Annual Freeman Lecture: "Evolving a Linguistic Mind: from Grunts to Shakespeare"
Did you ever wonder why talking comes naturally to people, but not to other animals? For its Fourth Annual Donald C. and Margaret H. Freeman lecture, the Linguistics Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites the public to a free lecture on the evolution of human language by Harvard Psychology Professor Marc D. Hauser.
“Professor Hauser is a world famous neuroscientist who has studied the dimensions of mind from animal to man. His work has enabled him to see just where the animal mind and the human mind actually connect, and where they do not. He has probed both mathematical properties of mind, like recursion, and social properties, like the use of moral judgment,” says Thomas Roeper, Professor of Linguistics at UMass Amherst. “It is a great privilege to have him here.”
Professor Hauser has studied communication and learning among several species of primates to answer questions about the evolution of language in humans. His work in this area often involves collaborations with neuroscientists, linguists and developmental psychologists. Professor Hauser is the author of "Wild Minds: what animals really think" (2000) and "The Evolution of Communication" (1996), along with numerous other publications. He is also co-director of the Mind, Brain and Behavior Program at Harvard. A detailed description of his research and a list of publications can be found at http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/%7Emnkylab/Home.html.
The Freeman lectures honor department founder Donald C. Freeman and his wife Margaret H. Freeman and their contributions to Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
