions: Read in the order shown.

Conway, Christopher M; Christiansen, Morten H. Sequential learning in non-human primates. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Vol 5(12) Dec 2001, 539-546.

Marc D. Hauser, Noam Chomsky, W. Tecumseh Fitch (2002). The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298, 1569-1579.

W. Tecumseh Fitch and Marc D. Hauser (2004). Computational constraints on syntactic processing in a nonhuman primate. Science 303: 377-380.

D. Premack (2004). Is language the key to human intelligence? Science 303: 318-320.

OPTIONAL: Herman, Louis M. (2002). Exploring the cognitive world of the bottlenosed dolphin. Bekoff, Marc et al. (Eds.) The cognitive animal: Empirical and theoretical perspectives on animal cognition. (pp. 275-283). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Feb 18: Theory of mind, reference

The big question: Does communication rely on knowing the mental states of others? To what extent are non-human animals capable of this? Are there other more appropriate terms for considering animal communication?

Suggestion: Read in the order shown.

Bloom, P. (1997). Intentionality and word-learning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 1(1): 9-12.

Michael Tomasello, Josep Call and Brian Hare (2003). Chimpanzees understand psychological states - the question is which ones and to what extent. Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.4, pp. 153-156.

Marler, P., Evans, C. S., and Hauser, M. D. (1992). Animal signals: Motivational, referential, or both? In: Nonverbal Vocal Communication: Comparative and Developmental Approaches. (Papousek, H., Jurgens, U. and Papousek, M., eds). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. pp. 66-86.

Baldwin, Dare A; Moses, Louis J. (2001). Links between social understanding and early word learning: Challenges to current accounts. Social Development. Vol 10(3) 2001, 309-329.

OPTIONAL: Hare, Brian; Brown, Michelle; Williamson, Christina; Tomasello, Michael. The domestication of social cognition in dogs. Science. Vol 298(5598) Nov 2002, 1634-1636.

Feb 25: Deception, honest signaling

The big question: What is a lie? These readings explore the contexts in which individuals - human and non-human - will intentionally deceive others.

Suggestion: Read the Hauser & Nelson article first.

Hauser, M. D. and Nelson, D. A. (1991). Intentional signaling in animal communication. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 6: 186-189.

Wiley, R. H. (1994). Errors, exaggeration and deception in animal communication. In: Behavioral Mechanisms in Evolutionary Ecology (L. A. Real et al., eds). pp. 163-194.

Eve Sweetser. The definition of "lie": An examination of the folk models underlying a semantic prototype. Holland, Dorothy (Ed); Quinn, Naomi (Ed); et al. (1987). Cultural models in language and thought. (pp. 43-66). New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. xii, 400 pp.

Mar 3: Miscellaneous

Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom. Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral & Brain Sciences. Vol 13(4), Dec 1990, 707-784.

Margoliash, D. 2002. Evaluating theories of bird song learning: implications for future directions. Journal of Comparative Physiology A. 118:851-866.

OPTIONAL: Kyle Wagner, James A. Reggia, Juan Uriagereka, Gerald S. Wilkinson (2003). Progress in the Simulation of Emergent Communication and Language. Adaptive Behavior, 11(1): 37-69.

Mar 10: Presentations