RECURSIVITY IS A BY-PRODUCT OF ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING AND WORKING MEMORY CONSTRAINTS: EVIDENCE FROM BABOONS (PAPIO PAPIO)

摘要

Recent hypotheses make the central claim that the ability to produce recursive structures is a critical cognitive feature distinguishing human language from any nonhuman communication system (Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002). During the last decade, this critical claim has been highly debated and submitted to several empirical tests. In the present study, we provide an additional test by showing that after an intensive paired-associate training, baboons (papio papio) spontaneously produce recursive syntactic patterns.