One of the most fundamental questions in cognitive science pertains to how the mind emerges and develops, that is, what is the origin of mind? In this article we use comparative data to contribute to ...three important questions about the origin of human and nonhuman minds: ( a) which human psychological traits are ancestral and which ones are derived (i.e., which traits can we assume to be unique to humans), ( b) whether language has a role in developing psychological abilities, and ( c) what the cognitive architecture of animal minds looks like. Based on our selective review, we conclude that ( a) deductive reasoning, rather than relational or belief reasoning, is so far the best candidate for a human-unique derived cognitive ability, ( b) language and symbolic representation are not necessary for the emergence of conceptual and abstract thinking, and ( c) support for a modular cognitive architecture in animals is mixed.
The article shows the life work of one of the key figures of the so-called cognitive revolution, Jacques Mehler, who was one of the most successful European researchers in the field of the ...development of the human mind, especially the development of language. The article presents the main assumptions of classical cognitive science – the modularity of the mind and the role of nature and nurture in the development and functioning of the mind – and describes which insights into the functioning of the mind have been enabled by Mehler’s empirical research over the past decades. New findings that have changed cognitive science over the last two decades and that have partly influenced his work are also briefly presented . The way in which Mehler has repeatedly integrated these new insights into his work can represent one of the models of the synthesis of empirical and theoretical research.
One sceptical rejoinder to those who claim that sensory perception is cognitively penetrable is to appeal to the involvement of spatial attention. While the sceptic is correct that some putative ...cases are accurately deflected in this way, the rejoinder oversimplifies the possible roles that attention might play in relevant contexts. This paper identifies alternative ways that selective attention might play a role in cognitive effects on perception. What emerges is a plausible and well-evidenced mental schema that describes attention-mediated cognitive penetration.
Coevolutionary aesthetics has been forming since the early 2010s. Its contribution of great value has been the inclusion of cultural evolution into Darwinian theories on the origins of art and ...aesthetic judgement. Coevolutionary aesthetics – or non-modular evolutionary aesthetics as it is sometimes called – emphasizes that aesthetic behavior develops in a specific social environment. Coevolutionary aesthetics suggests that traditional evolutionary aesthetics, drawing from evolutionary psychology, has ignored this. The critical position stems from the widely accepted notions that humans adapt plastically to changing conditions and that there is no «innate» aesthetic module in the mind. What has not been examined is that modularity itself is often considered a condition for plasticity of mind. My main argument is that aesthetic inference is a metarepresentational module without direct fitness-increasing functions. Coevolutionary and evolutionary psychological aesthetics are thus more complementary than contradictory. Combining modular and coevolutionary thinking is the most consilient way forward in evolutionary aesthetics.
In the present study, we discuss the possibilities of studying and practicing communication to promote health with a perspective based on evolutionary biology. According to this viewpoint, human ...behaviors have proximate and ultimate factors. Although health communication research have focused on proximate factors using behavior change theories and models, proximate factors are only a part of the complex of factors influencing human behavior. To study human behavior entirely, ultimate factors should also be considered. Human minds and behaviors have evolved through natural selection to solve problems associated with survival and reproduction. Humans have needs for survival and reproduction, and by inference, social cooperation and competition. These are the fundamental needs pertaining to the level of ultimate factors for humans. Studies of modularity of mind and dual-process theories of cognitive functioning have shown that fundamental needs affect decision making and behavior. Based on these previous studies, we propose what and how to communicate to support individual and community decisions that enhance health, and implications for cancer control.
In this paper, I explore the relationship between Relevance Theory and Jaszczolt's Default Semantics, framing this debate within the picture of massive modularity tempered by the idea of brain ...plasticity (
Perkins, 2007). While Relevance Theory focuses on processing (see cognitive efforts and contextual effects interplay), Default Semantics focuses on types of sources from which addressees draw information and types of processes that interact in providing it. In particular, I argue that Relevance Theory interacts with default semantics by standardizing inferences which are ultimately compressed (to use a term by
Bach, 1998) into a default semantics. I briefly discuss potential obstacles to the idea of default semantics coming from the experimental pragmatics literature (e.g.
Noveck and Sperber, 2007; Breheny et al., 2005) and I support further the idea of the division of labor default inferences and the inferences derivable through the Principle of Relevance. In the end, I compare Relevance Theory and Default Semantics, in an attempt to come to a more unified picture.
This paper presents research in moral psychology and draws on this research to offer an account of the cognitive systems and processes that generate the perceived objectivity of some moral beliefs. ...It presents empirical research on the perceived objectivity of moral beliefs, compares different algorithms employed by human cognition in the context of model-free and model-based reinforcement learning, and uses concepts drawn from dual-system and modular theories of cognition. The central claim of the account is that belief in the objectivity of some moral beliefs results from certain 'modular' features of cognitive systems.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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