scholarly journals The evolution of general intelligence

Author(s):  
Judith M. Burkart ◽  
Michèle N. Schubiger ◽  
Carel P. van Schaik

AbstractThe presence of general intelligence poses a major evolutionary puzzle, which has led to increased interest in its presence in nonhuman animals. The aim of this review is to critically evaluate this question and to explore the implications for current theories about the evolution of cognition. We first review domain-general and domain-specific accounts of human cognition in order to situate attempts to identify general intelligence in nonhuman animals. Recent studies are consistent with the presence of general intelligence in mammals (rodents and primates). However, the interpretation of a psychometricgfactor as general intelligence needs to be validated, in particular in primates, and we propose a range of such tests. We then evaluate the implications of general intelligence in nonhuman animals for current theories about its evolution and find support for the cultural intelligence approach, which stresses the critical importance of social inputs during the ontogenetic construction of survival-relevant skills. The presence of general intelligence in nonhumans implies that modular abilities can arise in two ways, primarily through automatic development with fixed content and secondarily through learning and automatization with more variable content. The currently best-supported model, for humans and nonhuman vertebrates alike, thus construes the mind as a mix of skills based on primary and secondary modules. The relative importance of these two components is expected to vary widely among species, and we formulate tests to quantify their strength.

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Estes ◽  
Karen Bartsch

AbstractTo understand the evolution of general intelligence, Burkart et al. endorse a “cultural intelligence approach,” which emphasizes the critical importance of social interaction. We argue that theory of mind provides an essential foundation and shared perspective for the efficient ontogenetic transmission of crucial knowledge and skills during human development and, together with language, can account for superior human general intelligence.


2017 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc D. Hauser

AbstractBurkart et al.'s proposal is based on three false premises: (1) theories of the mind are either domain-specific/modular (DSM) or domain-general (DG); (2) DSM systems are considered inflexible, built by nature; and (3) animal minds are deemed as purely DSM. Clearing up these conceptual confusions is a necessary first step in understanding how general intelligence evolved.


2005 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-427
Author(s):  
Csaba Pléh

Ádám György: A rejtozködo elme. Egy fiziológus széljegyzetei Carpendale, J. I. M. és Müller, U. (eds): Social interaction and the development of knowledge Cloninger, R. C.: Feeling good. The science of well being Dunbar, Robin, Barrett, Louise, Lycett, John: Evolutionary psychology Dunbar, Robin: The human story. A new history of makind's evolution Geary, D. C.: The origin of mind. Evolution of brain, cognition and general intelligence Gedeon Péter, Pál Eszter, Sárkány Mihály, Somlai Péter: Az evolúció elméletei és metaforái a társadalomtudományokban Harré, Rom: Cognitive science: A philosophical introduction Horváth György: Pedagógiai pszichológia Marcus, G.: The birth of the mind. How a tiny number of genes creates the complexities of human thought Solso, R. D.: The psychology of art and the evolution of the conscious brain Wray, A. (ed.): The transition to language


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 526-534
Author(s):  
Evelina Fedorenko ◽  
Cory Shain

Understanding language requires applying cognitive operations (e.g., memory retrieval, prediction, structure building) that are relevant across many cognitive domains to specialized knowledge structures (e.g., a particular language’s lexicon and syntax). Are these computations carried out by domain-general circuits or by circuits that store domain-specific representations? Recent work has characterized the roles in language comprehension of the language network, which is selective for high-level language processing, and the multiple-demand (MD) network, which has been implicated in executive functions and linked to fluid intelligence and thus is a prime candidate for implementing computations that support information processing across domains. The language network responds robustly to diverse aspects of comprehension, but the MD network shows no sensitivity to linguistic variables. We therefore argue that the MD network does not play a core role in language comprehension and that past findings suggesting the contrary are likely due to methodological artifacts. Although future studies may reveal some aspects of language comprehension that require the MD network, evidence to date suggests that those will not be related to core linguistic processes such as lexical access or composition. The finding that the circuits that store linguistic knowledge carry out computations on those representations aligns with general arguments against the separation of memory and computation in the mind and brain.


Terminology ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne Eugenie Dancette

Understanding the semantic relations between terms in specialized texts is of critical importance in translation and terminology, and generally speaking in learning from texts. Our research highlights the advantages of formalizing them in order to build hierarchies and sets of horizontal conceptual relations (i.e. process-oriented relations) for knowledge acquisition. This paper discusses a method for extracting domain-specific semantic relations in specialized texts. Obviously, some texts are more appropriate than others in this regard. ‘Knowledge-rich’ texts such as encyclopaedia and textbooks are considered good materials because of the density and richness of thematic information. Considering them as such, we used the encyclopaedic articles of the Dictionnaire analytique de la distribution/Analytical Dictionary of Retailing. We retrieved over 3000 terms semantically related to all 350 headwords of the Dictionary, and grouped them into 28 classes of relations (paradigmatic, i.e. generic, specific, agent, goal, instrument, recipient, location, etc., and also syntagmatic, such as related verbs and adjectives). This paper discusses in particular the generic, agent and property relations and examines the linguistic markers that permit their retrieval.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Conrad Jackson ◽  
Joseph Watts ◽  
Johann-Mattis List ◽  
Ryan Drabble ◽  
Kristen Lindquist

Humans have been using language for thousands of years, but psychologists seldom consider what natural language can tell us about the mind. Here we propose that language offers a unique window into human cognition. After briefly summarizing the legacy of language analyses in psychological science, we show how methodological advances have made these analyses more feasible and insightful than ever before. In particular, we describe how two forms of language analysis—comparative linguistics and natural language processing—are already contributing to how we understand emotion, creativity, and religion, and overcoming methodological obstacles related to statistical power and culturally diverse samples. We summarize resources for learning both of these methods, and highlight the best way to combine language analysis techniques with behavioral paradigms. Applying language analysis to large-scale and cross-cultural datasets promises to provide major breakthroughs in psychological science.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao-Ting Wang ◽  
Giulia Poerio ◽  
Charlotte Murphy ◽  
Danilo Bzdok ◽  
Elizabeth Jefferies ◽  
...  

The tendency for the mind to wander to concerns other than the task at hand is a fundamental feature of human cognition, yet the consequences of variations in its experiential content for psychological functioning are not well understood. Here, we adopted multivariate pattern analysis to simultaneously decompose experience-sampling data and neural functional-connectivity data, which revealed dimensions that simultaneously describe individual variation in self-reported experience and default-mode-network connectivity. We identified dimensions corresponding to traits of positive-habitual thoughts and spontaneous task-unrelated thoughts. These dimensions were uniquely related to aspects of cognition, such as executive control and the ability to generate information in a creative fashion, and independently distinguished well-being measures. These data provide the most convincing evidence to date for an ontological view of the mind-wandering state as encompassing a broad range of different experiences and show that this heterogeneity underlies mind wandering’s complex relationship to psychological functioning.


Author(s):  
Niyati Baliyan ◽  
Ankita Verma

Ontology or domain specific vocabulary is indispensable to a semantic web-based application; therefore, its evaluation assumes critical importance for maintaining the quality. A modular ontology is intuitively preferred to as a monolithic ontology. A good quality modular ontology, in turn, promotes reusability. This chapter is directed at summarizing the efforts towards ontology evaluation, besides defining the process of evaluation, various approaches to evaluation and underlying motivation. In particular, a modular ontology's cohesion and coupling metrics have been discussed in detail as a case study. The authors believe that the body of knowledge in this chapter will serve as a beginning point for ontology quality engineers and at the same time acquaint them with the state-of-art in this field.


Author(s):  
Todd Butler

As a tactic that sought to enable individuals to answer judicial interrogatories while simultaneously disguising the full substance and meaning of their answers, the Catholic doctrine of equivocation responded to the precarious position of Catholics in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras. In providing a highly contested model for the shielding of one’s thoughts, equivocation also demonstrates the centrality of human cognition to the religious and political conflicts of the seventeenth century. Writers such as John Donne (Ignatius His Conclave) and Francis Bacon (Essays) evidence a similarly deep concern with the mind and its deliberative processes as marking boundaries for political citizenship and royal power. Viewed in these terms, mental reservation and equivocation become less a matter of theology than one of statecraft.


Author(s):  
Slava Kalyuga

One of the major components of our cognitive architecture, working memory, becomes overloaded if more than a few chunks of information are processed simultaneously. For example, we all experience this cognitive overload when trying to keep in memory an unfamiliar telephone number or add two four-digit numbers in the absence of a pen and paper. Similar in nature processing limitations of working memory represent a major factor influencing the effectiveness of human learning and performance, particularly in complex environments that require concurrent performance of multiple tasks. The learner prior domain-specific knowledge structures and associated levels of expertise are considered as means of reducing these limitations and guiding high-level knowledge-based cognitive activities. One of the most important results of studies in human cognition is that the available knowledge is a single most significant learner cognitive characteristic that influences learning and cognitive performance. Understanding the key role of long-term memory knowledge base in our cognition is important to the successful management of cognitive load in multimedia learning.


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