James Arthur Lecture: On the Evolution of the Human Brain

"The evolution of human language presents the greatest challenge for cognitive biology, and opinions vary wildly about the relevance of evidence from animals. Language is widely accepted as our most characteristic and critical cognitive attribute; and it is just too complex to have evolved in a single step, so precursors shared with non-­human primates are to be expected."

Dick Byrne is Research Professor in the School of Psychology at St Andrews University, Scotland, where his work focuses on the evolution of cognitive and social behavior, particularly the origins of distinctively human characteristics.