Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Language and Cognition01:27

Language and Cognition

345
Language serves as a bridge between ideas and communication, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world. Psychologists have long debated whether language shapes thought or vice versa. This discussion gained grip with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s, who proposed that language determines thought, a concept known as linguistic determinism. They suggested that the vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive reality.
345
Language01:16

Language

213
Language is a unique communication system that uses words and systematic rules to organize and transmit information. Unlike other forms of communication, which may involve postures, movements, odors, or vocalizations, language relies on symbols and grammar. This makes human communication distinct from that of other species, who also communicate but do not use language in the same way humans do.
Corballis and Suddendorf (2007) and Tomasello and Rakoczy (2003) highlight the role of language in...
213
The Evidence for Evolution02:55

The Evidence for Evolution

42.7K
Genetic variations accumulating within populations over generations give rise to biological evolution. Evolutionary changes can result in the formation of novel varieties and entire new species. These changes are responsible for the diverse forms of life inhabiting the planet. The evidence for evolution suggests that all living organisms descended from common ancestors.
42.7K
Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift01:09

Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift

58.4K
In a population that is not at Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the frequency of alleles changes over time. Therefore, any deviations from the five conditions of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium can alter the genetic variation of a given population. Conditions that change the genetic variability of a population include mutations, natural selection, non-random mating, gene flow, and genetic drift (small population size).
58.4K
Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?02:05

Gene Evolution - Fast or Slow?

7.1K
The genomes of eukaryotes are punctuated by long stretches of sequence which do not code for proteins or RNAs. Although some of these regions do contain crucial regulatory sequences, the vast majority of this DNA serves no known function. Typically, these regions of the genome are the ones in which the fastest change, in evolutionary terms, is observed, because there is typically little to no selection pressure acting on these regions to preserve their sequences.
In contrast, regions which code...
7.1K
Synteny and Evolution02:31

Synteny and Evolution

3.3K
John H. Renwick first coined the term “synteny” in 1971, which refers to the genes present on the same chromosomes, even if they are not genetically linked. The species with common ancestry tend to show conserved syntenic regions. Therefore, the concept of synteny is nowadays used to describe the evolutionary relationship between species.
Around 80 million years ago, the human and mice lineages diverged from the common ancestor. During the course of evolution, the ancestral...
3.3K

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Language models do not yet achieve explanatory adequacy because language is more than incremental prediction.

The Behavioral and brain sciences·2026
Same author

Children's narrow learning bottleneck accelerates the emergence of statistical properties of language.

Cognition·2026
Same author

Cultural Transmission Promotes the Emergence of Statistical Properties That Support Language Learning.

Cognitive science·2025
Same author

With or Without a System: How Category-Specific and System-Wide Cognitive Biases Shape Word Order.

Cognitive science·2025
Same author

What enables human language? A biocultural framework.

Science (New York, N.Y.)·2025
Same author

Linguistic Rule Generalisation Creates the Same Distributional Structure That Feeds It.

Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science·2025

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations
04:52

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Published on: February 3, 2023

962

Cultural evolution creates the statistical structure of language.

Inbal Arnon1, Simon Kirby2

  • 1Psychology Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. inbal.arnon@mail.huji.ac.il.

Scientific Reports
|March 4, 2024
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Language structure emerges from cultural evolution. Parts in language develop and follow power-law distributions through whole-to-part learning, enhancing learnability.

More Related Videos

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
08:05

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques

Published on: June 30, 2020

7.5K
Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
05:35

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

6.7K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations
04:52

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Published on: February 3, 2023

962
Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques
08:05

Measuring Statistical Learning Across Modalities and Domains in School-Aged Children Via an Online Platform and Neuroimaging Techniques

Published on: June 30, 2020

7.5K
Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
05:35

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

6.7K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Evolutionary Linguistics
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Human language possesses a unique compositional structure, enabling productive recombination of meaningful parts.
  • The origin of these linguistic parts and their characteristic power-law frequency distribution remains poorly understood.
  • Discovering these parts from unsegmented input is crucial for language acquisition.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the emergence of linguistic parts and their power-law distribution through cultural evolution.
  • To determine if learnability pressures alone can drive the formation of these structural properties.
  • To explore the role of whole-to-part learning in shaping language structure.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized an experimental analog of cultural transmission involving sequence copying.
  • Participants learned and reproduced non-linguistic sequences from previous participants.
  • Analyzed the emergence and distribution of parts in sequences over simulated generations.

Main Results:

  • Parts spontaneously emerged from initially unsegmented sequences.
  • The frequency distribution of these parts progressively approximated a power law over generations.
  • The emergent properties significantly enhanced the learnability of the sequence sets.

Conclusions:

  • The core statistical properties of language, including segmentation and power-law distributions, can emerge through cultural evolution.
  • These properties arise as both a cause and consequence of increased learnability.
  • Whole-to-part learning provides a mechanism for the cultural transmission of language structure.