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How the Brain Got Language The Mirror System Hypothesis
Michael A. Arbib
Oxford University Press, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-989668-4 |
How the human brain is able to produce language is a big question in neuroscience and one that interests many people. This book advances a very intriguing hypothesis on how the brain became language ready. In short, it posits that the mirror neurons which allow the brain to understand and emulate the actions of another permitted early forms of communication through body language (like facial expressions or manual gestures). Spoken elements were later added (after evolution modified the vocal apparatus, auditory system and relevant neural pathways appropriately) to generate the complex modern languages we recognize today.
A note of caution though. Although not terribly long, this book is incredibly dense. Not only is there wealth of high specialized information, but it requires the reader to be equipped with the appropriate scientific background to fully unpack it. To be fair, the book does contain an introductory section (Part I: Setting the Stage) meant to provide naïve readers with the relevant background information and context, but the 146 pages of complex academic concepts are not particularly simple to digest. Moreover, it does not help that some of the text is redundant: there are multiple cases where whole sentences are repeated verbatim, often in adjacent paragraphs. It almost gives the impression that the book was carelessly cobbled together from text extracted from primary research papers. This is not to argue that there is overt plagiarism, as the author is a leader in this field and much of the work described is his, but more rigorous editing would have certainly helped.
But for what it is worth, the book’s hypothesis is well supported, and offers a fresh way to look at the evolution of human language. The reader can rest assured that the information is accurate and comes from a vetted authority. If already knowledgeable in the field, readers can simply skip to the second part (Developing the Hypothesis) and jump right into the fray.
