ReviewFrontiers in neuroscience2018
A Brain for Speech. Evolutionary Continuity in Primate and Human Auditory-Vocal Processing.
Review in Frontiers in neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lowering costs for large-scale screening in psychosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis of performance and value of information for speech-based psychiatric evaluation.Revista brasileira de psiquiatria (Sao Paulo, Brazil : 1999)Pooled it
- Synchronization patterns reveal neuronal coding of working memory content.Cell reports · 2021Trial
- When artificial intelligence speaks: psychologically adverse effects of the shift from text- to voice-based chatbots.Acta neuropsychiatrica · 2026Article
- From Multimodal Sensorimotor Integration to Semantic Networks: A Phylogenetic Perspective on Speech and Language Evolution.Neurobiology of language (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Review
- Understanding speech in "noise" or free energy minimization in the soundscapes of the anthropocene.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Social Brain Perspectives on the Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience of Human Language.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Evolution of cortical geometry and its link to function, behaviour and ecology.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Multimodal imitative learning and synchrony in cetaceans: A model for speech and singing evolution.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Review
- The evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music: a bottom-up perspective.Primates; journal of primatology · 2022Review
- Is Reduced Visual Processing the Price of Language?Brain sciences · 2022Article
- On the representation of hierarchical structure: Revisiting Darwin's musical protolanguage.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022Article
- Faces and Voices Processing in Human and Primate Brains: Rhythmic and Multimodal Mechanisms Underlying the Evolution and Development of Speech.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- Individual Variability in Functional Organization of the Human and Monkey Auditory Cortex.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2021Article
- EMG-Free Monitorization of the Acoustic Startle Reflex with a Mobile Phone: Implications of Sound Parameters with Posture Related Responses.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- The phonological loop: is speech special?Experimental brain research · 2020Article
- Music and Language in Social Interaction: Synchrony, Antiphony, and Functional Origins.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In this review article, I propose a continuous evolution from the auditory-vocal apparatus and its mechanisms of neural control in non-human primates, to the peripheral organs and the neural control of human speech. Although there is an overall conservatism both in peripheral systems and in central neural circuits, a few changes were critical for the expansion of vocal plasticity and the elaboration of proto-speech in early humans. Two of the most relevant changes were the acquisition of direct cortical control of the vocal fold musculature and the consolidation of an auditory-vocal articulatory circuit, encompassing auditory areas in the temporoparietal junction and prefrontal and motor areas in the frontal cortex. This articulatory loop, also referred to as the phonological loop, enhanced vocal working memory capacity, enabling early humans to learn increasingly complex utterances. The auditory-vocal circuit became progressively coupled to multimodal systems conveying information about objects and events, which gradually led to the acquisition of modern speech. Gestural communication accompanies the development of vocal communication since very early in human evolution, and although both systems co-evolved tightly in the beginning, at some point speech became the main channel of communication.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.