Self-Organization in the Evolution of Speech (Paperback)  | Released: 01 May 2006

Oudeyer combines insights from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and linguistics to explore questions about the origins of speech. He puts forward the startling proposal that speech can be spontaneously generated by the coupling of evolutionarily simple neural structures connecting perception and production. He tests this hypothesis through a computational system and shows that the linking of auditory and vocal motor neural nets produces syntactic rules that exhibit the fundamental properties of modern human speech systems. This fascinating account will interest all those interested in the evolution of speech.About the Author: Pierre-Yves Oudeyer is a researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris. He studies the origins and evolution of language, and is a specialist of computer modelling, including robotic systems, artificial intelligence, and developmental systems. His work on the origins of speech was awarded the French Prix Le Monde de la recherche universitaire, 2004. James R. Hurford is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Semantics (with B. Heasley, 1983), Grammar (1994), and as co-editor Approaches to the Evolution of Language (1998), all published by CUP.