--- abstract: 'Human evolution is a multidisciplinary problem, one of its aspects is the origin and development of distinctively human psychological features. Cognitive properties (language, symbolic thinking) are considered as such features and numerous authors hypothesize its evolution. We suggest that the most important human characteristic is connected with motivation rather than cognition; this is the ability to construct and maintain long-term goal-directed processes having no biological basis. Once emerged, this new ability determined evolution. Human language arose from the need to subserve group activities directed at achieving long-term goals. Abstract thinking resulted from the extraction of nonperceptual features through the regular and purposive usage of various objects. The comparison of this hypothesis against other evolutionary models is discussed. ' altloc: [] chapter: ~ commentary: ~ commref: ~ confdates: ~ conference: ~ confloc: ~ contact_email: ~ creators_id: [] creators_name: - family: Prudkov given: Pavel N. honourific: '' lineage: '' date: 2006-03 date_type: published datestamp: 2006-04-29 department: ~ dir: disk0/00/00/11/71 edit_lock_since: ~ edit_lock_until: ~ edit_lock_user: ~ editors_id: [] editors_name: [] eprint_status: archive eprintid: 1171 fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/text_html.png;/1171/1/DHM.htm full_text_status: public importid: ~ institution: ~ isbn: ~ ispublished: unpub issn: ~ item_issues_comment: [] item_issues_count: 0 item_issues_description: [] item_issues_id: [] item_issues_reported_by: [] item_issues_resolved_by: [] item_issues_status: [] item_issues_timestamp: [] item_issues_type: [] keywords: 'evolution, social, motivation, language, symbolic thinking ' lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:28 latitude: ~ longitude: ~ metadata_visibility: show note: ~ number: ~ pagerange: ~ pubdom: FALSE publication: Unpublished publisher: ~ refereed: FALSE referencetext: | Arbib, M. 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