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Arbib, M. A. (2002) The Mirror System, Imitation, and the Evolution of Language. In Kerstin Dautenhahn and Chrystopher Nehaniv, editors, Imitation in Animals and Artifacts. The MIT Press.
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Abstract

This chapter argues that the ability to imitate is a key innovation in the evolutionary path leading to language in the human and relates this hypothesis to specific data on brain mechanisms. In this context, imitation involves more than simply observing someone else's movement and responding with movement that in its entirety is already in one's own repertoire, imitation involves 'parsing' a complex movement. What marks humans as distinct from their common ancestors with chimpanzees is that whereas the chimpanzee can imitate short novel sequences through repeated exposure, humans can acquire (longer) novel sequences in a single trial if the sequences are not too long and the components are relatively familiar. This chapter will take us through seven hypothesized stages of evolution: (1) grasping; (2) a mirror system for grasping; (3) a simple imitation system for grasping; (4) a complex imitation system for grasping; (5) a manual-based communication system; (6) speech, which I here characterize as being the open-ended production and perception of sequences of vocal gestures, without implying that these sequences constitute a language; and (7) language.

Keywords: imitation; evolution of language; parsing; communication; behavior; chimpanzees

BibTex
@incollection{arbib01theMirror,
  author={M. A. Arbib},
  title={The Mirror System, Imitation, and the Evolution of Language},
  year={2002},
  editor={Kerstin Dautenhahn and Chrystopher Nehaniv},
  publisher={The MIT Press},
  booktitle={Imitation in Animals and Artifacts},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/arbib01theMirror.html},
  keywords={imitation; evolution of language; parsing; communication; behavior; chimpanzees}
}

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