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Updated: May 21, 2026
05:33
Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effect of Induced Emotion on Grammar Learning
Published on: January 29, 2020
The co-evolution of language and emotions
Eva Jablonka1, Simona Ginsburg, Daniel Dor
1The Cohn Institute, Tel-Aviv University, Israel. jablonka@post.tau.ac.il
Summary
Language and emotions evolved together through cultural processes, driven by social selection and brain plasticity. This co-evolution shaped human cognition, leading to unique social emotions and a distinct mentality compared to other apes.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Cognitive science
- Linguistics
Background:
- Language evolution is theorized to stem from cultural evolutionary processes.
- Brain plasticity allows learning of new behavioral patterns emerging from collective exploration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the affective facet of culture-driven cognitive evolution.
- To propose that human emotions co-evolved with language.
Main Methods:
- Theoretical framework integrating cultural evolution, genetic accommodation, and affective neuroscience.
- Focus on the roles of tool manufacture and alloparenting in emotional evolution.
Main Results:
- Cultural-linguistic innovations, socially selected, drove genetic accommodation of cognition.
- Complex tool manufacture and alloparenting fostered executive control and inter-subjective sensitivity.
- Language enhanced emotional inhibition, enabled new emotions, and shaped human mentality.
Conclusions:
- Human emotions and language likely co-evolved via a self-domestication process.
- This co-evolution resulted in human-specific social emotions facilitating information sharing.
- Further experimental approaches are suggested to validate these evolutionary proposals.
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