Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T16:20:24.249Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From individual cognition to populational culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2012

Krist Vaesen
Affiliation:
Philosophy & Ethics, School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5612 AZ Eindhoven, The Netherlands. k.vaesen@tue.nlhttp://home.ieis.tue.nl/kvaesen

Abstract

In my response to the commentaries from a collection of esteemed researchers, I reassess and eventually find largely intact my claim that human tool use evidences higher social and non-social cognitive ability. Nonetheless, I concede that my examination of individual-level cognitive traits does not offer a full explanation of cumulative culture yet. For that, one needs to incorporate them into population-dynamic models of cultural evolution. I briefly describe my current and future work on this.

Type
Author's Response
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahn, W. & Kalish, C. (2000) The role of mechanism beliefs in causal reasoning. In: Cognition and explanation, ed. Wilson, R. & Keil, F., pp. 199226. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahn, W., Kalish, C., Medin, D. & Gelman, S. (1995) The role of covariation versus mechanism information in causal attribution. Cognition 54:299352.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arbib, M. A., Bonaiuto, J., Jacobs, S. & Frey, S. H. (2009) Tool use and the distalization of the end-effector. Psychological Research 73(4):441–62. doi: 10.1007/s00426-009-0242-2 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Byrne, R. (1997) The technical intelligence hypothesis: An additional evolutionary stimulus to intelligence. In: Machiavellian intelligence II, ed. Whiten, A. & Byrne, R., pp. 289311. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2008) Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years later. Trends in Cognitive Science 20:1478–84.Google Scholar
Carvalho, S., Biro, D., McGrew, W. & Matsuzawa, T. (2009) Tool-composite reuse in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Archaeologically invisible steps in the technological evolution of early hominins? Animal Cognition 12:S103–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, A., Pritchard, D. & Vaesen, K. (forthcoming) Introduction to special issue on “Extended cognition and epistemiology.” Philosophical Explorations. 15(2)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins-Sebree, S. E. & Fragaszy, D. M. (2005) Choosing and using tools: Capuchins (Cebus apella) use a different metric than tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Journal of Comparative Psychology 119(2):210–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
de Kort, S., & Clayton, N. (2006) An evolutionary perspective on caching by corvids. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 4:149–96.Google Scholar
Draganski, B. & May, A. (2008) Training-induced structural changes in the adult human brain. Behavioral Brain Research 192:137–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Enquist, M., Ghirlanda, S., Jarrick, A. & Wachtmeister, C. A. (2008) Why does human culture increase exponentially? Theoretical Population Biology 74(1):4655.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, J. J. (1979) The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton-Mifflin.Google Scholar
Hanus, D., Mendes, N., Tennie, C. & Call, J. (2011) Comparing the performances of apes (Gorilla gorilla, Pan troglodytes, Pongo pygmaeus) and human children (Homo sapiens) in the floating peanut task. PLoS ONE 6(6):e19555.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haun, D., Rapold, C. J., Call, J., Janzen, G. & Levinson, S. (2006) Cognitive cladistics and cultural override in hominid spatial cognition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 103(46):17568–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henrich, J., Heine, S. & Norenzayan, A. (2010) The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33:6183.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Higuchi, S., Chaminade, T., Imamizua, H. & Kawato, M. (2009) Shared neural correlates for language and tool use in Broca's area. NeuroReport 20:1376–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holloway, R. (1969) Culture: A human domain. Current Anthropology 10(4):395412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrew, W. (1993) The intelligent use of tools: Twenty propositions. In: Tools, language, and cognition in human evolution, ed. Gibson, K. & Ingold, T., pp. 151–69. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mulcahy, N. J. & Call, J. (2006a) How great apes perform on a modified trap-tube task. Animal Cognition 9:193–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Norman, D. A. (1988) The psychology of everyday things. Basic Books.Google Scholar
Orban, G. A., Claeys, K., Nelissen, K., Smans, R., Sunaert, S., Todd, J. T., Wardak, C., Durand, J. & Vanduffel, W. (2006) Mapping the parietal cortex of human and non-human primates. Neuropsychologia 44(13):2647–67.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Osvath, M. (2010) Great ape foresight is looking great. Animal Cognition 13(5):177–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Osvath, M. & Osvath, H. (2008) Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and orangutan (Pongo abelii) forethought: Self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use. Animal Cognition 11(4):661–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peeters, R., Simone, L., Nelissen, K., Fabbri-Destro, M., Vanduffel, W., Rizzolatti, G. & Orban, G. A. (2009) The representation of tool use in humans and monkeys: Common and uniquely human features. The Journal of Neuroscience 29(37):11523–39. PMID: 19759300.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Penn, D. C. & Povinelli, D. J. (2007b) On the lack of evidence that non-human animals possess anything remotely resembling a “theory of mind.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 362:731–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Penn, D. C., Holyoak, K. & Povinelli, D. J. (2008) Darwin's mistake: Explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31(2):109–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Povinelli, D. J., Reaux, J.E., Theall, L.A. & Giambrone, S. (2000) Folk physics for apes: The chimpanzee's theory of how the world works. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Quallo, M. M., Price, C. J., Ueno, K., Asamizuya, T., Cheng, K., Lemon, R. N. & Iriki, A. (2009) Gray and white matter changes associated with tool-use learning in macaque monkeys. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106:18379–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reader, S. M., Hager, Y. & Laland, K. N. (2011) The evolution of primate general and cultural intelligence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366:1017–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rivkin, J. (2000) Imitation of complex strategies. Management Science 46(6):824–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Santos, L. R., Miller, C. T. & Hauser, M. D. (2003) Representing tools: How two non-human primate species distinguish between the functionally relevant and irrelevant features of a tool. Animal Cognition 6(4):269–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sanz, C. & Morgan, D. (2010) Complexity of chimpanzee tool using behaviors. In: The mind of the chimpanzee: Ecological and experimental perspectives, ed. Lonsdorf, E. V., Ross, S. R. & Matsuzawa, T., pp. 127–40. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Seed, A. M., Call, J., Emery, N. J. & Clayton, N. S. (2009) Chimpanzees solve the trap problem when the confound of tool-use is removed. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 35:2334.Google ScholarPubMed
Stout, D. (2011) Stone toolmaking and the evolution of human culture and cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366:1050–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stout, D. & Chaminade, T. (2007) The evolutionary neuroscience of tool making. Neuropsychologia 45(5):1091–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waldmann, M. & Holyoak, K. (1992) Predictive and diagnostic learning within causal models: Asymmetries in cue competition. Journal of Experimental Psychology 121:222–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waldmann, M., Holyoak, K. & Fratianne, A. (1995) Causal models and the acquisition of category structure. Journal of Experimental Psychology 124:181206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, A. (2009) The strength of great apes and the speed of humans. Current Anthropology 50:229–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weir, A. A. S., Chappell, J. & Kacelnik, A. (2002) Shaping of hooks in New Caledonian crows. Science 297(5583):981. doi: 10.1126/science.1073433 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whiten, A., Horner, V. & de Waal, F. (2005) Conformity to cultural norms of tool use in chimpanzees. Nature 437:738–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed