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Speech is the physical signal used to convey spoken language. Because of its physical nature, speech is both easier to compare with other species' behaviors and easier to study in the fossil record than other aspects of language. Here I argue that convergent fossil evidence indicates adaptations for complex vocalizations at least as early as the common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans. Furthermore, I argue that it is unlikely that language evolved separately from speech, but rather that gesture, speech, and song coevolved to provide both a multimodal communication system and a musical system. Moreover, coevolution must also have played a role by allowing both cognitive and anatomical adaptations to language and speech to evolve in parallel. Although such a coevolutionary scenario is complex, it is entirely plausible from a biological point of view.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1130-6 | DOI Listing |
BMC Med Educ
September 2025
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, 171 77, Sweden.
Background: Health professions students may encounter a range of stressors during their clinical education that may impact their quality of life. This study aimed to explore how various health professions students perceive their quality of life and the environment in which they develop their clinical skills.
Methods: An online survey was administered among registered undergraduate students in the physiotherapy, speech-language pathology, nursing, or medical programs.
Ann N Y Acad Sci
September 2025
BCBL, Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Donostia, Spain.
Neural tracking, the alignment of brain activity with the temporal dynamics of sensory input, is a crucial mechanism underlying perception, attention, and cognition. While this concept has gained prominence in research on speech, music, and visual processing, its definition and methodological approaches remain heterogeneous. This paper critically examines neural tracking from both theoretical and methodological perspectives, highlighting how its interpretation varies across studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJMIR Res Protoc
September 2025
School of Rehabilitation Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.
Background: In Canada, the Indigenous population is the youngest and fastest growing, yet ongoing health disparities for Indigenous peoples are widely recognized. There is a concerning lack of research on childhood disabilities and health conditions in Indigenous populations in Canada. For children with disabilities and chronic health conditions, ongoing access to rehabilitation services, such as occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech-language pathology, and audiology, is critical in promoting positive health and developmental outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnnu Rev Med
September 2025
3Department of Anatomy and Physiology, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Chronic cough can coexist with or without pulmonary and extrapulmonary conditions and can be refractory to therapies that improve these associated conditions. It is underlined by cough hypersensitivity, which is characterized by increased cough responses to stimuli that affect the airways and vagally innervated tissues as well as by excessive cough responses to innocuous stimuli, and it is caused by neuroinflammatory and neuropathic mechanisms at both peripheral and central levels. The management of chronic cough starts with exclusion of associated conditions, followed by use of neuromodulators and speech and language therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
September 2025
Charles Sturt University, Albury-Wodonga, New South Wales, Australia.
Effectively motivating public action on climate change remains a central challenge for science communicators. This study investigated how message and messenger attributes shape viewers' motivation to act on climate change, and whether these effects vary as a function of political orientation. Using a policy-capturing design, 581 U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF