Evaluating competing models of human technological adaptation

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济学博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。在加州大学洛杉矶分校布莱恩·伍德博士的赞助下，这一博士后奖学金奖项支持一位早期职业科学家，他们研究文化和因果认知在技术传统的形成和维护中的相对作用。该项目旨在(1)利用经验数据建立关于因果知识和文化在技术进化中的重要性的理论和实验研究；(2)产生一个全面的技术进化的理论模型；(3)收集当前投射的技术风格和机制变化的详细档案。人类进化的比较模型不同地强调累积文化和个体因果知识在复杂技术进化中的作用。这个项目将考察我们制造复杂技术的能力，这种能力为我们在进化中的成功和随后在世界各地的扩张奠定了基础。以前考察因果理解和文化在复杂技术发展中的相对作用的研究在很大程度上是理论上的，并受到其外部有效性的不确定性的限制。该项目的目标是使用经验数据评估人类技术适应的竞争模型。有机会在自然主义的环境中检查这些过程，使我们能够测试从实验环境中产生的先前研究结果的一般性。为了实现该项目的研究目标，将进行以技术为重点的访谈、结构化行为观察和有指导的焦点跟踪。拟议的项目将通过在人种学背景下测试关于技术专长和物质文化差异的假设，来提供关于复杂技术的制造、使用和进化中所需的文化、认知和环境协变量的相对重要性的新知识。最后，拟议的项目将提供物质文化差异的详细描述，可以与其他文化背景进行比较，并用于跟踪这项技术随时间的演变。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Brian Wood at the University of California, Los Angeles, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the relative roles of culture and cause-and-effect cognition in the formation and maintenance of technological traditions. This project seeks to (1) build upon theoretical and experimental research as to the importance of causal knowledge and culture in the evolution of technology using empirical data; (2) produce a comprehensive theoretical model of technological evolution; and (3) assemble a detailed archive of the current projectile technological stylistic and mechanistic variation.Competing models of human evolution differentially emphasize the roles of cumulative culture and individual cause-and-effect knowledge in the evolution of complex technology. This project will examine the capacities that underlie our ability to manufacture complex technologies, an ability that has underwritten our evolutionary success and subsequent expansion across the world’s habitats. Previous studies examining the relative roles of causal understanding and culture in the development of complex technologies are largely theoretical and limited by the uncertainty of their external validity. The goal of this project is to evaluate competing models of human technological adaptation using empirical data. The opportunity to examine these processes in a naturalistic setting, allows us to test the generality of prior research findings arising from experimental settings. To address the research objectives of this project, a combination of technology-focused interviews, structured behavioral observations, and guided focal-follows will be performed. The proposed project will contribute new knowledge about the relative importance of cultural, cognitive, and environmental covariates necessary in the manufacture, use, and evolution of complex technology by testing hypotheses about technological expertise and material culture variation within an ethnographic context. Finally, the proposed project will provide a detailed portrait of material cultural variation that can be compared to other cultural contexts and used to track the evolution of this technology over time.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.