Language evolution: consensus and controversies

Why is language the way it is? How did language come to be this way? And why is our species alone in having complex language? These are old unsolved questions that have seen a renaissance in the dramatic recent growth in research being published on the origins and evolution of human language. This review provides a broad overview of some of the important current work in this area. We highlight new methodologies (such as computational modeling), emerging points of consensus (such as the importance of pre-adaptation), and the major remaining controversies (such as gestural origins of language). We also discuss why language evolution is such a difficult problem, and suggest probable directions research may take in the near future.     

Role of Group Affiliation and Gender on Attitudes Toward Women in the Military

The current study examined attitudes of West Point cadets (N = 218), Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets (N = 509), and non-military-affiliated students from civilian colleges (N = 598) toward a variety of roles that women may serve in the military. Respondents were queried whether a woman “should” or “should not” serve in the following military jobs: jet fighter pilot, truck mechanic, nurse in a combat zone, typist in the Pentagon, commander of a military installation, hand-to-hand combat soldier, jet transport pilot, air defense gunner, and crew member on a combat ship. A metric based on a sum of approval across all jobs indicated that women were significantly more approving than men; civilian college students were more approving than ROTC cadets; and West Point cadets showed the lowest overall approval.     

A Danish Model for Treating Victims of Rape and Sexual Assault: The Multidisciplinary Public Approach

High prevalence and long-lasting implications of human-inflicted trauma call for effective treatment approaches reaching clients in need of trauma-specific treatment. Numerous approaches exist, but often with limited empirical support. There is also a tendency toward segregating treatment approaches depending on type of exposure history and presenting symptoms. This might exclude clients in need of trauma-specific treatment; therefore, treatment approaches that can reach more heterogeneous groups of clients are needed. In this article, a group-based treatment approach adjusted to include clients with a wide range of trauma-related problems and traumatic experiences will be presented. A brief outline of the approach is presented, together with the theoretical and empirical background, to facilitate implementation by practitioners and empirical testing.     

Evolution,Altruism, and the Collective Superego

ABSTRACT

Our psychoanalytic understanding of human nature is that humans are self-interested. However, this view differs with those of evolution, ethology, and neuroscience, which show evidence of a natural altruistic capacity. A theoretical foundation for this capacity can be found in psychoanalytic works, particularly those of Melanie Klein. An emerging understanding is that of an altruistic capacity that is induced and shaped by early experience and either fortified or corrupted by social pressures and mental processes. In individuals and in collective society, superego dictates can conflict with natural altruistic impulses. Recognition within psychoanalytic theory of a primary altruistic capacity is important, because we as psychoanalysts have an impact on individual and cultural self-perceptions through our treatment of patients and through our writings and therefore contribute to the shaping of values in our society.     

Timing is everything: changes in presentation rate have opposite effects on auditory and visual implicit statistical learning

Implicit statistical learning (ISL) is exclusive to neither a particular sensory modality nor a single domain of processing. Even so, differences in perceptual processing may substantially affect learning across modalities. In three experiments, statistically equivalent auditory and visual familiarizations were presented under different timing conditions that either facilitated or disrupted temporal processing (fast or slow presentation rates). We find an interaction of rate and modality of presentation: At fast rates, auditory ISL was superior to visual. However, at slow presentation rates, the opposite pattern of results was found: Visual ISL was superior to auditory. Thus, we find that changes to presentation rate differentially affect ISL across sensory modalities. Additional experiments confirmed that this modality-specific effect was not due to cross-modal interference or attentional manipulations. These findings suggest that ISL is rooted in modality-specific, perceptually based processes.     

A study of the contribution of hippocampal-accumbens-subpallidal projections to locomotor activity

Locomotor activity recorded in an automated open-field apparatus was increased substantially by unilateral injections of carbachol, a cholinergic agonist, into the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. Hyperactivity elicited in this way was reduced significantly when glutamate antagonists were injected into the ipsilateral nucleus accumbens. Injecting gamma-aminobutyric acid into the ipsilateral subpallidal region also reduced the hyperactivity from injections of carbachol into the dentate gyrus. When these compounds were injected into the contralateral accumbens and subpallidal region, respectively, there was little or no reduction in the carbachol-elicited locomotor activity. These observations suggest that neural pathways fom hippocampus to accumbens to subpallidal region may contribute to locomotor activity.     

Preschool children's learning proclivities: When the ritual stance trumps the instrumental stance

Previous research has demonstrated an efficiency bias in social learning whereby young children preferentially imitate the functional actions of a successful individual over an unsuccessful group member. Our aim in the current research was to examine whether this bias remains when actions are presented as conventional rather than instrumental. Preschool children watched videos of an individual and a group member. The individual always demonstrated a successful instrumental action and the group member an unsuccessful action that was either causally transparent or opaque. Highlighting the selective nature of social learning, children copied the group at higher rates when the demonstrated actions were causally opaque than when they were causally transparent. This research draws attention to the influence of conventional/ritual‐like actions on young children's learning choices and emphasizes the role of this orientation in the development of human‐specific cumulative culture.     

Childhood and advances in human tool use

Human life history incorporates childhood, a lengthy post-weaning period of dependency. This species-specific period provides an opportunity for extensive learning and for sophisticated cultural behaviors to develop, including crucial tool use skills. Although I agree that no individual cognitive trait singularly differentiates humans from other animals, I suggest here that without childhood, the traits that are key to human tool use would not emerge.