Phase transitions of brain evolution that produced human language and beyond

Abstract

The brain capacity of human ancestors underwent two phase transitions, which were supported by preadaptations during the animal protolanguage period, resulting in the emergence of human language. The transitions were (1) the emergence of the primate cerebral cortex, with its unique characteristic of additional cortical areas together with size expansion, and (2) the replacement of natural selection as the main evolutionary mechanism by triadic niche construction, an interactive expansion of ecological-, neural-, and cognitive-niches. These phase transitions accelerated the expansion of the hominid brain, exceeding the neural capacity threshold required for the emergence of language. Extrapolating these developments enabled the researchers to predict a third phase transition, which may be induced by the current explosion of artificial intelligence, accelerating human cognitive capacities to the next threshold required for a novel mode of language.

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