Evaluating competing models of human technological adaptation

评估人类技术适应的竞争模型

• 批准号: 2104614
• 负责人: Jacob Harris
• 金额: $ 14.8万
• 依托单位: Harris, Jacob
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2104614&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Evaluating; competing; models; human; technological

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.

该奖项全部或部分根据2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。该奖项是作为NSF的社会，行为和经济科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，工业或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF的奖励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。NSF致力于促进来自科学界各部门的科学家，包括来自代表性不足的群体的科学家参与其研究计划和活动;博士后期间被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的重要水平。每个博士后研究员必须解决推进各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在洛杉矶加州大学的Brian Wood博士的赞助下，该博士后奖学金支持早期职业科学家调查文化和因果认知在技术传统的形成和维护中的相对作用。本项目的目标是：（1）利用经验数据，在理论和实验研究的基础上，就因果知识和文化在技术进化中的重要性进行研究;（2）建立一个全面的技术进化理论模型;以及（3）收集一份当前射弹技术风格和机械变化的详细档案。人类进化的竞争模型不同地强调累积的作用。文化和个人因果知识在复杂技术的演变。该项目将研究我们制造复杂技术的能力，这种能力保证了我们的进化成功和随后在世界栖息地的扩张。以往的研究考察因果理解和文化在复杂技术发展中的相对作用主要是理论性的，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。在自然环境中检查这些过程的机会，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。为了解决这个项目的研究目标，技术为重点的访谈，结构化的行为观察，并引导焦点跟随的组合将被执行。拟议的项目将有助于文化，认知和环境协变量的相对重要性的新知识，在制造，使用和复杂的技术的发展，通过测试有关技术专长和物质文化的变化在人种学背景下的假设。最后，拟议的项目将提供一个详细的画像的物质文化的变化，可以比较其他文化背景，并用于跟踪随着时间的推移，这种技术的演变。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。