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Misconceptions about adaptive function

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2018

Jonathan Redshaw  and
Thomas Suddendorf
Jonathan Redshaw
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. j.redshaw@uq.edu.aut.suddendorf@psy.uq.edu.au
Thomas Suddendorf
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. j.redshaw@uq.edu.aut.suddendorf@psy.uq.edu.au
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Abstract

Mahr & Csibra (M&C) fail to make the important distinction between why a trait originally evolved, why it was maintained over time, and what its current utility is. Here we point out that episodic memory may have originally evolved as a by-product of a general metarepresentational capacity, and that it may have current functions beyond the communicative domain.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 41 , 2018 , e28
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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