PFS disability goes beyond problems with understanding recursive language. This is the disability of one of the mechanisms of active imagination. Nonverbal tasks requiring imagining a novel combination of two or more objects is impossible in this condition. Typical IQ test tasks involving PFS of several objects: (A) requires the combination of two objects. The top two rows of the matrix indicate the rule: “the object in the right column is the result of the combination of the two objects shown in the left and middle row” (the solution in the 5th square). (B) shows a question that relies on the PFS of four objects. (C) shows a question in which PFS of two objects has to be conducted according to the following rule specified in the top row: “the object in the middle column goes on top of the object in the left column” ( the solution in the second square). Note that patients with PFC disability commonly have no problem with simpler performance IQ tasks, such as integration of modifiers (Vyshedskiy et al. 2017a).

 
  Part of: Vyshedskiy A (2019) Language evolution to revolution: the leap from rich-vocabulary non-recursive communication system to recursive language 70,000 years ago was associated with acquisition of a novel component of imagination, called Prefrontal Synthesis, enabled by a mutation that slowed down the prefrontal cortex maturation simultaneously in two or more children – the Romulus and Remus hypothesis. Research Ideas and Outcomes 5: e38546. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.5.e38546