Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site iddic.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!iddic!dorettas
From: dorettas@iddic.UUCP (Doretta Schrock)
Newsgroups: net.sci,net.kids
Subject: Re: primate crying; language, reference articles [a little long :-]
Message-ID: <2195@iddic.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 21-Sep-85 20:31:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: iddic.2195
Posted: Sat Sep 21 20:31:04 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 23-Sep-85 00:26:16 EDT
References: <303@bcsaic.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 44
Xref: watmath net.sci:423 net.kids:2077

> We have an 8 week old baby boy who spends a certain amount of his
> time crying.  In one of the baby books it states that babies of this
> age cry about 3 hours a day.  I was wondering if other primates cry,
> and, if so, do they do it to the same degree.  If human babies cry
> to a greater extent this would give some support for the idea that
> crying is language preparation.
> 
> 	Doug Schuler

I believe (I can't find the book to be sure) that Jane Goodall relates
stories of gorillas and/or chimps crying, particularly in the case of an
infant in the group dying.  This would be crying in adult apes, not
infants, though.
Crying in humans is certainly used for communicative purposes from very
early on (as is smiling (no it isn't "gas" :-), etc.), though I don't know 
if you could call this language or language-like.  At 8 weeks a child is 
still neurologically immature, in terms of cerebral development, so their 
affective behavior is fairly limited.  There are (of course) about a zillion 
articles dealing with this sort of thing.  Since I'm already here, and since 
I have done a certain amount of reading in this area, I'm going to go ahead 
and plug my own favorite:
	"The Emergence of Emotions and the Development of Consciousness
	 In Infancy" in _The Psychobiology of Consciousness_ by C. Izard
	Edited by Davidson & Davidson (Plenum Press, NY 1980)
This is one of very few articles that encompasses nearly all the facets
of the development of consciousness in early childhood (environmental, 
neurological, genetic, etc.) and is still "correct" according to current 
theory.
  The only other *really* good paper I was able to find (in doing a review
for my own paper "The Neurological Correlates of the Emergence of 
Consciousness" (*ahem* :-)) is titled "The Neuropsychology of Development: 
Hemispheric Laterality, Limbic Language, and the Origin of Thought" by 
Rhawn Joseph (male? female? if anyone knows, please e-mail me!) in the 
Journal of Clinical Psychology, Vol 38 (1982), pp.5-30.  This is a pretty
theoretical article that further work will show to be more or less correct; 
it is nevertheless, a highly seminal work that deserves attention.  It
deals with the development of consciousness and the internal running monologue
as phenomena emerging from some specific attributes of cerebral development.
If you're up to it, a really excellent and wide-ranging view of consciousness.

Whew! My longest posting yet!

		Mike Sellers
		(soon to get a new net address, but this is good for now)


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com