Research Catalog

Title

The first idea : how symbols, language, and intelligence evolved from our primate ancestors to modern humans / Stanley I. Greenspan, Stuart G. Shanker.

Author

Greenspan, Stanley I.

Publication

Cambridge, MA : Da Capo Press, 2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Shanker, Stuart.

Description

viii, 504 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"In the childhood of every human being, and at the dawn of human history, there is an amazing - and until now unexplained - leap from simple, genetically programmed behavior to symbolic thinking, language, and culture. In The First Idea, Stanley Greenspan and Stuart Shanker explore this missing link and offer new insights into two longstanding questions: how human beings first created symbols and how these abilities initially evolved and were subsequently transmitted and transformed across generations over millions of years." "Drawing on evidence - not only from their research and collaborations comparing the language and intelligence of human infants and apes, but also from the fossil record, neuroscience, and Greenspan's extensive work with children with autism - Greenspan and Shanker offer a radical new direction for evolutionary theory, developmental psychology, and philosophy."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

• Evolutionary psychology
• Cognition
• Human Development
• Anthropology, Cultural
• Biological Evolution
• Hominidae > psychology
• Intelligence
• Language

Note

• "A Merloyd Lawrence book."

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 471-488) and index.

Contents

Ch. 1. Origin of symbols -- Ch. 2. Intellectual growth and transformations of emotions during the course of life -- Ch. 3. The early stages of emotional regulation, engagement, and signaling : nonhuman primates and the earliest hominids -- Ch. 4. Problem-solving collaborations : chimpanzees and early humans -- Ch. 5. Symbols, words, and ideas : Archaic Homo sapiens and early moderns -- Ch. 6. Representation and the beginning of logic : Homo sapiens sapiens -- Ch. 7. The engine of evolution -- Ch. 8. The origins of language -- Ch. 9. The role of emotions in language development -- Ch. 10. Emotions and the development of intelligence -- Ch. 11. How emotional signaling links emotion and cognition and the brain's subsymbolic and symbolic cortical systems : implications for neuroscience and Piaget's cognitive psychology -- Ch. 12. Emotional development derailed : pathways to and from autism -- Ch. 13. The developmental levels of groups, societies, and cultures / Elizabeth Greenspan -- Ch. 14. A new history of History -- Ch. 15. Future evolution : toward a psychology of global interdependency.

ISBN

0738206806 (alk. paper)

LCCN

2004010658

OCLC

• ocm55131380
• SCSB-5142363

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries