Project description
Exploring the origins of thought, across species
Understanding how humans and animals think has long been a subject of fascination and debate. One question is whether cognition operates through a ‘language of thought’ (LoT), a theory suggesting that mental representations follow a formal, symbolic structure similar to language. While human cognition shows strong evidence for such a system, the existence of a LoT in infants and animals has been less explored. Most studies have focused on humans’ close relatives, such as great apes. The ERC-funded ThoughtOrigins project investigates the developmental and evolutionary roots of LoT by studying humans, baboons, and honeybees. The team will explore how these species process complex thoughts using primitive cognitive operations, offering new insights into the nature of thought.
Objective
How do human infants and non-human animals think? Fodor famously framed the idea that human minds operate in a language-like format, a language of thought (LoT), where mental representations compose in the manner of formal language symbols, allowing us to build arbitrarily complex mental structures out of a small set of initial primitive operations. Through all areas of cognitive science, there has been rich evidence supporting the idea that a LoT could explain many facets of human cognition. Do infants and animals also have a LoT? While the existence of a LoT in the absence of language has been questioned for centuries by philosophers, psychologists and linguists alike, little direct behavioral evidence has been offered for it and these investigations have mainly been confined to close relatives of humans (i.e. great apes). The overarching goal of this project is to adopt a broad comparative approach to study the developmental and evolutionary origins of the LoT. Our approach is at the intersection of linguistics and psychology: we identify the primitive operations of thought from formal semantic principles and operations realized in language, and empirically test them in human adults and infants, baboons (Papio papio), and honeybees (Apis mellifera). We study the computational architecture of the LoT of infants and animals, starting from their ability to perform simple computations using only a few symbols to the more complex abilities to use functional operators, such as logical connectives, quantifiers and modals and to apply pragmatic operations. The outcome of this project will be an unprecedented cartography of possible LoT primitives, and of where they are found in human ontogeny and animal phylogeny.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology mammalogy primatology
- humanities languages and literature linguistics
- natural sciences biological sciences biological morphology comparative morphology
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences physical geography cartography
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology entomology apidology
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
75794 PARIS
France
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