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dc.contributor.authorVernes, Sonja C
dc.date.accessioned2021-03-24T13:30:02Z
dc.date.available2021-03-24T13:30:02Z
dc.date.issued2017-02
dc.identifier.citationVernes , S C 2017 , ' What bats have to say about speech and language ' , Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , vol. 24 , no. 1 , pp. 111-117 . https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1060-3en
dc.identifier.issn1069-9384
dc.identifier.otherPURE: 272112274
dc.identifier.otherPURE UUID: 305f5c02-3c21-4d0c-899f-75cef3f96c38
dc.identifier.otherPubMed: 27368623
dc.identifier.otherPubMedCentral: PMC5325843
dc.identifier.otherScopus: 84976512949
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0003-0305-4584/work/86538519
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/21702
dc.descriptionOpen access funding provided by Max Planck Society (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics). This work was funded by a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant and by a Max Planck Research Group Grant, both awarded to S.C.V.en
dc.description.abstractUnderstanding the biological foundations of language is vital to gaining insight into how the capacity for language may have evolved in humans. Animal models can be exploited to learn about the biological underpinnings of shared human traits, and although no other animals display speech or language, a range of behaviors found throughout the animal kingdom are relevant to speech and spoken language. To date, such investigations have been dominated by studies of our closest primate relatives searching for shared traits, or more distantly related species that are sophisticated vocal communicators, like songbirds. Herein I make the case for turning our attention to the Chiropterans, to shed new light on the biological encoding and evolution of human language-relevant traits. Bats employ complex vocalizations to facilitate navigation as well as social interactions, and are exquisitely tuned to acoustic information. Furthermore, bats display behaviors such as vocal learning and vocal turn-taking that are directly pertinent for human spoken language. Emerging technologies are now allowing the study of bat vocal communication, from the behavioral to the neurobiological and molecular level. Although it is clear that no single animal model can reflect the complexity of human language, by comparing such findings across diverse species we can identify the shared biological mechanisms likely to have influenced the evolution of human language.
dc.format.extent7
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofPsychonomic Bulletin & Reviewen
dc.rightsCopyright The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.comen
dc.subjectAnimalsen
dc.subjectBiological evolutionen
dc.subjectChiropteraen
dc.subjectCommunicationen
dc.subjectComprehensionen
dc.subjectHumansen
dc.subjectLanguageen
dc.subjectLearningen
dc.subjectSpeechen
dc.subjectVocalization, animalen
dc.subjectQH301 Biologyen
dc.subjectQP Physiologyen
dc.subjectT-NDASen
dc.subject.lccQH301en
dc.subject.lccQPen
dc.titleWhat bats have to say about speech and languageen
dc.typeJournal articleen
dc.description.versionPublisher PDFen
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. School of Biologyen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1060-3
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden


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