Is speech learning ‘gated’ by the social brain?

I advance the hypothesis that the earliest phases of language acquisition -- the developmental transition from an initial universal state of language processing to one that is language-specific -- requires social interaction. Relating human language learning to a broader set of neurobiological cases of communicative development, I argue that the social brain 'gates' the computational mechanisms involved in human language learning.

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• UO
  University of Washington
• NI
  National Institutes of Health