Dogs as a model to study the emergence of concept manipulation skills for language-readiness
Abstract
Language-readiness entails the ability to segment holistic events into discrete concepts, learn signals for such concepts, and combine them in a rule-based manner to create composite meanings. There is much debate about whether, and to what extent, the brain mechanisms that enable concept manipulation abilities in humans are unmatched in the animal kingdom. Challenging human-uniqueness theories, we propose a social cognition-mediation account hypothesizing that concept manipulation abilities essential for language-readiness could also emerge in other species with a sufficient level of certain prerequisite social-cognitive skills, namely goal-representation, intentionality-attribution, and mentalization. We argue for the involvement of a new species in comparative studies on language evolution to evaluate this hypothesis: the domestic dog, a species that has undergone selective pressures for prosociality during domestication similar to those experienced by early humans, as well as shows a natural propensity to communicate their experiences. As a consequence, dogs may possess the necessary social-cognitive capacities to develop concept manipulation skills. Dogs’ concept manipulation abilities have never been systematically investigated, nor directly compared to those of humans. Capitalizing on recent advances in comparative non-invasive neuroimaging and behavioural measures, here we propose feasible, promising experimental approaches for such investigations.
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a review, done in animal, not in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.
Read the paper
Related studies
- The neurocircuitry of addiction: an overview
- Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review
- Stratified medicine for mental disorders
- The neurobiology of drug addiction: cross-species insights into the dysfunction and recovery of the prefrontal cortex
- Annual Research Review: DNA methylation as a mediator in the association between risk exposure and child and adolescent psychopathology
- Schizophrenia: The new etiological synthesis
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.