ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2022
The interaction engine: cuteness selection and the evolution of the interactional base for language.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Examining the Link Between Social Affect and Visual Exploration of Cute Stimuli in Autistic Children.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2025Article
- From emotional signals to symbols.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Gesture, spatial cognition and the evolution of language.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2023Review
- What made us "hunter-gatherers of words".Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Toward an evolutionary account of the changes in the human pitch vocal system.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Flexible signalling strategies by victims mediate post-conflict interactions in bonobos.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Social tolerance and interactional opportunities as drivers of gestural redoings in orang-utans.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Every product needs a process: unpacking joint commitment as a process across species.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Sequence organization and embodied mutual orientations: openings of social interactions between baboons.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The deep structural diversity of languages suggests that our language capacities are not based on any single template but rather on an underlying ability and motivation for infants to acquire a culturally transmitted system. The hypothesis is that this ability has an interactional base that has discernable precursors in other primates. In this paper, I explore a specific evolutionary route for the most puzzling aspect of this interactional base in humans, namely the development of an empathetic intentional stance. The route involves a generalization of mother-infant interaction patterns to all adults via a process (cuteness selection) analogous to, but distinct from, RA Fisher's runaway sexual selection. This provides a cornerstone for the carrying capacity for language. This article is part of the theme issue 'Revisiting the human 'interaction engine': comparative approaches to social action coordination'.
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Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.