Abstract
Comparative cognitive science aims to study cognitive abilities of various animals that evolved to fit various natural and social environments. By doing so, comparative cognitive science aims to understand uniqueness of Homo sapiens. However, the faculty of language, as it is so much unique to humans, has been out of the focus for comparative cognitive science. Here we suggest a pre-adaptationist approach to the biological origin of human language. In this approach, language is divided into several sub-faculties and each of these sub-faculties is approached from comparative cognitive science. In this symposium, we selected three subjects: Production and perception of behavioral sequence, tool-use and acquisition of symbolic representations, and three-term social relations. Based on these presentations, discussions are provided by researchers in linguistics and in evolutionary psychology.
