Brain Science #6 discusses the book The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved From Our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans, by Stanley I Greenspan, MD and Stuart G. Shanker, D. PHIL.

The basic premise of this book is that emotions are intimately related to the development of language and intelligence. The authors propose that through interaction with their caregivers humans and non-human primates learn emotional signaling and that as this signaling becomes more complex the brain is prepared for the emergence of symbols and language.

In this podcast we discuss some of the evidence supporting their hypothesis, as well as the implications of this theory to theories of language development and human evolution, especially the evolution of language and intelligence.

For more information go to my website at http://brainsciencepodcast.com or send your comments to gincampbell at mac dot com.

This podcast is released under a Creative Commons 2.5 attribution, no derivatives license.

Brain Science Podcast #5 Consciousness: I start out by accidentally calling this episode 6. This is our first exploration of the big question of consciousness. We start with a brief review of some key philosophical questions, which include the so-called hard problem of how the physical brain can produce subjective experience. We also discuss dualism and introduce the question of free will. The show notes at http://brainsciencepodcast.com will include references for those wanting to explore consciousness further.



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