Cover not available

Article published In: What can metacognition teach us about the evolution of communication?
Edited by Joëlle Proust
[Evolutionary Linguistic Theory 5:1] 2023
► pp. 11–52

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Informational communication and metacognition

 | Institut Jean-NicodParis
Published online: 7 July 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/elt.00046.pro
Abstract
Procedural metacognition is the set of affect-based mechanisms allowing agents to regulate cognitive actions like perceptual discrimination, memory retrieval or problem solving. This article proposes that procedural metacognition has had a major role in the evolution of communication. A plausible hypothesis is that, under pressure for maximizing signalling efficiency, the metacognitive abilities used by nonhumans to regulate their perception and their memory have been re-used to regulate their communication. On this view, detecting one’s production errors in signalling, or solving species-specific trade-offs between informativeness, processing effort, clarity, or urgency depend on a form of procedural metacognition, called “metacommunication”. How does this view relate to Gricean theories of human communication? A parallel between procedural trade-offs and conversational maxims is discussed for its evolutionary implications. Rather than accepting radically discontinuist interpretations, in which mindreading operates a full reorganization of pragmatics, it is proposed that procedural forms of regulation are entrenched in all forms of human communication. According to contextual demands, humans adopt and monitor more or less demanding informational goals, such as factual updating, clarifying, explaining, proving, and reaching consensus in collective matters. Under time pressure, only part of these goals require adopting others’ viewpoint. Efficiency in collective decision-making, in particular, might have been considerably raised by an ability to interpret others’ intentions and motivations.
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • From information to communication
    • How to define communication?
    • Metacommunication belongs to procedural metacognition
  • I.Metacognition in nonhumans
    • I.1Experimental evidence
    • I.2Species differences in procedural metacognitive skills
  • II.Implicit metacommunication in nonhumans
    • II.1Can nonhumans control their signalling behavior?
      • II.1.1Ostensive communication as a cue for intentional communication
      • II.1.2Re-defining communicative actions
      • II.1.3Operationalizing the presence of first-order intentionality in communication
    • II.2Medium-dependent efficiency: Evolutionary preconditions for individual control and monitoring processes
    • II.3Functional components of procedural metacommunication in nonhumans
      • II.3.1A functional duality
      • II.3.2The puzzle of communicative deception
      • II.3.3Selecting and monitoring informational goals
        • II.3.3.1Metalearning
        • II.3.3.2Informativeness versus complexity (effortfulness)
        • II.3.3.3Comparative urgency
        • II.3.3.4Accuracy versus deception
        • II.3.3.5Clarity as ease of processing
  • III.From nonhuman to human informational communication: The evolution of metacommunication
    • III.1From procedural to explicit metacommunication
    • III.2Discontinuist view: A metacommunicative module
    • III.3A continuist proposal: Metacognitive processes
    • III.4How do continuists explain conversational flexibility?
  • Concluding speculations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (167)
References
Abbot-Smith, K., Schulze, C., Anagnostopoulou, N., Zajączkowska, M., & Matthews, D. (2022). How do 3-year-olds use relevance inferencing to interpret indirect speech?. First Language, 42(1), 3–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ackerman, R. (2014). The diminishing criterion model for metacognitive regulation of time investment. Journal of experimental psychology: General, 143(3), 1349–1368. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aguirre, M., Brun, M., Reboul, A., & Mascaro, O. (2022). How do we interpret questions? Simplified representations of knowledge guide humans’ interpretation of information requests. Cognition, 2181, 104954. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Akçay, Ç. L., Tom, M. E., Campbell, S. E., & Beecher, M. D. (2013). Song type matching is an honest early threat signal in a hierarchical animal communication system. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 280(1756), 20122517. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Allen, J. A., Garland, E. C., Dunlop, R. A., & Noad, M. J. (2018). Cultural revolutions reduce complexity in the songs of humpback whales. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 285(1891), 20182088. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arnold, K., & Zuberbühler, K. (2012). Call combinations in monkeys: compositional or idiomatic expressions?. Brain and language, 120(3), 303–309. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Avital, E., & Jablonka, E. (2000). Animal traditions: Behavioural inheritance in evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Balcomb, F. K., & Gerken, L. (2008). Three-year-old children can access their own memory to guide responses on a visual matching task. Developmental science, 11(5), 750–760. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barbas, H. (2007). Flow of information for emotions through temporal and orbitofrontal pathways. Journal of anatomy, 211(2), 237–249. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barr, D. J., & Keyser, B. (2002). Anchoring comprehension in linguistic precedents. Journal of Memory and Language, 46(2), 391–418. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Basile, B. M., Hampton, R. R., Suomi, S. J., & Murray, E. A. (2009). An assessment of memory awareness in tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Animal Cognition, 12(1), 169–180. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beran, M. J., French, K., Smith, T. R., & Parrish, A. E. (2019). Limited evidence of number–space mapping in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and capuchin monkeys (Sapajus apella). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 133(3), 281–293. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beran, M. J., & Smith, J. D. (2011). Information seeking by rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Cognition, 120(1), 90–105. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bernard, S., Proust, J., & Clément, F. (2015). Procedural metacognition and false belief understanding in 3-to 5-year-old children. PloS one, 10(10), e0141321. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berwick, R. C., Beckers, G. J., Okanoya, K., & Bolhuis, J. J. (2012). A bird’s eye view of human language evolution. Frontiers in evolutionary neuroscience, 41, 5. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, C., Garwood, M. P., & Williamson, J. E. (2012). It pays to cheat: tactical deception in a cephalopod social signalling system. Biology letters, 8(5), 729–732. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Browning, H., & Birch, J. (2022). Animal sentience. Philosophy Compass, 17(5), e12822. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brumm, H., & Slabbekoorn, H. (2005). Acoustic communication in noise. Advances in the Study of Behavior 351, 151–209. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Burkart, J., Martins, E. G., Miss, F., & Zürcher, Y. (2018). From sharing food to sharing information: cooperative breeding and language evolution. Interaction Studies, 19(1–2), 136–150. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Byrne, R. W., Cartmill, E., Genty, E., Graham, K. E., Hobaiter, C., & Tanner, J. (2017). Great ape gestures: intentional communication with a rich set of innate signals. Animal cognition, 20 (4), 755–769. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Call, J. (2012). Seeking information in non-human animals: weaving a metacognitive web. In M. Beran, J. Brandl, J. Perner & J. Proust (eds.), Foundations of metacognition, Oxford: Oxford University press, 62–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chalcraft, V. J., & Gardner, R. A. (2005). Cross-fostered chimpanzees modulate signs of American Sign Language. Gesture, 5(1–2), 107–132. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheney, D. L., & Seyfarth, R. M. (1990). How monkeys see the world: Inside the mind of another species. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cisek, P. (2007). Cortical mechanisms of action selection: the affordance competition hypothesis. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 362(1485), 1585–1599. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2022). Evolution of behavioural control from chordates to primates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 377(1844), 20200522. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Converse, P. D., & DeShon, R. P. (2009). A tale of two tasks: reversing the self-regulatory resource depletion effect. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(5), 1318.1324. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cunningham, E., & Janson, C. (2007). Integrating information about location and value of resources by white-faced saki monkeys (Pithecia pithecia). Animal cognition, 10(3), 293–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daniel, R., & Pollmann, S. (2012). Striatal activations signal prediction errors on confidence in the absence of external feedback. Neuroimage, 59(4), 3457–3467. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dawkins, R., & Krebs, J. R. (1978). Animal signals: Information or manipulation? In J. R. Krebs & N. B. Davies (Eds.), Behavioural ecology: An evolutionary approach (Vol. 21, pp. 282–309). Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deacon, T. W. (2010). A role for relaxed selection in the evolution of the language capacity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(supplement_2), 9000–9006. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Framond, L., Brumm, H., Thompson, W. I., Drabing, S. M., & Francis, C. D. (2022). The broken-wing display across birds and the conditions for its evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2891(1971), 20220058. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dretske, F. (1981). Knowledge and the Flow of Information. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1988). Explaining Behavior. Cambridge,Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duffy, A., Latimer, K. W., Goldberg, J. H., Fairhall, A. L., & Gadagkar, V. (2022). Dopamine neurons evaluate natural fluctuations in performance quality. Cell reports, 38(13), 110574. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dunstone, J., & Caldwell, C. A. (2018). Cumulative culture and explicit metacognition: A review of theories, evidence and key predictions. Palgrave Communications, 4(1). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eliades, S. J., & Miller, C. T. (2017). Marmoset vocal communication: behavior and neurobiology. Developmental neurobiology, 77(3), 286–299. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferrigno, S., Kornell, N., & Cantlon, J. F. (2017). A metacognitive illusion in monkeys. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284(1862), 20171541. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fitch, W. (2017). Empirical approaches to the study of language evolution. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 24.11: 3–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fitch, W. T., & Friederici, A. D. (2012). Artificial grammar learning meets formal language theory: an overview. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1598), 1933–1955. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fleming, S. M., Weil, R. S., Nagy, Z., Dolan, R. J., & Rees, G. (2010). Relating introspective accuracy to individual differences in brain structure. Science, 329(5998), 1541–1543. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Franke, M., & Jäger, G. (2016). Probabilistic pragmatics, or why Bayes’ rule is probably important for pragmatics. Zeitschrift für sprachwissenschaft, 35(1), 3–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frankfurt, H. (1988). The Importance of what we care about, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Freeberg, T. M., & Lucas, J. R. (2012). Information theoretical approaches to chick-a-dee calls of Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 126(1), 68–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gadagkar, V., Puzerey, P. A., Chen, R., Baird-Daniel, E., Farhang, A. R., & Goldberg, J. H. (2016). Dopamine neurons encode performance error in singing birds. Science, 354(6317), 1278–1282. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gadagkar, V., Puzerey, P. A., & Goldberg, J. H. (2019). Dopamine neurons change their tuning according to courtship context in singing birds. bioRxiv, 822817Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gallistel, C. R. (2020). Where meanings arise and how: Building on Shannon’s foundations. Mind & Language, 35(3), 390–401. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibson, E., Futrell, R., Piantadosi, S. P., Dautriche, I., Mahowald, K., Bergen, L., & Levy, R. (2019). How efficiency shapes human language. Trends in cognitive sciences, 23(5), 389–407. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2017). The evolution of consciousness in phylogenetic context. In K. Andrew & J. Beck (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of philosophy of animal minds (pp. 216–226). New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gómez, J. C. (1998). Ostensive behavior in great apes: The role of eye contact. In A. E. Russon, K. A. Bard & S. T. Parker (Eds.), Reaching into thought: The minds of the great apes, (pp. 131–151). New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goto, K., & Watanabe, S. (2012). Large-billed crows (Corvus macrorhynchos) have retrospective but not prospective metamemory. Animal Cognition, 15(1), 27–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goupil, L., & Kouider, S. (2019). Developing a reflective mind: from core metacognition to explicit self-reflection. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28(4), 403–408. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goupil, L., & Proust, J. (2023). Curiosity as a metacognitive feeling. Cognition, 2311, 105325. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, P. (1989). Studies in the Way of Words. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hage, S. R. (2018). Dual neural network model of speech and language evolution: new insights on flexibility of vocal production systems and involvement of frontal cortex. Current opinion In behavioral sciences, 211, 80–87. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hage, S. R., & Nieder, A. (2016). Dual neural network model for the evolution of speech and language. Trends in neurosciences, 39(12), 813–829. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haidle, M. N., Bolus, M., Collard, M., Conard, N. J., Garofoli, D., Lombard, M., Nowell, A., Tennie, C. & Whiten, A. (2015). The nature of culture: an eight-grade model for the evolution and expansion of cultural capacities in hominins and other animals. Journal of Anthropological Sciences. Vol. 931 (2015), pp. 43–70.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hampton, R. R. (2009). Multiple demonstrations of metacognition in nonhumans: Converging evidence or multiple mechanisms? Comparative Cognition and Behavior Reviews, 41, 17–28. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harcourt, A. H. (2015). Humankind. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hauser, M.D. (1996). The evolution of communication. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hauser, M. D. (1997). Minding the behaviour of deception. In Whiten & Byrne (eds.)., Machiavellian intelligence II: Extensions and evaluations, 121 (pp. 112–143). New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hesler, N., Mundry, R., & Dabelsteen, T. (2012). Are there age-related differences in the song repertoire size of Eurasian blackbirds?. Acta ethologica, 15(2), 203–210. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heyes, C., Bang, D., Shea, N., Frith, C. D., & Fleming, S. M. (2020). Knowing ourselves together: The cultural origins of metacognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(5), 349–362. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hisey, E., Kearney, M. G., & Mooney, R. (2018). A common neural circuit mechanism for internally guided and externally reinforced forms of motor learning. Nature neuroscience, 21(4), 589–597. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hobaiter, C., & Byrne, R. W. (2017). What is a gesture? A meaning-based approach to defining gestural repertoires. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 821, 3–12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopkins, W. D., Taglialatela, J. P., & Leavens, D. A. (2007). Chimpanzees differentially produce novel vocalizations to capture the attention of a human. Animal behaviour, 73(2), 281–286. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Inzlicht, M., Bartholow, B. D., & Hirsh, J. B. (2015). Emotional foundations of cognitive control. Trends in cognitive sciences, 19(3), 126–132. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jarvis, E. D. (2013). Evolution of brain pathways for vocal learning in birds and humans. In R. C. Berwick & N. Chomsky (Eds.), Birdsong, speech, and language: exploring the evolution of mind and brain (pp. 63–107). Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kang, M. J., Hsu, M., Krajbich, I. M., Loewenstein, G., McClure, S. M., Wang, J. T. Y., & Camerer, C. F. (2009). The wick in the candle of learning: Epistemic curiosity activates reward circuitry and enhances memory. Psychological Science, 20(8), 963–973. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kepecs, A., & Mainen, Z. F. (2012). A computational framework for the study of confidence in humans and animals. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1594), 1322–1337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kershenbaum, A., Demartsev, V., Gammon, D. E., Geffen, E., Gustison, M. L., Ilany, A., & Lameira, A. R. (2021). Shannon entropy as a robust estimator of Zipf’s Law in animal vocal communication repertoires. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 12(3), 553–564. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keysar, B., Lin, S., & Barr, D. J. (2003). Limits on theory of mind use in adults. Cognition, 89(1), 25–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kissine, M. (2016). Pragmatics as metacognitive control. Frontiers in psychology, 61, 2057. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koechlin, E. (2014). An evolutionary computational theory of prefrontal executive function in decision-making. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 369(1655), 20130474. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koechlin, E., & Summerfield, C. (2007). An information theoretical approach to prefrontal executive function. Trends in cognitive sciences, 11(6), 229–235. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konishi, M. (2004). The role of auditory feedback in birdsong. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1016(1), 463–475. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koriat, A. (2000). The feeling of knowing: Some metatheoretical implications for consciousness and control. Consciousness and cognition, 9(2), 149–171. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Subjective confidence in one’s answers: the consensuality principle. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34(4), 945–959.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koriat, A., & Ackerman, R. (2010). Metacognition and mindreading: Judgments of learning for self and other during self-paced study. Consciousness and cognition, 19(1), 251–264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koriat, A., & Levy-Sadot, R. (1999). Processes underlying metacognitive judgments: Information-based and experience-based monitoring of one’s own knowledge. In S. Chaïken & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual Process theories in social psychology (pp. 483–502). New York: Guilford.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koriat, A., Ma’ayan, H., & Nussinson, R. (2006). The intricate relationships between monitoring and control in metacognition: lessons for the cause-and-effect relation between subjective experience and behavior. Journal of experimental psychology: general, 135(1), 36–69. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koriat, A., Nussinson, R., Bless, H., & Shaked, N. (2008). Information-based and experience-based metacognitive judgments: Evidence from subjective confidence. In J. Dunloski and R. A. Bjork, (eds.) A Handbook of Memory and Metamemory, Psychology Press, 117–136.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kornell, N., Son, L. K., & Terrace, H. S. (2007). Transfer of metacognitive skills and hint seeking in monkeys. Psychological Science, 18(1), 64–71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuchling, F., Fields, C., & Levin, M. (2022). Metacognition as a consequence of competing evolutionary time scales. Entropy, 24(5), 601. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kurzban, R., Duckworth, A., Kable, J. W., & Myers, J. (2013). An opportunity cost model of subjective effort and task performance. Behavioral and brain sciences, 36(6), 661–679. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lage, C. A., Wolmarans, D. W., & Mograbi, D. C. (2022). An evolutionary view of self-awareness. Behavioural Processes, 1941, 104543. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lak, A., Stauffer, W. R., & Schultz, W. (2014). Dopamine prediction error responses integrate subjective value from different reward dimensions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(6), 2343–2348. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambert, M. L., & Osvath, M. (2020). Investigating information seeking in ravens (Corvus corax). Animal Cognition, 23(4), 671–680. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lameira, A. R. (2017). Bidding evidence for primate vocal learning and the cultural substrates for speech evolution. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 831, 429–439. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2008). Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriately for knowledgeable and ignorant partners. Cognition, 108(3), 732–739. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macedonia, J. M., & Evans, C. S. (1993). Essay on contemporary issues in ethology: Variation among mammalian alarm call systems and the problem of meaning in animal signals. Ethology, 93(3), 177–197. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Magrath, R. D., Haff, T. M., Horn, A. G., & Leonard, M. L. (2010). Calling in the face of danger. Predation risk and acoustic communication by parent birds and their offspring. In J. C. Mitani, H. J. Brockman, T. J. Roper, M. Naguib & K. E. Wynne-Edwards (Eds.), Advances in the Study of Behavior (Vol. 411, pp. 187–253). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Margoliash, D., & Nusbaum, H. C. (2009). Language: the perspective from organismal biology. Trends in cognitive sciences, 13(12), 505–510. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marler, P. (1967). Animal Communication Signals: We are beginning to understand how the structure of animal signals relates to the function they serve. Science, 157(3790), 769–774. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marler, P., Karakashian, S., & Gyger, M. (1991). Do animals have the option of withholding signals when communication is inappropriate? The audience effect. In C. A. Ristau (Ed.), Cognitive ethology: The minds of other animals: Essays in honor of Donald R. Griffin (pp. 187–208). Mawah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. & Harper, D. (2003). Animal signals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Middlebrooks, P. G., & Sommer, M. A. (2012). Neuronal correlates of metacognition in primate frontal cortex. Neuron, 75(3), 517–530. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Miller, C. T. & Thomas, A. W. (2012). Individual recognition during bouts of antiphonal calling in common marmosets. Journal of Comparative Physiology, 1981: 337–346. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Millikan, R. (1984) Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories , Cambridge, Mass:MIT press (ISBN 978-0262631150) Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Millikan, R. G. (2005). Language: A biological model. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Millikan, R. G. (2017). Beyond concepts: Unicepts, language, and natural information. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mitani, J. C., & Watts, D. P. (2005). Correlates of territorial boundary patrol behaviour in wild chimpanzees. Animal Behaviour, 70(5), 1079–1086. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moore, R. (2016). Meaning and ostension in great ape gestural communication. Animal Cognition, 19(1), 223–231. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morales, J., Lau, H., & Fleming, S. M. (2018). Domain-general and domain-specific patterns of activity supporting metacognition in human prefrontal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 38(14), 3534–3546. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nowicki, S., & Searcy, W. A. (2005). Song and mate choice in birds: how the development of behavior helps us understand function. The Auk, 122(1), 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ouattara, K., Lemasson, A., & Zuberbühler, K. (2009). Campbell’s monkeys use affixation to alter call meaning. PloS one, 4(11), e7808. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oudeyer, P. Y., & Smith, L. B. (2016). How evolution may work through curiosity-driven developmental process. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8(2), 492–502. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Paulus, M., Proust, J., & Sodian, B. (2013). Examining implicit metacognition in 3.5-year-old children: An eye-tracking and pupillometric study. Frontiers in Psychology, 41, 145. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petkov, C. I., & Jarvis, E. D. (2012). Birds, primates, and spoken language origins: behavioral phenotypes and neurobiological substrates. Frontiers in evolutionary neuroscience, 41, 12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pezzulo, G., & Cisek, P. (2016). Navigating the affordance landscape: feedback control as a process model of behavior and cognition. Trends in cognitive sciences, 20(6), 414–424. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pinto, A., Oates, J., Grutter, A., & Bshary, R. (2011). Cleaner wrasses Labroides dimidiatus are more cooperative in the presence of an audience. Current Biology, 21(13), 1140–1144. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Planer, R. (2017a). Talking About Tools: Did Early Pleistocene Hominins Have a Protolanguage? Biological Theory, 121, 211–221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017b). Protolanguage might have evolved before ostensive communication. Biological Theory, 121, 72–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poole, J. H., Tyack, P. L., Stoeger-Horwath, A. S., & Watwood, S. (2005). Elephants are capable of vocal learning. Nature, 434(7032), 455–456. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Proust, J. (2012). Metacognition and mindreading: one or two functions? in: M. Beran, J. Brandl, J. Perner & J. Proust (Eds.), The Foundations of Metacognition (pp. 234–251). Oxford: Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2013). The Philosophy of Metacognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2015). Time and action: Impulsivity, habit, strategy. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 6(4), 717–743. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). The evolution of primate communication and metacommunication. Mind & Language, 31(2), 177–203. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). From comparative studies to interdisciplinary research on metacognition. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 6(4), 309–328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2022). The cultural evolution of information seeking, Journal of Cognition and Culture, 22(5), 467–484.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023). A semantics for affordances, Philosophical Psychology.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pulvermüller, F., & Grisoni, L. (2020). Semantic prediction in brain and mind. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(10), 781–784. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reboul, A. (2011). A relevance-theoretic account of the evolution of implicit communication. Studies in Pragmatics, 13(1), 1–19.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rendall, D., Owren, M. J., & Ryan, M. J. (2009). What do animal signals mean?. Animal Behaviour, 78(2), 233–240. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rhodes, M. G., & Castel, A. D. (2009). Metacognitive illusions for auditory information: Effects on monitoring and control. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16(3), 550–554. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roberts, C. (2012). Information Structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. Semantics and Pragmatics, 5(0), 61:1–69. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roberts, W. A., Feeney, M. C., McMillan, N., MacPherson, K., Musolino, E., & Petter, M. (2009). Do pigeons (Columba livia) study for a test? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 351, 129–142.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roberts, W. A., McMillan, N., Musolino, E., & Cole, M. (2012). Information seeking in animals: metacognition?. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 71, 85–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosati, A. G., & Santos, L. R. (2016). Spontaneous metacognition in rhesus monkeys. Psychological Science, 27(9), 1181–1191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Salmi, R., Szczupider, M., & Carrigan, J. (2022). A novel attention-getting vocalization in zoo-housed western gorillas. Plos one, 17(8), e0271871. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santi, A., Adams, A., & Bassett, J. (2010). The role of keypecking during filled intervals on the judgment of time for empty and filled intervals by pigeons. Learning & Behavior, 38(1), 42–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scarantino, A., & Clay, Z. (2015). Contextually variable signals can be functionally referential. Animal Behaviour, 100(100), e1–e8. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schel, A. M., Candiotti, A., & Zuberbühler, K. (2010). Predator-deterring alarm call sequences in Guereza colobus monkeys are meaningful to conspecifics. Animal Behaviour, 80(5), 799–808. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schlenker, P. (2018). Iconic pragmatics. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 36(3), 877–936. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schlenker, P., Chemla, E., & Zuberbühler, K. (2016). What do monkey calls mean?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(12), 894–904. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwartz, B. L. (2019). Using natural ecology to predict higher cognition in human and non-human primates. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 6(4), 344–354. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (2007). Feelings and phenomenal experiences. In A. W. Kruglanski, & Higgins, (Eds.). (2013). Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 385–407). New York: Guilford.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scott-Phillips, T. C. (2016). Meaning in great ape communication: summarising the debate. Animal Cognition, 19(1), 233–238. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seyfarth, R. M., & Cheney, D. L. (2003). Signallers and recipients in animal communication. Annual review of psychology, 54(1), 145–173. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shea, N., Boldt, A., Bang, D., Yeung, N., Heyes, C., & Frith, C. D. (2014). Supra-personal cognitive control and metacognition. Trends in cognitive sciences, 18(4), 186–193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shea, N., Godfrey-Smith, P., & Cao, R. (2018). Content in simple signalling systems. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 691, 4. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sherman, P. W. (1977). Nepotism and the Evolution of Alarm Calls: Alarm calls of Belding’s ground squirrels warn relatives, and thus are expressions of nepotism. Science, 197(4310), 1246–1253. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Skyrms, B. (2010). Signals: Evolution, Learning, and Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slocombe, K. E., & Zuberbühler, K. (2007). Chimpanzees modify recruitment screams as a function of audience composition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(43), 17228–17233. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperber, D. (2000). Metarepresentations in an evolutionary perspective. In D. Sperber (ed.), Metarepresentations: A multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 117–137). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2019). Personal notes on a shared trajectory. In K. Scott, B. Clark & R. Carston (Eds.), Relevance, Pragmatics and Interpretation (pp. 13–20). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1986/1995). Relevance: Communication and cognition (Vol. 1421). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2002). Pragmatics, modularity and mind-reading. Mind & language, 17(1–2), 3–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sterelny, K. (2016). Cumulative cultural evolution and the origins of language. Biological Theory, 11(3), 173–186. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sutton, J. E., & Shettleworth, S. J. (2008). Memory without awareness: pigeons do not show metamemory in delayed matching to sample. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 34(2), 266–282.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suzuki, T. N. (2016). Semantic communication in birds: evidence from field research over the past two decades. Ecological Research, 31(3), 307–319. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Takahashi, D. Y., Fenley, A. R., Teramoto, Y., Narayanan, D. Z., Borjon, J. I., Holmes, P., & Ghazanfar, A. A. (2015). The developmental dynamics of marmoset monkey vocal production. Science, 349(6249), 734–738. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tang, H., Costa, V. D., Bartolo, R., and Averbeck, B. B. (2022). Differential coding of goals and actions in ventral and dorsal corticostriatal circuits during goal-directed behavior. Cell Reports 381, 110198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Terrace, H. S., & Son, L. K. (2009). Comparative metacognition. Current opinion in neurobiology, 19(1), 67–74. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tian, J., Huang, R., Cohen, J. Y., Osakada, F., Kobak, D., Machens, C. K., & Watabe-Uchida, M. (2016). Distributed and mixed information in monosynaptic inputs to dopamine neurons. Neuron, 91(6), 1374–1389. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Townsend, S. W., Koski, S. E., Byrne, R. W., Slocombe, K. E., Bickel, B., Boeckle, M., … & Manser, M. B. (2017). Exorcising Grice’s ghost: An empirical approach to studying intentional communication in animals. Biological Reviews, 92(3), 1427–1433. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tsujimoto, S., Genovesio, A., & Wise, S. P. (2010). Evaluating self-generated decisions in frontal pole cortex of monkeys. Nature neuroscience, 13(1), 120–126. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Schaik, C. P., Pradhan, G. R., & Tennie, C. (2019). Teaching and curiosity: sequential drivers of cumulative cultural evolution in the hominin lineage. Behavioral ecology and sociobiology, 73(1), 1–11. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Watanabe, A., & Clayton, N. S. (2016). Hint-seeking behaviour of western scrub-jays in a metacognition task. Animal cognition, 19(1), 53–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wheeler, B. C., & Fischer, J. (2012). Functionally referential signals: a promising paradigm whose time has passed. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 21(5), 195–205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whiten, A., & Byrne, R. W. (1988). Tactical deception in primates. Behavioral and brain sciences, 11(2), 233–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(Eds.). (1997). Machiavellian intelligence II: Extensions and evaluations. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wich, S. A., Krützen, M., Lameira, A. R., Nater, A., Arora, N., Bastian, M. L., … & van Schaik, C. P. (2012). Call cultures in orang-utans?. PLoS one, 7(5), e36180. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wismer, S., Pinto, A. I., Vail, A. L., Grutter, A. S., & Bshary, R. (2014). Variation in cleaner wrasse cooperation and cognition: influence of the developmental environment? Ethology, 120(6), 519–531. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wu, S., Barr, D. J., Gann, T. M., & Keysar, B. (2013). How culture influences perspective taking: differences in correction, not integration. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 71, 822. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Xiao, L., Chattree, G., Oscos, F. G., Cao, M., Wanat, M. J., & Roberts, T. F. (2018). A basal ganglia circuit sufficient to guide birdsong learning. Neuron, 98(1), 208–221. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zakrzewski, A. C., Perdue, B. M., Beran, M. J., Church, B. A., & Smith, J. D. (2014). Cashing out: The decisional flexibility of uncertainty responses in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and humans (Homo sapiens). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 40(4), 490–501.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zuberbühler, K. (2008). Audience effects. Current Biology, 18(5), 189–190. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue