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Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 August 2020
Abstract
The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
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Target article
The elephant in the room: What matters cognitively in cumulative technological culture
Related commentaries (26)
A cognitive approach to cumulative technological culture is useful and necessary but only if it also applies to other species
A cognitive developmental approach is essential to understanding cumulative technological culture
A cognitive transition underlying both technological and social aspects of cumulative culture
A little too technical: The threat of intellectualising technical reasoning
A long view of cumulative technological culture
A theory limited in scope and evidence
Causal learning in CTC: Adaptive and collaborative
Chimpanzees' technical reasoning: Taking fieldwork and ontogeny seriously
How will we find the elephant in the room?
Human tool cognition relies on teleology
Implications for technological reserve development in advancing age, cognitive impairment, and dementia
Missing in action: Tool use is action based
New Caledonian crows afford invaluable comparative insights into human cumulative technological culture
Putting social cognitive mechanisms back into cumulative technological culture: Social interactions serve as a mechanism for children's early knowledge acquisition
Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”
Shared intentionality shapes humans' technical know-how
Supporting the weight of the elephant in the room: Technical intelligence propped up by social cognition and language
Taking into account the wider evolutionary context of cumulative cultural evolution
Technical reasoning alone does not take humans this far
The blind men and the elephant: What is missing cognitively in the study of cumulative technological evolution
The crow in the room: New Caledonian crows offer insight into the necessary and sufficient conditions for cumulative cultural evolution
The social side of innovation
The technical reasoning hypothesis does not rule out the potential key roles of imitation and working memory for CTC
Tools as “petrified memes”: A duality
What matters emotionally: The importance of pride for cumulative culture
Where does the elephant come from? The evolution of causal cognition is the key
Author response
The elephant in the China shop: When technical reasoning meets cumulative technological culture