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Brandl E, Mace R, Heyes C. The cultural evolution of teaching. EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES 2023; 5:e14. [PMID: 37587942 PMCID: PMC10426124 DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2023.14] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2022] [Revised: 02/22/2023] [Accepted: 04/18/2023] [Indexed: 08/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Teaching is an important process of cultural transmission. Some have argued that human teaching is a cognitive instinct - a form of 'natural cognition' centred on mindreading, shaped by genetic evolution for the education of juveniles, and with a normative developmental trajectory driven by the unfolding of a genetically inherited predisposition to teach. Here, we argue instead that human teaching is a culturally evolved trait that exhibits characteristics of a cognitive gadget. Children learn to teach by participating in teaching interactions with socialising agents, which shape their own teaching practices. This process hijacks psychological mechanisms involved in prosociality and a range of domain-general cognitive abilities, such as reinforcement learning and executive function, but not a suite of cognitive adaptations specifically for teaching. Four lines of evidence converge on this hypothesis. The first, based on psychological experiments in industrialised societies, indicates that domain-general cognitive processes are important for teaching. The second and third lines, based on naturalistic and experimental research in small-scale societies, indicate marked cross-cultural variation in mature teaching practice and in the ontogeny of teaching among children. The fourth line indicates that teaching has been subject to cumulative cultural evolution, i.e. the gradual accumulation of functional changes across generations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eva Brandl
- Lise Meitner Research Group BirthRites, Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig 04103, Germany
| | - Ruth Mace
- Department of Anthropology, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
| | - Cecilia Heyes
- All Souls College and Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 4AL, UK
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Pulina G. Anthropocentrism, Natural Harmony, Sentience and Animal Rights: Are We Allowed to Use Animals for Our Own Purposes? Animals (Basel) 2023; 13:ani13061083. [PMID: 36978624 PMCID: PMC10044520 DOI: 10.3390/ani13061083] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2023] [Revised: 03/13/2023] [Accepted: 03/15/2023] [Indexed: 03/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Taking a cue from J.W. Yates' recent work on animal sentience published in this journal, which explores the field and categorizes it as a harmony with nature and a recognition of its values, inferring that the inclusion of animals in the sphere of objective rights is the obligatory step for a real sustainability in all human activities, this opinion paper seeks to challenge some of the claims made in the article and present an alternative perspective on sentience and animal rights. Preliminarily, I propose a semantic word-washing and the use of more precise terms instead of not well-defined ones such as "harmony" in relation to nature and "sentience" in relation to animals, and I affirm that there can be only one point of view, however rich in dialectics, which is the human one for looking at the problems of animal ethics. Below, I present the thesis that concludes that it is not possible to attribute rights to animals, but it is our right and duty to protect their well-being, which requires states to pass laws for their defence. I conclude that while it is acceptable to raise animals for priority human rights (such as food and health), it is also an obligation to properly care for and protect them.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giuseppe Pulina
- Agraria Department, University of Sassari, 07100 Sassari, Italy
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3
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The co-evolution of cooperation and communication: Alternative accounts. Behav Brain Sci 2023; 46:e11. [PMID: 36799054 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x22000772] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/18/2023]
Abstract
We challenge the proposal that partner-choice ecology explains the evolutionary emergence of ostensive communication in humans. The good fit between these domains might be because of the opposite relation (ostensive communication promotes the evolution of cooperation) or because of the dependence of both these human-specific traits on a more ancient contributor to human cognitive evolution: the use of technology.
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Asano R. The evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music: a bottom-up perspective. Primates 2021; 63:417-428. [PMID: 33839984 PMCID: PMC9463250 DOI: 10.1007/s10329-021-00905-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/08/2020] [Accepted: 03/26/2021] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Abstract
A central property of human language is its hierarchical structure. Humans can flexibly combine elements to build a hierarchical structure expressing rich semantics. A hierarchical structure is also considered as playing a key role in many other human cognitive domains. In music, auditory-motor events are combined into hierarchical pitch and/or rhythm structure expressing affect. How did such a hierarchical structure building capacity evolve? This paper investigates this question from a bottom-up perspective based on a set of action-related components as a shared basis underlying cognitive capacities of nonhuman primates and humans. Especially, I argue that the evolution of hierarchical structure building capacity for language and music is tractable for comparative evolutionary study once we focus on the gradual elaboration of shared brain architecture: the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits for hierarchical control of goal-directed action and the dorsal pathways for hierarchical internal models. I suggest that this gradual elaboration of the action-related brain architecture in the context of vocal control and tool-making went hand in hand with amplification of working memory, and made the brain ready for hierarchical structure building in language and music.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rie Asano
- Systematic Musicology, Institute of Musicology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
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Changeux JP, Goulas A, Hilgetag CC. A Connectomic Hypothesis for the Hominization of the Brain. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:2425-2449. [PMID: 33367521 PMCID: PMC8023825 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa365] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2020] [Revised: 10/30/2020] [Accepted: 11/02/2020] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Cognitive abilities of the human brain, including language, have expanded dramatically in the course of our recent evolution from nonhuman primates, despite only minor apparent changes at the gene level. The hypothesis we propose for this paradox relies upon fundamental features of human brain connectivity, which contribute to a characteristic anatomical, functional, and computational neural phenotype, offering a parsimonious framework for connectomic changes taking place upon the human-specific evolution of the genome. Many human connectomic features might be accounted for by substantially increased brain size within the global neural architecture of the primate brain, resulting in a larger number of neurons and areas and the sparsification, increased modularity, and laminar differentiation of cortical connections. The combination of these features with the developmental expansion of upper cortical layers, prolonged postnatal brain development, and multiplied nongenetic interactions with the physical, social, and cultural environment gives rise to categorically human-specific cognitive abilities including the recursivity of language. Thus, a small set of genetic regulatory events affecting quantitative gene expression may plausibly account for the origins of human brain connectivity and cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jean-Pierre Changeux
- CNRS UMR 3571, Institut Pasteur, 75724 Paris, France
- Communications Cellulaires, Collège de France, 75005 Paris, France
| | - Alexandros Goulas
- Institute of Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center Eppendorf, Hamburg University, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Claus C Hilgetag
- Institute of Computational Neuroscience, University Medical Center Eppendorf, Hamburg University, 20246 Hamburg, Germany
- Department of Health Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA 02115, USA
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Brand CO, Mesoudi A, Smaldino PE. Analogy as a Catalyst for Cumulative Cultural Evolution. Trends Cogn Sci 2021; 25:450-461. [PMID: 33771450 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.03.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2020] [Revised: 02/19/2021] [Accepted: 03/01/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Analogies, broadly defined, map novel concepts onto familiar concepts, making them essential for perception, reasoning, and communication. We argue that analogy-building served a critical role in the evolution of cumulative culture by allowing humans to learn and transmit complex behavioural sequences that would otherwise be too cognitively demanding or opaque to acquire. The emergence of a protolanguage consisting of simple labels would have provided early humans with the cognitive tools to build explicit analogies and to communicate them to others. This focus on analogy-building can shed new light on the coevolution of cognition and culture and addresses recent calls for better integration of the field of cultural evolution with cognitive science.
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Affiliation(s)
- C O Brand
- Human Behaviour and Cultural Evolution Group, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK.
| | - A Mesoudi
- Human Behaviour and Cultural Evolution Group, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK
| | - P E Smaldino
- Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences, University of California, Merced, CA, USA
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Sukhoverkhov AV, Gontier N. Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level. Biosystems 2021; 200:104325. [DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2020.104325] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2020] [Revised: 11/15/2020] [Accepted: 12/07/2020] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
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Lucas AJ, Kings M, Whittle D, Davey E, Happé F, Caldwell CA, Thornton A. The value of teaching increases with tool complexity in cumulative cultural evolution. Proc Biol Sci 2020. [PMID: 33203332 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1885rspb20201885] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Human cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) is recognized as a powerful ecological and evolutionary force, but its origins are poorly understood. The long-standing view that CCE requires specialized social learning processes such as teaching has recently come under question, and cannot explain why such processes evolved in the first place. An alternative, but largely untested, hypothesis is that these processes gradually coevolved with an increasing reliance on complex tools. To address this, we used large-scale transmission chain experiments (624 participants), to examine the role of different learning processes in generating cumulative improvements in two tool types of differing complexity. Both tool types increased in efficacy across experimental generations, but teaching only provided an advantage for the more complex tools. Moreover, while the simple tools tended to converge on a common design, the more complex tools maintained a diversity of designs. These findings indicate that the emergence of cumulative culture is not strictly dependent on, but may generate selection for, teaching. As reliance on increasingly complex tools grew, so too would selection for teaching, facilitating the increasingly open-ended evolution of cultural artefacts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amanda J Lucas
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Michael Kings
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Devi Whittle
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Emma Davey
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Francesca Happé
- Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, UK
| | | | - Alex Thornton
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
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Lucas AJ, Kings M, Whittle D, Davey E, Happé F, Caldwell CA, Thornton A. The value of teaching increases with tool complexity in cumulative cultural evolution. Proc Biol Sci 2020; 287:20201885. [PMID: 33203332 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1885] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Human cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) is recognized as a powerful ecological and evolutionary force, but its origins are poorly understood. The long-standing view that CCE requires specialized social learning processes such as teaching has recently come under question, and cannot explain why such processes evolved in the first place. An alternative, but largely untested, hypothesis is that these processes gradually coevolved with an increasing reliance on complex tools. To address this, we used large-scale transmission chain experiments (624 participants), to examine the role of different learning processes in generating cumulative improvements in two tool types of differing complexity. Both tool types increased in efficacy across experimental generations, but teaching only provided an advantage for the more complex tools. Moreover, while the simple tools tended to converge on a common design, the more complex tools maintained a diversity of designs. These findings indicate that the emergence of cumulative culture is not strictly dependent on, but may generate selection for, teaching. As reliance on increasingly complex tools grew, so too would selection for teaching, facilitating the increasingly open-ended evolution of cultural artefacts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amanda J Lucas
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Michael Kings
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Devi Whittle
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Emma Davey
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
| | - Francesca Happé
- Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, King's College London, London SE5 8AF, UK
| | | | - Alex Thornton
- Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus TR10 9FE, UK
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Supporting the weight of the elephant in the room: Technical intelligence propped up by social cognition and language. Behav Brain Sci 2020; 43:e179. [PMID: 32772996 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x20000114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
We consider the evolutionary plausibility of Osiurak and Reynaud's (O&R) arguments. We argue that technical reasoning is not quite the magic bullet that O&R assume, and instead propose a co-evolutionary account of the interplay between technical reasoning and social learning, with language emerging as a vital issue neglected in O&R's account.
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Prieur J, Barbu S, Blois‐Heulin C, Lemasson A. The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2019; 95:531-554. [DOI: 10.1111/brv.12576] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2019] [Revised: 11/30/2019] [Accepted: 12/03/2019] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jacques Prieur
- Department of Education and PsychologyComparative Developmental Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin Berlin Germany
- Univ Rennes, Normandie Univ, CNRS, EthoS (Ethologie animale et humaine) – UMR 6552 F‐35380 Paimpont France
| | - Stéphanie Barbu
- Univ Rennes, Normandie Univ, CNRS, EthoS (Ethologie animale et humaine) – UMR 6552 F‐35380 Paimpont France
| | - Catherine Blois‐Heulin
- Univ Rennes, Normandie Univ, CNRS, EthoS (Ethologie animale et humaine) – UMR 6552 F‐35380 Paimpont France
| | - Alban Lemasson
- Univ Rennes, Normandie Univ, CNRS, EthoS (Ethologie animale et humaine) – UMR 6552 F‐35380 Paimpont France
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Kolodny O, Edelman S. The evolution of the capacity for language: the ecological context and adaptive value of a process of cognitive hijacking. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2018; 373:rstb.2017.0052. [PMID: 29440518 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0052] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/12/2017] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Language plays a pivotal role in the evolution of human culture, yet the evolution of the capacity for language-uniquely within the hominin lineage-remains little understood. Bringing together insights from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, archaeology and behavioural ecology, we hypothesize that this singular occurrence was triggered by exaptation, or 'hijacking', of existing cognitive mechanisms related to sequential processing and motor execution. Observed coupling of the communication system with circuits related to complex action planning and control supports this proposition, but the prehistoric ecological contexts in which this coupling may have occurred and its adaptive value remain elusive. Evolutionary reasoning rules out most existing hypotheses regarding the ecological context of language evolution, which focus on ultimate explanations and ignore proximate mechanisms. Coupling of communication and motor systems, although possible in a short period on evolutionary timescales, required a multi-stepped adaptive process, involving multiple genes and gene networks. We suggest that the behavioural context that exerted the selective pressure to drive these sequential adaptations had to be one in which each of the systems undergoing coupling was independently necessary or highly beneficial, as well as frequent and recurring over evolutionary time. One such context could have been the teaching of tool production or tool use. In the present study, we propose the Cognitive Coupling hypothesis, which brings together these insights and outlines a unifying theory for the evolution of the capacity for language.This article is part of the theme issue 'Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Oren Kolodny
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Shimon Edelman
- Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-7601, USA
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Teaching to make stone tools: new experimental evidence supporting a technological hypothesis for the origins of language. Sci Rep 2017; 7:14394. [PMID: 29089534 PMCID: PMC5663762 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-14322-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 45] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2017] [Accepted: 10/09/2017] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
The relationship between lithic technology, learning and language is a topic of growing interest in human evolution studies, and has therefore been the subject of numerous scientific papers in recent years. To evaluate the role of language in the social transmission of lithic technology, we designed and developed an experimental protocol through which we compared the acquisition of knapping skills in thirty non-experts in the early stages of learning, by means of three mechanisms of social transmission: imitation-emulation, gestural communication, and verbal communication. All the apprentice knappers carried out the experimental task with blanks that were equal in shape and size, and were requested to replicate what the expert knapper was doing: the alternating method, a sufficiently simple, but systematic technique for detaching flakes from a core. We analysed each participant’s actions, including those of the master knapper, the final products (flakes and cores), and the knapping sequences, by analysing the refits. Our results show that the apprentices improved their knapping skills in teaching conditions -both gestural and verbal communication-, and specially through the latter. In conclusion, our study supports the hypothesis of co-evolution between lithic technology and social learning, which could have favoured the emergence of verbal language.
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The evolution of cognitive mechanisms in response to cultural innovations. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2017; 114:7915-7922. [PMID: 28739938 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1620742114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/15/2022] Open
Abstract
When humans and other animals make cultural innovations, they also change their environment, thereby imposing new selective pressures that can modify their biological traits. For example, there is evidence that dairy farming by humans favored alleles for adult lactose tolerance. Similarly, the invention of cooking possibly affected the evolution of jaw and tooth morphology. However, when it comes to cognitive traits and learning mechanisms, it is much more difficult to determine whether and how their evolution was affected by culture or by their use in cultural transmission. Here we argue that, excluding very recent cultural innovations, the assumption that culture shaped the evolution of cognition is both more parsimonious and more productive than assuming the opposite. In considering how culture shapes cognition, we suggest that a process-level model of cognitive evolution is necessary and offer such a model. The model employs relatively simple coevolving mechanisms of learning and data acquisition that jointly construct a complex network of a type previously shown to be capable of supporting a range of cognitive abilities. The evolution of cognition, and thus the effect of culture on cognitive evolution, is captured through small modifications of these coevolving learning and data-acquisition mechanisms, whose coordinated action is critical for building an effective network. We use the model to show how these mechanisms are likely to evolve in response to cultural phenomena, such as language and tool-making, which are associated with major changes in data patterns and with new computational and statistical challenges.
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