We argue for the importance of looking at the microbiota-gut-brain axis from a human developmental perspective. For this purpose, we first briefly highlight emerging research with infants attesting that the microbiome plays a role in early brain and cognitive development. We then discuss the use of developmentally informed humanized mouse models and implications of microbiome research that go beyond probiotic administration.

Two studies investigated the development of infants' visual preferences for the human body shape. In Study 1, infants of 12,15 and 18 months were tested in a standard preferential looking experiment, in which they were shown paired line drawings of typical and scrambled bodies. Results indicated that the 18-month-olds had a reliable preference for the scrambled body shapes over typical body shapes, while the younger infants did not show differential responding. In Study 2, 12- and 18-month-olds were tested with (...) the same procedure, except that the typical and scrambled body stimuli were photographic images. The results of Study 2 again indicated that only the 18-month-olds had a reliable preference for the scrambled body shapes. This finding contrasts sharply with infants' precocious preferences for human faces, suggesting that infants' learning about human faces and human bodies follow different developmental trajectories. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Various dichotomies have been proposed to characterize the nature and development of human mindreading capacities, especially in light of recent evidence of mindreading in infants aged 7 to 18 months. This article will examine these suggestions, arguing that none is currently supported by the evidence. Rather, the data support a modular account of the domain-specific component of basic mindreading capacities. This core component is present in infants from a very young age and does not alter fundamentally thereafter. What alters (...) with development are the interactions between core mindreading and other systems, including executive systems, and forms of learning that do not require radical conceptual change. (shrink)

This chapter examines the extent to which there are continuities between the cognitive processes and epistemic practices engaged in by human hunter-gatherers, on the one hand, and those which are distinctive of science, on the other. It deploys anthropological evidence against any form of 'no-continuity' view, drawing especially on the cognitive skills involved in the art of tracking. It also argues against the 'child-as-scientist' accounts put forward by some developmental psychologists, which imply that scientific thinking is present in early (...) infancy and universal amongst humans who have sufficient time and resources to devote to it. In contrast, a modularist kind of 'continuity' account is proposed, according to which the innately channelled architecture of human cognition provides all the materials necessary for basic forms of scientific reasoning in older children and adults, needing only the appropriate sorts of external support, social context, and background beliefs and skills in order for science to begin its advance. (shrink)

I make three related proposals concerning the development of receptive communication in human infants. First, I propose that the presence of communicative intentions can be recognized in others' behaviour before the content of these intentions is accessed or inferred. Second, I claim that such recognition can be achieved by decoding specialized ostensive signals. Third, I argue on empirical bases that, by decoding ostensive signals, human infants are capable of recognizing communicative intentions addressed to them. Thus, learning about actual (...) modes of communication benefits from, and is guided by, infants' preparedness to detect infant-directed ostensive communication. (shrink)

The developing infant can accomplish all important perceptual tasks that an adult can, albeit with less skill or precision. Through infant perception research, infant responses to experiences enable researchers to reveal perceptual competence, test hypotheses about processes, and infer neural mechanisms, and researchers are able to address age-old questions about perception and the origins of knowledge.In Development of Perception in Infancy: The Cradle of Knowledge Revisited, Martha E. Arterberry and Philip J. Kellman study the methods and data of scientific (...) research on infant perception, introducing and analyzing topics through philosophical, theoretical, and historical contexts. Infant perception research is placed in a philosophical context by addressing the abilities with which humans appear to be born, those that appear to emerge due to experience, and the interaction of the two. The theoretical perspective is informed by the ecological tradition, and from such a perspective the authors focus on the information available for perception, when it is used by the developing infant, the fit between infant capabilities and environmental demands, and the role of perceptual learning. Since the original publication of this book in 1998, Arterberry and Kellman address in addition the mechanisms of change, placing the basic capacities of infants at different ages and exploring what it is that infants do with this information. Significantly, the authors feature the perceptual underpinnings of social and cognitive development, and consider two examples of atypical development - congenital cataracts and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Professionals and students alike will find this book a critical resource to understanding perception, cognitive development, social development, infancy, and developmental cognitive neuroscience, as research on the origins of perception has changed forever our conceptions of how human mental life begins. (shrink)

First published in 1999, this book brings together the extensive modern evidence for innate imitation in babies. Modern research has shown imitation to be a natural mechanism of learning and communication which deserves to be at centre stage in developmental psychology. Yet the very possibility of imitation in newborn humans has had a controversial history. Defining imitation has proved to be far from straightforward and scientific evidence for its existence in neonates is only now becoming accepted, despite more than a (...) century of enquiry. In this book, some of the world's foremost researchers on imitation and intellectual development review evidence for imitation in newborn babies. They discuss the development of imitation in infancy, in both normal and atypical populations and in comparison with other primate species, stressing the fundamental importance of imitation in human development, as a foundation of communication and a precursor to symbolic processes. (shrink)

We address recent interpretations of infant performance on spontaneous false belief tasks. According to most views, these experiments show that human infants attribute mental states from a very young age. Focusing on one of the most clearly worked out, minimalist versions of this idea, Butterfill and Apperly's "minimal theory of mind" framework, we defend an alternative characterization: the minimal theory of rational agency. On this view, rather than conceiving of social situations in terms of states of an enduring mental (...) substance animating agents, infant interpreters parse observed bouts of behavior and their contexts into goals, rational means to those goals, and available information. In other words, the social ontology of infant interpreters consists in goal-directed, informed bouts of behavior, by non-enduring agents, rather than agents animated by states of enduring, unobservable minds. We discuss a number of experiments that support this interpretation of infant socio-cognitive competence. (shrink)

Joint action is central to countless aspects of human life. Here I examine the roots of joint action in infancy. First, I provide evidence that—contrary to popular belief—1‐year‐old infants do have the social‐cognitive prerequisites needed to participate in joint action, even in a relatively strict sense: they can read others’ goals and intentions, they have some basic understanding of common knowledge, and they have the ability and motivation to help others achieve their goals. Then I review some evidence (...) of infants’ and young children’s active participation in different types of joint action, from prelinguistic communication to more instrumental collaborations with others, with a particular focus on whether young children show evidence of an understanding of the commitments and obligations entailed in joint action. I conclude that the uniquely human ability and motivation to participate in joint action is already seen in infants by 1 year of age. (shrink)

This Element describes the main theories that guide contemporary research in cognitive development along with research discoveries in several important cognitive abilities: attention, language, social cognition, memory, metacognition and executive function, and problem solving and reasoning. Biological and social contributions are considered side-by-side, and cultural contributions are highlighted. As children participate in social interactions and learn to use cultural symbols and tools to organize and support their thinking, the behaviors and understandings of the social community and the culture more broadly (...) become an integral part of children's thoughts and actions. Culture, the natural ecological setting or habitat of human beings, plays a significant role by providing support and direction for cognitive development. Without the capacity to learn socially, human cognition would be markedly different from what it is today. (shrink)

From birth to 15 months infants and caregivers form a fundamentally intersubjective, dyadic unit within which the infant’s ability to recognize gender/sex in the world develops. Between about 18 and 36 months the infant accumulates an increasingly clear and subjective sense of self as female or male. We know little about how the precursors to gender/sex identity form during the intersubjective period, nor how they transform into an independent sense of self by 3 years of age. In this Theory and (...) Hypothesis article I offer a general framework for thinking about this problem. I propose that through repetition and patterning, the dyadic interactions in which infants and caregivers engage imbue the infant with an embodied, i.e., sensori-motor understanding of gender/sex. During this developmental period (which I label Phase 1) gender/sex is primarily an intersubjective project. From 15 to 18 months (which I label Phase 2) there are few reports of newly appearing gender/sex behavioral differences, and I hypothesize that this absence reflects a period of developmental instability during which there is a transition from gender/sex as primarily inter-subjective to gender/sex as primarily subjective. Beginning at 18 months (i.e., the start of Phase 3), a toddler’s subjective sense of self as having a gender/sex emerges, and it solidifies by 3 years of age. I propose a dynamic systems perspective to track how infants first assimilate gender/sex information during the intersubjective period (birth to 15 months); then explore what changes might occur during a hypothesized phase transition (15 to 18 months), and finally, review the emergence and initial stabilization of individual subjectivity-the period from 18 to 36 months. The critical questions explored focus on how to model and translate data from very different experimental disciplines, especially neuroscience, physiology, developmental psychology and cognitive development. I close by proposing the formation of a research consortium on gender/sex development during the first 3 years after birth. (shrink)

We contrast two positions concerning the initial domain of actions that infants interpret as goal-directed. The 'narrow scope' view holds that goal-attribution in 6- and 9-month-olds is restricted to highly familiar actions (such as grasping) (). The cue-based approach of the infant's 'teleological stance' (), however, predicts that if the cues of equifinal variation of action and a salient action effect are present, young infants can attribute goals to a 'wide scope' of entities including unfamiliar human actions and actions (...) of novel objects lacking human features. It is argued that previous failures to show goal-attribution to unfamiliar actions were due to the absence of these cues. We report a modified replication of showing that when a salient action-effect is presented, even young infants can attribute a goal to an unfamiliar manual action. This study together with other recent experiments reviewed support the 'wide scope' approach indicating that if the cues of goal-directedness are present even 6-month-olds attribute goals to unfamiliar actions. (shrink)

In this article I wish to defend hope by arguing that it is a child-like predisposition and that its strength and uniqueness stem exactly from its naïve, infantilizing character. To discuss the concepts of hope and of childhood and the relationship between them, I read in Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest book – Klara and the Sun (2021), using Lyotard’s concepts of the inhuman, development, and infancy (1991, 1998). I argue for an alternative approach to childhood, in which it is not (...) viewed merely as a basic developmental phase or as a lack in maturity but as an irreducible and potent element in human life, further showing that when understood as an event, childhood can be a strong basis for hope, and as such should be recognized by educators. (shrink)

In this article, I will draw on my own work and related publications to present some intuitions and hypotheses about the nature of the self and the mechanisms that lead to the development of consciousness or self awareness in human infants during the first 6 months of life. My main purpose is to show that the origins of a concept of self include the physical and the mental selves. I believe that it is essential when trying to understand what (...) a mental state is, that one identifies the social and physical aspects of the person to whom the mental state belongs. How can one identify a mental state or thought without making reference to a subject who experiences it (Hobson, 1990)? The other important feature of the self is that it is distinguished from other people and inanimate objects. ‘One's concept of self is a concept of a person; one's concept of persons cannot be a concept applicable only to a single individual (oneself), for the reason that in this case it would no longer constitute a concept'(Hobson, 1990, p. 165). I would like to argue that infants must be able to represent their physical and social selves in order to recognize that they are similar and different from other people, and to develop expectations and predictions about the behaviour of others (theory of mind). Unlike Strawson, I do not believe that the social and physical aspects of the self are, or become redundant to the nature of the self. I posit that the mature conscious self is a unique mythical and constantly changing entity, the formation of which is created not by the individual alone, but through continuous dialectical inquiry with other people. (shrink)

What are the roots of human normativity and when do children begin to behave according to standards and norms? Empirical observations demonstrate that we are born with built-in orientation toward what is predictable and of the same - henceforth what deviates from it -, what is the norm or the standard in the generic sense of the word. However, what develop in humans is self-consciousness, transforming norms from “should” to “ought” and making human normativity profoundly different from any (...) other forms expressed in infancy, other animals, or any smart machines. Self-consciousness is the ability to objectify oneself through the evaluative eyes of others. It sets us apart as a species and is at the roots of human normativity. A developmental blueprint capturing the progressive co-emergence of self-consciousness and normativity in the human child is proposed. (shrink)

Human enhancement technologies raise serious ethical questions about health practices no longer content simply to treat disease, but which now also propose to “optimize” human beings’ physical, cognitive and psychological abilities. These technologies call for a reassessment of our relationship to health, the human body and the body's organic, identity and social functions. In nursing, such considerations are in their infancy. In this paper, we argue for the relevance of critical phenomenology as a way to better (...) understand the ethical issues related to human enhancement technologies (HET). In so doing, we seek to problematize HET and assess their influence on the future development of nursing science and practice. It is difficult to anticipate the concrete effects of HET, we suggest, because these practices reconfigure the meaning of normativity and disorient our conventional ethical landscape. In this context, we argue that the later work of Martin Heidegger and Michel Foucault invites a critical perspective into how techno‐scientific discourses modify our relationship to care, to health and to our own social and corporeal identities. Despite the traditional philosophical opposition between phenomenology and critical theory, we maintain that a hybrid critical phenomenological approach opens new ways to assess the integration of technology and practice. Our analysis understands HET as a process of “hybridization” between technological objects and human subjects. Critical phenomenology thus effectively questions anthropocentric definitions of technology, challenges the dichotomy between curative treatment and enhancement and, finally, prompts valuable reflection on the implications of HET for nursing theory and practice. (shrink)

Ontogeny, specifically the role of language in the human family now and in prehistory, is central to Locke & Bogin's (L&B's) thesis in a compelling way. The unique life-history stages of childhood and adolescence, however, must be interpreted not only against an exceptionally “high quality” human infancy but also in light of the evolution of co-constructed, emotionally based communication in ape, hominid, and human infancy.

Infants who suffer severe neglect fail to thrive emotionally as well as bodily. The absence of early coexistential structures that provide well-being leads to a narrowing of the child's perceptual and social developmental horizon. What is the nature of these early structures? In this essay, an ontology of well-being or housedness is elaborated through phenomenological reflections on breast-feeding and infant perception. Merleau-Ponty's ontology of the flesh makes a contribution to the ontology of well-being: it gives us a conceptual and evocative (...) language to describe human existence in its pre-verbal, syncretic, and non-dualistic manifestations. It also allows for a re-evaluation and re-interpretation of the results of current research in infant perception. Through the structures of infant perception we perceive the coexistential fit between infants, other human beings, and the world of things. An infant's fundamental housedness in the flesh is taken up and cultivated or destroyed by the child's social and cultural environment. (shrink)

Developmental and clinical psychological findings on infancy over the past twenty years and more refute in striking ways both Piaget's and Lacan's negative characterizations of infants. Piaget's thesis is that the infant has an undifferentiated sense of self; Lacan's thesis is that the infant is no more than a fragmented piece of goods — a corps morcelé. Through an examination of recent and notable analyses of infancy by infant psychiatrist Daniel Stern, this paper highlights important features within the (...) radically different accounts. In particular, it examines Stern's account of self-agency —a facet of the core self. In doing so, the paper brings to light corporeal matters of fact and shows :how recent developmental-clinical data on infants accord with facets of bodily life described by Husserl. The paper contrasts these corporeal matters of fact and facets of bodily life with Piaget's and Lacan's notion of an infant as incompetent and deficient. On the basis of its empirical-phenomenological findings, the paper underscores the need to recognize the richness of nonverbal life and to give movement and the tactile-kinesthetic body their conceptual due. (shrink)

_Becoming Human_ argues that human identity was articulated and extended across a wide range of textual, visual, and artifactual assemblages from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. J. Allan Mitchell shows how the formation of the child expresses a manifold and mutable style of being. To be human is to learn to dwell among a welter of things. A searching and provocative historical inquiry into human becoming, the book presents a set of idiosyncratic essays on embryology and (...) infancy, play and games, and manners, meals, and other messes. While it makes significant contributions to medieval scholarship on the body, family, and material culture, _Becoming Human_ theorizes anew what might be called a medieval ecological imaginary. Mitchell examines a broad array of phenomenal objects—including medical diagrams, toy knights, tableware, conduct texts, dream visions, and scientific instruments—and in the process reanimates distinctly medieval ontologies. In addressing the emergence of the human in the later Middle Ages, Mitchell identifies areas where humanity remains at risk. In illuminating the past, he shines fresh light on our present. (shrink)

In a volume that traverses multiple disciplines, Michael Robbins proposes that the structures of the mind that distinguish us as uniquely human also incline us towards destructive behaviours on a personal and societal level. Psychoanalysis was created by Freud in an effort to understand neurosis and psychosis, the names he gave to individual human destructiveness. His understanding was limited and incorrect because the science of evolution and the disciplines of sociology and cultural anthropology were in their infancy (...) when he formulated his ideas. He did not comprehend that destructiveness is qualitatively different in humans than in other species and he ignored the problem of how biological instincts become mental processes. These limitations left psychoanalysis with one of its most perplexing unsolved problems, the mysterious leap from mind to body. The book explains how neoteny, the prolonged period of post-natal immaturity that distinguishes humans from other animals, requires and enables complex learning from caregivers. It is the knowledge acquired from this learning and its intergenerational transmission that links the biological theory of evolution with the psychosocial theory of psychoanalysis and explains how the human species is unique. The book will be of interest to those who want to learn about how integrating the findings of evolutionary science, primatology, sociology and cultural anthroplogy with the theory of psychoanalysis expands our understanding of what makes humans unique and its implications for the future of our species, and empowers us to influence the destiny of humankind. (shrink)

Holistic reasoning brings out the sustained and sustaining integrity of a system, be it a person, a poem, a neighborhood, a corporation, a culture, a crime to be solved by Sherlock Holmes, or an act of dreaming. Identity theory thus extends Freud's method of dream interpretation, explicating free associations, to the whole life of a person. We can talk rigorously about unique individuals. Yet that very talking is a human act, part of someone's identity, Freud's or mine. One has (...) to distinguish between "primary identity," the hypothesis of a persistent sameness established "in" a person in infancy, and "identity theme," a second person's hypothesis for searching out a persistent style in what the first has done. In a strict sense, I can never know your "primary identity," for it is deeply and unconsciously inside you. Formed before speech, it can never be put into words. It is entirely possible, however, for me to formulate a constancy in your personal style—from outside you but through empathy. Any such formulation of an "identity theme" will, of course, be a function both of the you I see and of my way of seeing—my identity as well as yours. Another reason one can never know a "primary identity" is, then, that it is inextricable from one's own primary identity—if there is such a thing. But there are definitely identity themes because I can formulate them. Norman N. Holland is professor of English and director of the Center for the Psychological Study of the Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Two of his books, Poems in Persons and Five Readers Reading , apply the concept of identity here developed to literary response. His contributions to Critical Inquiry are "Literary Interpretation and Three Phases of Psychoanalysis" and "Why Ellen Laughed". (shrink)

Humans have attained an unparalleled level of sophistication when engaging in collaborative and cooperative activities. Remarkably, the skills and motivation to engage in complex forms of collaboration and cooperation seem to emerge early on during infancy and childhood. In this paper, I extensively review the literature on the evolution and development of human cooperation, emphasizing important aspects of inter-cultural variation in collaborative and cooperative behaviour. This will not only allow us to confront the different evolutionary scenarios in which (...) cooperation may have emerged, but will especially provide the reader with a first orientation in the abundant literature on human cooperation. (shrink)

Humans have attained an unparalleled level of sophistication when engaging in collaborative and cooperative activities. Remarkably, the skills and motivation to engage in complex forms of collaboration and cooperation seem to emerge early on during infancy and childhood. In this paper, I extensively review the literature on the evolution and development of human cooperation, emphasizing important aspects of inter-cultural variation in collaborative and cooperative behaviour. This will not only allow us to confront the different evolutionary scenarios in which (...) cooperation may have emerged, but will especially provide the reader with a first orientation in the abundant literature on human cooperation. (shrink)

What is the biological basis for human cognition? Our understanding why human brains make us smarter than other animals is still in its infancy. In recent years, astrocytes have been shown to be indispensable for neuronal survival, growth, synapse formation, and synapse function. Now, in a new study from Maiken Nedergaard and Steven Goldman's groups (Han et al., 2013), human glia progenitor cells have been transplanted into mouse forebrains. These progenitors survived, migrated widely, and gave rise (...) to astrocytes that displayed the characteristics of human astrocytes in the rodent host brains. Strikingly, the mice with transplanted human cells displayed improved long term potentiation (LTP) and learning, suggesting the potential importance of human astrocytes in the unique cognitive abilities of human brains. This landmark paper is an important first step toward future investigations of whether and how human astrocytes play a role in distinguishing the cognitive abilities of humans from those of other animals. (shrink)

To explain the evolutionary emergence of uniquely human skills and motivations for cooperation, Tomasello et al. (2012, in Current Anthropology 53(6):673–92) proposed the interdependence hypothesis. The key adaptive context in this account was the obligate collaborative foraging of early human adults. Hawkes (2014, in Human Nature 25(1):28–48), following Hrdy (Mothers and Others, Harvard University Press, 2009), provided an alternative account for the emergence of uniquely human cooperative skills in which the key was early human infants’ (...) attempts to solicit care and attention from adults in a cooperative breeding context. Here we attempt to reconcile these two accounts. Our composite account accepts Hrdy’s and Hawkes’s contention that the extremely early emergence of human infants’ cooperative skills suggests an important role for cooperative breeding as adaptive context, perhaps in early Homo. But our account also insists that human cooperation goes well beyond these nascent skills to include such things as the communicative and cultural conventions, norms, and institutions created by later Homo and early modern humans to deal with adult problems of social coordination. As part of this account we hypothesize how each of the main stages of human ontogeny (infancy, childhood, adolescence) was transformed during evolution both by infants’ cooperative skills “migrating up” in age and by adults’ cooperative skills “migrating down” in age. (shrink)

This paper proposes an intermediate account of personhood, based on the capacity to participate in intersubjective interactions. We articulate our proposal as a reply to liberal and restrictive accounts, taking Mark Rowlands’ and Stephen Darwall’s proposals as contemporary representatives of each view, respectively. We argue that both accounts fall short of dealing with borderline cases and defend our intermediate view: The criteria of personhood based on the second-person perspective of mental state attribution. According to it, a person should be able (...) to participate in intersubjective interactions. We apply our proposal to the borderline cases of non-human primates and human infants. (shrink)

Since it is now broadly acknowledged that ethics should receive early consideration in discourse on emerging technologies, ethical debates tend to flourish even while new fields of technology are still in their infancy. Such debates often liberally mix existing applications with technologies in the pipeline and far-reaching visions. This paper analyses the problems associated with this use of ethics as “preparatory” research, taking discourse on human enhancement in general and on pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement in particular as an example. (...) The paper will outline and discuss the gap between the scientific and technological state of the art and the ethical debates, pointing out epistemic problems in this context. Furthermore, it will discuss the future role of genuine ethical reflection in discourse on human enhancement, arguing also that such discourse needs to include a technology assessment—in the broad sense of the term—which encompasses, inter alia, anthropological perspectives and aspects of social theory. (shrink)

Through an integrated multi-disciplinary theory, Michael Robbins proposes that the human mind consists of two mental structures, the one we share with other animate creatures, and a capacity for reflective representational thought which is unique. As an alternative to Freud's model of the human mind as structured by the id, ego and superego, this book contends that the prolonged period of post-natal immaturity - otherwise known as neoteny - which is specific to humans, gives rise to reflective representational (...) thought that in turn allows for the acquisition of complex knowledge. Robbins examines how Freud's conception of the human mind was limited by his ignorance of the related disciplines of sociology, primatology, cultural anthropology and most notably evolution, which were then in their infancy, to explore the implications of the non-unitary nature of the human mind for us as individuals, as a society, and for our future as a species. Drawing on a broad range of influences from psychoanalysis to anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology and politics, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of these disciplines alike. (shrink)

Mature representations of number are built on a core system of numerical representation that connects to spatial representations in the form of a ‘mental number line’. The core number system is functional in early infancy, but little is known about the origins of the mapping of numbers onto space. Here we show that preverbal infants transfer the discrimination of an ordered series of numerosities to the discrimination of an ordered series of line lengths. Moreover, infants construct relationships between individual (...) numbers and line lengths that vary positively, but not between numbers and lengths that vary inversely. These findings provide evidence for an early developing predisposition to relate representations of numerical magnitude and spatial length. A central foundation of mathematics, science and technology therefore emerges prior to experience with language, symbol systems, or measurement devices. (shrink)

In 1993, investigators from George Washington University Medical Center separated the cells of 17 human embryos and produced 48 embryos, an average of three embryos for each original. The method, variously called twinning, cloning, embryo splitting, and blastomere separation, demonstrated that human embryos could be split to create genetically identical entities during conception. When publicized, however, the experiment brought to mind a different view of cloning repeated since the beginning of the new reproductive technologies. In the early 1970s, (...) when research on in vitro fertilization was in its infancy, commentators worried that cloning–defined as the duplication of persons–would be next, leading to a scenario of “boys genetically exactly like the father, girls like the mother, or individuals like some true or false hero of art, science, or sports, or like some demagogue or some saint.”. (shrink)

The target article by Locke & Bogin (L&B) focuses on the evolution of language as a communicative tool. They neglect, however, that from infancy onwards humans have the ability to go beyond successful behaviour and to reflect upon language (and other domains of knowledge) as a problem space in its own right. This ability is not found in other species and may well be what makes humans unique.

It has long been claimed that Homo sapiens is the only species that has language, but only recently has it been recognized that humans also have an unusual pattern of growth and development. Social mammals have two stages of pre-adult development: infancy and juvenility. Humans have two additional prolonged and pronounced life history stages: childhood, an interval of four years extending between infancy and the juvenile period that follows, and adolescence, a stage of about eight years that stretches (...) from juvenility to adulthood. We begin by reviewing the primary biological and linguistic changes occurring in each of the four pre-adult ontogenetic stages in human life history. Then we attempt to trace the evolution of childhood and juvenility in our hominin ancestors. We propose that several different forms of selection applied in infancy and childhood; and that, in adolescence, elaborated vocal behaviors played a role in courtship and intrasexual competition, enhancing fitness and ultimately integrating performative and pragmatic skills with linguistic knowledge in a broad faculty of language. A theoretical consequence of our proposal is that fossil evidence of the uniquely human stages may be used, with other findings, to date the emergence of language. If important aspects of language cannot appear until sexual maturity, as we propose, then a second consequence is that the development of language requires the whole of modern human ontogeny. Our life history model thus offers new ways of investigating, and thinking about, the evolution, development, and ultimately the nature of human language. (shrink)

Luce Irigaray’s recent book To Be Born: Genesis of New a Human Being can be seen as a response to Friedrich Nietzsche’s well-known call for us to overcome humanity in its current form. Irigaray shares with Nietzsche the belief that to overcome the dissonance that runs through our culture and our being we cannot attend only to cultural and social problems but must bring about the emergence of a new kind of human being. Unlike Nietzsche, however, she develops (...) an understanding of who we are and what we could be that begins with birth and thus roots the potential for this transformation in the concreteness of our infancy and the context of our upbringing. Nietzsche employs the idea of pregnancy in his discussions of the genesis of a new being, but his exclusion of conception and birth indicate limitations in his approach. I will argue that Nietzsche’s insights into how dependency can limit critical insights and transformation demonstrate the importance of solitude, but he neglects the positive role of care we can find in a proper understanding of a child’s dependency on its parents. Irigaray suggests a route towards addressing these limitations. (shrink)

"This collection of essays makes a significant contribution to the field of liturgical studies. Many are original in the best sense that theological work can be: grounded in the authentic tradition, perceptive, imaginative, and capable of giving readers new insights into, and a fresh appreciation of, timeless truths. Taken together they will attract readers from a variety of disciplines, in the first place because worship is an essential aspect of every Christian life, and in the second because the essays are (...) written from, or informed by, the perspectives of a range of related disciplines: doctrinal and spiritual theology, history, philosophy, and liturgical studies." --_Lauren Pristas, Caldwell College_ "The essays in this book grapple with the basic question: 'Who celebrates the liturgy?' By delving into the complex interrelationship between the divine initiative and the human response, between the action of Christ and the Church and the participation of the individual Christian, the authors--coming from a wide range of theological disciplines--make a stimulating contribution to contemporary liturgical theology." --_Cassian Folsom, O.S.B., Pontifico Instituto Liturgico, Rome_ _The Liturgical Subject_ brings together in one volume a wide and sometimes divergent range of understandings of the liturgy. Written primarily by Roman Catholics, with one important ecumenical contribution, the publication of these essays at this moment is particularly apt. They reflect the widespread reassessment of various aspects of especially the post-Conciliar period of liturgical reform. At the same time the collection indicates how liturgical study is called to account by, and is itself able to question, the philosophical aspects of its work. This is an area of enquiry as yet in its infancy, whose contours are nevertheless already discernible in the papers gathered here. This volume is a landmark for research of this kind, pointing toward further ecumenical dialogue and contributing to more fundamental studies of liturgy. (shrink)

The study of infant social cognition is the study of how human infants acquire information about people. By examining infants’ sensory abilities and the stimulus characteristics of people, research can determine what information is available to infants from their social world. We can then consider what social environments are appropriate for infants of different ages. This paper examines the sociocognitive competencies of human infants during the first 6 months of their lives and asks how these competencies are functional (...) in the daily social ecology of the human infant. Select examples of research with other species are used to illustrate how the adaptive significance of sociocognitive abilities could be more fruitfully explored in studies of human infancy. (shrink)

We agree with Vaesen that there is evidence for cognitive differences between humans and other primates. However, it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the uniqueness of the cognitive mechanisms underlying human tool use. Tests of causal understanding are in their infancy, as is the study of animals more distantly related to humans.

While influential works since the 1970s have widely assumed that imitation is an innate skill in both human and non-human primate neonates, recent empirical studies and meta-analyses have challenged this view, indicating other forms of reward-based learning as relevant factors in the development of social behavior. The visual input translation into matching motor output that underlies imitation abilities instead seems to develop along with social interactions and sensorimotor experience during infancy and childhood. Recently, a new visual stream (...) has been identified in both human and non-human primate brains, updating the dual visual stream model. This third pathway is thought to be specialized for dynamics aspects of social perceptions such as eye-gaze, facial expression and crucially for audio-visual integration of speech. Here, we review empirical studies addressing an understudied but crucial aspect of speech and communication, namely the processing of visual orofacial cues and its integration with vocal auditory cues. Along this review, we offer new insights from our understanding of speech as the product of evolution and development of a rhythmic and multimodal organization of sensorimotor brain networks, supporting volitional motor control of the upper vocal tract and audio-visual voices-faces integration. (shrink)