Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination

Abstract

The evolution of language was likely facilitated by a special predisposition for social interaction, involving a set of communicative and cognitive skills summarized as the 'interaction engine'. This assemblage seems to emerge early in development, to be found universally across cultures, and to enable participation in sophisticated joint action through the addition of spoken language. Yet, new evidence on social action coordination and communication in nonhuman primates warrants an update of the interaction engine hypothesis, particularly with respect to the evolutionary origins of its specific ingredients. However, one enduring problem for comparative research results from a conceptual gulf between disciplines, rendering it difficult to test concepts derived from human interaction research in nonhuman animals. The goal of this theme issue is to make such concepts accessible for comparative research, to promote a fruitful interdisciplinary debate on social action coordination as a new arena of research, and to enable mutual fertilization between human and nonhuman interaction research. In consequence, we here consider relevant theoretical and empirical research within and beyond this theme issue to revisit the interaction engine's shared, convergently derived and uniquely derived ingredients preceding (or perhaps in the last case, succeeding) human language. This article is part of the theme issue 'Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination'.

Keywords: comparative research; evolution; joint action; language; primate communication; social interaction.

Figure 1.

Overview of the contributions of this theme issue, indicating for each the covered interaction engine layer(s) and their discussed origins, study species and article type.