The evolution of speech: a comparative review.

By W. Tecumseh Fitch. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2000

737 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Cultural Studies, Developmental Biology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4dc5174911ea7c074f7706f0e067520c738b615f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cultural Studies

In Developmental Biology

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Seeing and hearing speech excites the motor system involved in speech production. (2003, background): “It has been suggested that the development of vocal imitation was a necessary prerequisite for the evolution of human speech[11].”
Black and White Colobus Monkey (Colobus guereza) Roars as a Source of Both Honest and Exaggerated Information About Body Mass (2006, background): “Many studies and reviews (e.g. Morton 1977; Fitch & Hauser 1995, 2002; Fitch 1997, 2000) have discussed the potential for mammalian vocalizations to provide honest signals of body size.”
Vocal-Tract Resonances as Indexical Cues in Rhesus Monkeys (2007, positive): “Given that neither the vocal apparatuses nor brains of human ancestors fossilize, the comparative method is the only way to investigate the evolution of primate communication [40, 41].”
The Singing Neanderthals: the Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body, by Steven Mithen. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2005. ISBN 0-297-64317-7 hardback £20 & US$25.2; ix+374 pp. (2005, background): “In the case of the fossil record for vocal tract and auditory evolution, the body of literature available is also large, and many relevant analyses of fossil hominins, vocal-tract reconstructions, and evidence of vocal capabilities, are not cited (e.g. Laitman & Heimbuch 1982; Laitman 1984; Magriple”
WHY TALK? SPEAKING AS SELFISH BEHAVIOUR (2006, background): “Though it has been suggested that the larynx may have descended in Homo sapiens sapiens for reasons other than speech (Fitch, 2000), this does not in itself explain further evolutionary developments.”
The contribution of source–filter theory to mammal vocal communication research (2010, background): “Unlike the vocal folds, the vocal tract cannot grow independently of the rest of the body for its development is anatomically constrained by skeletal structures (Fitch, 2000b,c).”
Birdsong, Speech, and Language: Exploring the Evolution of Mind and Brain (2013, positive): “The importance of vocal learning has often been forgotten, but also frequently reaffirmed by later scholars ( Egnor & Hauser, 2004 ; Fitch, 2000 ; Janik & Slater, 1997 ; Marler, 1976 ; Nottebohm, 1976 ).”
The Evolution of Tag-Based Cooperation in Humans (2012, background): “Most important for the tagging properties of accent and dialect is the capacity for vocal imitation (Fitch 2000).”
ABX-Discriminability Measures and Applications. (Mesures de discriminabilité ABX et applications) (2016, background): “First, in terms of evolutionary adaptations to speech in humans, there is clear evidence of changes at the level of the speech production apparatus [149, 150] but not at the level of the speech perception apparatus.”
Vocal indicators of body size in men and women: a meta-analysis (2014, background): “Indeed, selection may have favoured individuals who were able to exaggerate their size by manipulating F0 or formants (Fitch,1999, 2000; Fitch& Reby, 2001; Morton, 1977).”
Vocal Expression of Emotions in Mammals: Mechanisms of Production and Evidence (2012, background): “…length can be achieved by various mechanisms including lips extension, modification of the level of nasalization, and most commonly, retraction of the larynx into the throat (Owren, Seyfarth & Cheney, 1997; Fitch, 2000b; Fitch & Reby, 2001; Harris et al., 2006; McElligott, Birrer & Vannoni, 2006).”
The Evolution of Language: A Comparative Review (2005, neutral): “…the primary limitation is at a neural and not a peripheral anatomical level: the basic vocal tract anatomy of a chimp or monkey, or even a dog or goat, would clearly support many of the phonetic contrasts found in human languages, if a human brain were in control (Lieberman 1968; Fitch 2000b).”
The Effects of Visual Beats on Prosodic Prominence: Acoustic Analyses, Auditory Perception and Visual Perception. (2007, background): “In work on the origin of speech, for instance, various researchers have suggested that language may originally have been encoded in gestures rather than in speech (e.g., Corballis, 1992; Fitch, 2000; Holden, 2004).”
Thinking the voice: neural correlates of voice perception. (2004, background): “Speech appeared recently in evolution as a particularly complex and abstract use of voice by the human species [1, 2 ].”
Vertebrate Sound Production and Acoustic Communication (2016, background): “For primates, the realization that formant frequencies can play important roles signaling size (Fitch 1997 , 2000 ) or individual identity (Rendall et al. 1998 ; Rendall 2003 ) has sparked a renewed interest in the role of formants in primate vocal production (Riede et al. 2005 ; Ey et al. 2007 ;…”
Unpacking “Honesty”: Vertebrate Vocal Production and the Evolution of Acoustic Signals (2003, background): “This descent may subserve the production of high-amplitude calls, because the nasal passageways absorb sound much more than the oral cavity, decreasing the amplitude of nasal calls by about 15 dB relative to oral calls (Hauser 1992, Fitch 2000a).”