The evolution of cognitive mechanisms in response to cultural innovations
The evolution of cognitive mechanisms in response to cultural innovations
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1620742114
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发表时间：
2017-07-25
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Kolodny, Oren
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lotem, Arnon;Halpern, Joseph Y.;Kolodny, Oren
当人类和其他动物进行文化创新时，他们也改变了环境，从而施加了新的选择压力，可以改变他们的生物特征。例如，有证据表明，人类的奶牛养殖有利于成人乳糖耐受性的等位基因。同样，烹饪的发明可能影响了颌骨和牙齿形态的进化。然而，当涉及到认知特征和学习机制时，要确定它们的进化是否以及如何受到文化或文化传播的影响就困难得多了。在这里，我们认为，除了最近的文化创新，假设文化塑造了认知的进化是更简约和更富有成效的假设相反。在考虑文化如何塑造认知，我们认为，认知进化的过程层次模型是必要的，并提供这样一个模型。该模型采用了相对简单的学习和数据采集的共同进化机制，共同构建了一个复杂的网络类型，以前被证明能够支持一系列的认知能力。认知的进化，以及文化对认知进化的影响，都是通过对这些共同进化的学习和数据获取机制进行微小的修改来捕捉的，这些机制的协调行动对于建立一个有效的网络至关重要。我们使用该模型来展示这些机制可能如何演变以应对文化现象，例如语言和工具制造，这些文化现象与数据模式的重大变化以及新的计算和统计挑战相关。
When humans and other animals make cultural innovations, they also change their environment, thereby imposing new selective pressures that can modify their biological traits. For example, there is evidence that dairy farming by humans favored alleles for adult lactose tolerance. Similarly, the invention of cooking possibly affected the evolution of jaw and tooth morphology. However, when it comes to cognitive traits and learning mechanisms, it is much more difficult to determine whether and how their evolution was affected by culture or by their use in cultural transmission. Here we argue that, excluding very recent cultural innovations, the assumption that culture shaped the evolution of cognition is both more parsimonious and more productive than assuming the opposite. In considering how culture shapes cognition, we suggest that a process-level model of cognitive evolution is necessary and offer such a model. The model employs relatively simple coevolving mechanisms of learning and data acquisition that jointly construct a complex network of a type previously shown to be capable of supporting a range of cognitive abilities. The evolution of cognition, and thus the effect of culture on cognitive evolution, is captured through small modifications of these coevolving learning and data-acquisition mechanisms, whose coordinated action is critical for building an effective network. We use the model to show how these mechanisms are likely to evolve in response to cultural phenomena, such as language and tool-making, which are associated with major changes in data patterns and with new computational and statistical challenges.