Interest in iconicity (the resemblance-based mapping between aspects of form and
meaning) is in the midst of a resurgence, and a prominent focus in the field has been the …

The rise and success of large language models undermines virtually every strong claim for
the innateness of language that has been proposed by generative linguistics. Modern …

The method of serial reproduction has revealed that the social transmission of information is
characterized by the gradual transformation of the original message. This transformation …

Speech and song have been transmitted orally for countless human generations, changing
over time under the influence of biological, cognitive, and cultural pressures. Cross-cultural …

Culture fundamentally shapes people's reasoning, behavior, and communication.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies may cause a shift towards a dominant …

The Baldwin effect is a hypothetical process in which a learned response to environmental
change evolves a genetic basis. Modelling has shown that the Baldwin effect offers a …

Abstract Language is systematically structured at all levels of description, arguably setting it
apart from all other instances of communication in nature. In this article, I survey work over …

When humans and other animals make cultural innovations, they also change their
environment, thereby imposing new selective pressures that can modify their biological …

We set out an account of how self-domestication plays a crucial role in the evolution of
language. In doing so, we focus on the growing body of work that treats language structure …

'Our greatest blessings come to us by way of mania, provided it is given us by divine gift,'–
says Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus. Certain forms of alteration of consciousness, considered …