Cognitive evolution, as the core subject of fields like paleoanthropology, cognitive archeology, and neuropsychology, has begun to gain more interest in psychology in recent years. Executive ...functions are viewed from the perspective of cognitive evolution as basic advancements that are crucial to the evolution of language and contemporary cognition. As a metaphor, executive functions refer to advanced cognitive processes (working memory, inhibition, organization, cognitive flexibility, etc.) in the context of complex goal-directed behaviors. Sophisticated cognitive traits like executive functions emerged because of solutions to adaptive issues (survival, reproduction, and social group life) that human ancestors confronted over millions of years and passed them on to their offspring. Although it is accepted that Homo sapiens owes its evolutionary success to Paleolithic living conditions, explaining this process has not always been easy. In this review article, general information about executive functions is presented, followed by a review of scientific explanations about the evolution of executive functions. Evaluations have shown that these alternative scientific explanations based on archaeological, anthropological, and neuropsychological evidence for the evolutionary origins of executive functions do not fit all the pieces of the puzzle. It is believed that novel research models will clarify which of these alternative explanations are proximate causes and which are ultimate causes.
The challenge of studying human cognitive evolution is identifying unique features of our intelligence while explaining the processes by which they arose. Comparisons with nonhuman apes point to our ...early-emerging cooperative-communicative abilities as crucial to the evolution of all forms of human cultural cognition, including language. The human self-domestication hypothesis proposes that these early-emerging social skills evolved when natural selection favored increased in-group prosociality over aggression in late human evolution. As a by-product of this selection, humans are predicted to show traits of the domestication syndrome observed in other domestic animals. In reviewing comparative, developmental, neurobiological, and paleoanthropological research, compelling evidence emerges for the predicted relationship between unique human mentalizing abilities, tolerance, and the domestication syndrome in humans. This synthesis includes a review of the first a priori test of the self-domestication hypothesis as well as predictions for future tests.
What are the origins of intelligent behavior? The demands associated with living in complex social groups have been the favored explanation for the evolution of primate cognition in general and human ...cognition in particular. However, recent comparative research indicates that ecological variation can also shape cognitive abilities. I synthesize the emerging evidence that ‘foraging cognition’ – skills used to exploit food resources, including spatial memory, decision-making, and inhibitory control – varies adaptively across primates. These findings provide a new framework for the evolution of human cognition, given our species’ dependence on costly, high-value food resources. Understanding the origins of the human mind will require an integrative theory accounting for how humans are unique in both our sociality and our ecology.
Les découvertes archéologiques décrivant les premières gravures abstraites et l’ornementation du corps, à travers les objets de parure et l’utilisation de pigments, suggèrent que l’utilisation de ...signes et/ou de symboles n’est pas circonscrite à Homo sapiens. Nous plaçant dans une perspective neuroarchéologique, notre étude vise à inférer les bases neurales nécessaires à l’apparition de ces premiers comportements symboliques. Nous avons utilisé l’Imagerie par Résonance Magnétique fonctionnelle, qui permet d’enregistrer l’activité cérébrale de participants, lorsque nous leur présentions des stimuli issus d’innovations culturelles potentiellement symboliques. Il s’agissait de versions schématiques et de photographies des premières gravures paléolithiques, puis de visages culturellement ornementés avec des perles en bois et des traits de peinture rouge. Leur perception engageait des aires cérébrales visuelles associatives. Le réseau de la saillance était mobilisé pour attribuer une origine humaine aux motifs abstraits ou un statut social à partir de visages ornementés. Ces derniers impliquaient également des régions frontales appartenant au "cerveau social". Le travail de ma thèse suggère qu’au Paléolithique moyen, les bases neurales étaient déjà fonctionnelles pour sélectionner les éléments pertinents de l’environnement afin de reconnaitre des productions intentionnelles d’autrui, puis d’être capable d’y attacher une signification, probablement culturellement déterminée.
Abstract Introduction: Biohacking's emergence has reshaped scientific research, especially within transhumanism and biological manipulation. Evaluating its impact on the scientific community is ...crucial for defining future research directions and communication in this field. Objective: To critically examine perspectives, approaches, and debates in academic literature to develop a comprehensive understanding of the ethical, social, and cultural implications of technological advancement within the transhumanist context. Methods: SCOPUS and bibliometric analysis were employed to quantify biohacking's influence. Social Network Analysis identified key themes and research focus areas. Results: North American and European countries led in scientific productivity. Published articles and citation impact showed a moderate to low index. Social Network Analysis highlighted ethical considerations, social implications, and an emerging discourse on cognitive evolution. Conclusion: The results highlight the need for comprehensive education and communication strategies to ensure that the public is well-informed about the risks, benefits, and ethical considerations associated with genetic modification technologies. Therefore, more research on legislation and regulations is required.
Archaeological discoveries describing the first abstract engravings and ornamentations of the body, through objects of adornment and the use of pigments, suggest that the use of signs and/or symbols ...is not limited to Homo sapiens. From a neuro-archaeological perspective, our study aims to infer the neural bases required for the emergence of these first potentially symbolic types of behaviour. We used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to record participants' brain activity when we presented them with stimuli from potentially symbolic cultural innovations. These were schematic versions and photographs of early Palaeolithic engravings, followed by faces that were culturally ornamented with wooden beads and red paint strokes. Their perception involved associative visual brain areas. The salience network was mobilized to attribute a human origin to abstract patterns and a social status to ornamented faces. The latter also involved frontal regions belonging to the "social brain". My work suggests that the neural bases that not only enable relevant elements of the environment to be selected in order to recognize intentional productions of others, but also probably culturally determined meaning to be attached to these productions, were already functional in the Middle Palaeolithic, in the context of an increasingly complex social organization.
ABSTRACT
The soft‐bodied cephalopods including octopus, cuttlefish, and squid are broadly considered to be the most cognitively advanced group of invertebrates. Previous research has demonstrated ...that these large‐brained molluscs possess a suite of cognitive attributes that are comparable to those found in some vertebrates, including highly developed perception, learning, and memory abilities. Cephalopods are also renowned for performing sophisticated feats of flexible behaviour, which have led to claims of complex cognition such as causal reasoning, future planning, and mental attribution. Hypotheses to explain why complex cognition might have emerged in cephalopods suggest that a combination of predation, foraging, and competitive pressures are likely to have driven cognitive complexity in this group of animals. Currently, it is difficult to gauge the extent to which cephalopod behaviours are underpinned by complex cognition because many of the recent claims are largely based on anecdotal evidence. In this review, we provide a general overview of cephalopod cognition with a particular focus on the cognitive attributes that are thought to be prerequisites for more complex cognitive abilities. We then discuss different types of behavioural flexibility exhibited by cephalopods and, using examples from other taxa, highlight that behavioural flexibility could be explained by putatively simpler mechanisms. Consequently, behavioural flexibility should not be used as evidence of complex cognition. Fortunately, the field of comparative cognition centres on designing methods to pinpoint the underlying mechanisms that drive behaviours. To illustrate the utility of the methods developed in comparative cognition research, we provide a series of experimental designs aimed at distinguishing between complex cognition and simpler alternative explanations. Finally, we discuss the advantages of using cephalopods to develop a more comprehensive reconstruction of cognitive evolution.
•Data from natural settings and laboratories imply Pan working memory (WM) is 2 ± 1.•WM increases until puberty but puberty occurs at half the age for Pan as for humans.•Claims for extraordinary ...working memory in Pan are not supported by data.•WM increase during hominin evolution parallels complexity increase in stone artifacts.•Cumulative WM changes in Homo sapiens evolution led to qualitative cognitive changes.
In this article we review publications relevant to addressing widely reported claims in both the academic and popular press that chimpanzees working memory (WM) is comparable to, if not exceeding, that of humans. WM is a complex multidimensional construct with strong parallels in humans to prefrontal cortex and cognitive development. These parallels occur in chimpanzees, but to a lesser degree. We review empirical evidence and conclude that the size of WM in chimpanzees is 2 ± 1 versus Miller’s famous 7 ± 2 in humans. Comparable differences occur in experiments on chimpanzees relating to strategic and attentional WM subsystems. Regardless of the domain, chimpanzee WM performance is comparable to that of humans around the age of 4 or 5. Next, we review evidence showing parallels among the evolution of WM capacity in hominins ancestral to Homo sapiens, the phylogenetic evolution of hominins leading to Homo sapiens, and evolution in the complexity of stone tool technology over this time period.
Questions on early sapiens cognition, the cognitive abilities of our ancestors, are intriguing but notoriously hard to tackle. Leaving no hard traces in the archeological record, these abilities need ...to be inferred from indirect evidence, informed by our understanding of present-day cognition. Most of such attempts acknowledge the role that culture, as a faculty, has played for human evolution, but they underrate or even disregard the role of distinct cultural traditions and the ensuing diversity, both in present-day humans and as a dimension of past cognition. We argue that culture has exerted a profound impact on human cognition from the start in a dual manner: It scaffolds cognition through both development and evolution, and it thereby continually diversifies the form and content of human thinking. To unveil early sapiens cognition and retrace its evolutionary trajectories, this cognitive diversity must be considered. We present two strategies to achieve this: large-scale extrapolation and phylogenetic comparison. The former aims at filtering out diversity to determine what is basic and universal versus culturally shaped (illustrated for theory of mind abilities). The latter capitalizes on the diversity to reconstruct evolutionary trajectories (illustrated for religious beliefs). The two methods, in combination, advance our understanding of the cognitive abilities of our early sapiens ancestors and of how these abilities emerged and evolved. To conclude, we discuss the implications of this approach for our insights into early cognition itself and its scientific investigation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
Traditional approaches in comparative cognition have a long history of focusing on a narrow range of vertebrate species. However, in recent years the range of model species has expanded. Despite this ...development, invertebrate taxa are still largely neglected in comparative cognition, which limits our ability to locate the origins of cognitive traits. The time has come to rethink cognition and develop a more comprehensive understanding of cognitive evolution by expanding comparative analyses to include a diverse range of invertebrate taxa. In this review, we contend that cephalopods are suitable ambassadors for rethinking cognition. Cephalopods have large complex brains, exhibit sophisticated behavioral traits, and increasing evidence suggests that they possess complex cognitive abilities once thought to be unique to large-brained vertebrates. Comparing cephalopods with vertebrates, whose cognition has evolved independently, provides prominent opportunities to circumvent current limitations in comparative cognition that have arisen from traditional vertebrate comparisons. Increased efforts in investigating the cognitive abilities of cephalopods have also led to important welfare-related improvements. These large-brained molluscs are paving the way for a more inclusive approach to investigating cognitive evolution that we hope will extend to other invertebrate taxa.
•Invertebrates are often neglected in comparative cognition, limiting our ability to locate the origins of cognitive traits.•Including invertebrates in comparative studies can facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of cognitive evolution.•Cephalopods are paving the way for a more inclusive approach to investigating the evolution of intelligence.•These large-brained molluscs provide important opportunities to circumvent current limitations in comparative cognition.•Investigating cephalopod cognitiion has also led to important welfare-related improvements.
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