Francisco Aboitiz – författare

A panoramic view of the evolution of life on our planet, from its origins to humanity’s future.In A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds, Francisco Aboitiz provides a brief history of life, the brain, and cognition, from the earliest living beings to our own species. The author proceeds from the basic premise that, since evolution by natural selection is the process underlying the origin of life and its evolution on earth, the brain—and thus our minds—must also be the result of biological evolution. The aim of this book is to narrate how animal bodies came to be built with their nervous systems and how our species evolved with culture, technology, language, and consciousness.The book is organized in four parts, each delving into a different aspect of evolutionary development:•          Definitions lays the groundwork by discussing the principles of biological evolution and explores the definition and mechanisms of life itself.•          Beginnings describes the origins of life, starting from the emergence of the first cells to the development of neurons as the building blocks for brain networks.•          The Rise of Bodies and Brains examines the evolution of animals with bilateral symmetry, the emergence of chordates and vertebrates, and the expansion and diversification of the vertebrate brain.•          A Singular Ape explores Homo sapiens and our species’ unique traits, such as bipedality, tool use, culture, language, communication, and consciousness.Comprehensive and deeply insightful, this book helps us understand our place in the natural world and the cosmos—as well as what the future might hold for life on earth.

This book discusses evolution of the human brain, the origin of speech and language. It covers past and present perspectives on the contentious issue of the acquisition of the language capacity. Divided into two parts, this insightful work covers several characteristics of the human brain including the language-specific network, the size of the human brain, its lateralization of functions and interhemispheric integration, in particular the phonological loop. Aboitiz argues that it is the phonological loop that allowed us to increase our vocal memory capacity and to generate a shared semantic space that gave rise to modern language. The second part examines the neuroanatomy of the monkey brain, vocal learning birds like parrots, emergent evidence of vocal learning capacities in mammals, mirror neurons, and the ecological and social context in which speech evolved in our early ancestors. This book's interdisciplinary topic will appeal to scholars of psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, biology and history.

This book discusses evolution of the human brain, the origin of speech and language. It covers past and present perspectives on the contentious issue of the acquisition of the language capacity. Divided into two parts, this insightful work covers several characteristics of the human brain including the language-specific network, the size of the human brain, its lateralization of functions and interhemispheric integration, in particular the phonological loop. Aboitiz argues that it is the phonological loop that allowed us to increase our vocal memory capacity and to generate a shared semantic space that gave rise to modern language. The second part examines the neuroanatomy of the monkey brain, vocal learning birds like parrots, emergent evidence of vocal learning capacities in mammals, mirror neurons, and the ecological and social context in which speech evolved in our early ancestors. This book''s interdisciplinary topic will appeal to scholars of psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, biology and history.

1 Introduction There is little doubt that the vertebrate brain is the most complex structure we know. As with any complex structure, there is the immediate question about its origins. Howcouldsuchacomplexdesigndevelopfromthesimplestmulticellular animals? This problem has pervaded the study of evolutionary biology since its beginnings. Although Darwin (1859, 1871) proposed an impeccable mechanism (natural selection) for the gradual transformation of species including human origins, even he sometimes expressed certain doubts about the origin of highly complex structures. This issue has been highly debated both within science and outsideit. Forinstance,arebirthoftheoldreligiousargumentofintelligentdesign has gained unexpected strength in the last few years. In essence, this argument follows Paley’s (1802) claim that if we ?nd a clock that has been thrown away we cannotconsiderthatitwascreatedonitsown,butratherhastobetheconsequence of conscious design. Today, creationists have developed a modern version of this argument, that of “intelligent information” (Denton 2002). For example, after sequencing the human genome in 2001, one of Celera Genomics top computer scientistsclaimedthatthiscomplexitysuggesteddesign. Althoughheclari?ednot to be thinking of God, he asserted that “there’s a huge intelligence there” (quoted inWitham2002,p9). AsWitham(2002)says,moderncomputer-literatebelievers may soon ask the question of whether the universe is self-running or functioning on DOS, a Divine Operating System. Inthisvolume,wehavedecidedtotackletheproblemoftheoriginandevolution of the vertebrate brain, from the simplest nervous system-like elements that we can observe in nature. In doing so, we expect to establish a continuity between the simplest stages and theelaboration of the highly intricate neuronal network that is the mammalian cerebral cortex.

1 Introduction There is little doubt that the vertebrate brain is the most complex structure we know. As with any complex structure, there is the immediate question about its origins. Howcouldsuchacomplexdesigndevelopfromthesimplestmulticellular animals? This problem has pervaded the study of evolutionary biology since its beginnings. Although Darwin (1859, 1871) proposed an impeccable mechanism (natural selection) for the gradual transformation of species including human origins, even he sometimes expressed certain doubts about the origin of highly complex structures. This issue has been highly debated both within science and outsideit. Forinstance,arebirthoftheoldreligiousargumentofintelligentdesign has gained unexpected strength in the last few years. In essence, this argument follows Paley’s (1802) claim that if we ?nd a clock that has been thrown away we cannotconsiderthatitwascreatedonitsown,butratherhastobetheconsequence of conscious design. Today, creationists have developed a modern version of this argument, that of “intelligent information” (Denton 2002). For example, after sequencing the human genome in 2001, one of Celera Genomics top computer scientistsclaimedthatthiscomplexitysuggesteddesign. Althoughheclari?ednot to be thinking of God, he asserted that “there’s a huge intelligence there” (quoted inWitham2002,p9). AsWitham(2002)says,moderncomputer-literatebelievers may soon ask the question of whether the universe is self-running or functioning on DOS, a Divine Operating System. Inthisvolume,wehavedecidedtotackletheproblemoftheoriginandevolution of the vertebrate brain, from the simplest nervous system-like elements that we can observe in nature. In doing so, we expect to establish a continuity between the simplest stages and theelaboration of the highly intricate neuronal network that is the mammalian cerebral cortex.

Attention is a key psychological construct in the understanding of human cognition, and the target of enormous efforts to elucidate its physiological mechanisms, as the wealth of literature—both primary and secondary—attests (for recent compilations see Itti, Rees, & Tsotsos, 2005; Paletta & Rome, 2008; Posner, 2004). But in addition to asking what attention actually is, decomposing and analyzing its varieties, or delimiting its neurobiological mechanisms and effects, in this volume we want to explore attention somewhat differently. We believe that a full-fledged theory of attention must consider its workings in the context of motivated, goal-directed, and environmentally constrained organisms. That attention is related to goal-directed behavior is not news. What the contri- tions to this volume do suggest, however, is the existence of fundamental links between attention and two key processes that are crucial for adapted conduct: go- directed behavior and cognitive control. Importantly, they show that these relations can be explored at multiple levels, including neurodynamical, neurochemical, evo- tionary, and clinical aspects, and that in doing so multiple methodological challenges arise that are worth considering and pursuing. The reader will find here, therefore, a selection of contributions that range from basic mechanisms of attention at the n- ronal level to developmental aspects of cognitive control and its impairments. Another trend that will become evident is that, in different ways, the authors stress the need to understand these issues as they unfold in natural behavior (both healthy and pathological), thus arguing for a more ecological approach to these questions.

Attention is a key psychological construct in the understanding of human cognition, and the target of enormous efforts to elucidate its physiological mechanisms, as the wealth of literature—both primary and secondary—attests (for recent compilations see Itti, Rees, & Tsotsos, 2005; Paletta & Rome, 2008; Posner, 2004). But in addition to asking what attention actually is, decomposing and analyzing its varieties, or delimiting its neurobiological mechanisms and effects, in this volume we want to explore attention somewhat differently. We believe that a full-fledged theory of attention must consider its workings in the context of motivated, goal-directed, and environmentally constrained organisms. That attention is related to goal-directed behavior is not news. What the contri- tions to this volume do suggest, however, is the existence of fundamental links between attention and two key processes that are crucial for adapted conduct: go- directed behavior and cognitive control. Importantly, they show that these relations can be explored at multiple levels, including neurodynamical, neurochemical, evo- tionary, and clinical aspects, and that in doing so multiple methodological challenges arise that are worth considering and pursuing. The reader will find here, therefore, a selection of contributions that range from basic mechanisms of attention at the n- ronal level to developmental aspects of cognitive control and its impairments. Another trend that will become evident is that, in different ways, the authors stress the need to understand these issues as they unfold in natural behavior (both healthy and pathological), thus arguing for a more ecological approach to these questions.