Evolution of Communicative Flexibility: Complexity, Creativity, and Adaptability in Human and Animal Communication (Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology) - Softcover

9780262538770: Evolution of Communicative Flexibility: Complexity, Creativity, and Adaptability in Human and Animal Communication (Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262538776 ISBN 13: 9780262538770

Publisher: MIT Press, 2008

Experts investigate communicative flexibility (in both form and usage of signals) as the foundation of the evolution of complex communication systems, including human language.

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About the Author

D. Kimbrough Oller is Professor and Plough Chair of Excellence in the School of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Memphis and an external faculty member of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Altenberg, Austria. He is coeditor, with Ulrike Griebel, of Evolution of Communications Systems: A Comparative Approach (MIT Press, 2004).

D. Kimbrough Oller is Professor and Plough Chair of Excellence in the School of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Memphis and an external faculty member of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Altenberg, Austria. He is coeditor, with Ulrike Griebel, of Evolution of Communications Systems: A Comparative Approach (MIT Press, 2004).

Julia Fischer is Professor of Cognitive Ethology at the German Primate Center and the University of G�ttingen.

Kim Sterelny is Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington. His books include Language and Reality (with Michael Devitt; second edition, MIT Press).

Allison B. Kaufman is Research Scientist in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, where she is also Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology.

Review

From talking parrots and femme fatale fireflies to singing seals and human children, the authors leave few stones unturned in this wide-ranging and up-to-date survey. The topic―how organisms evolve flexible communication systems―is one of central relevance to the evolution of human spoken language.

―W. Tecumseh Fitch, University of St Andrews

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