Causal learning in CTC: Adaptive and collaborative

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Netanel Weinstein ◽  
Dare Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Causal Learning ◽  
Social Reasoning ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
Reasoning Skills ◽  
Technical Reasoning

Abstract Osiurak and Reynaud highlight the critical role of technical-reasoning skills in the emergence of human cumulative technological culture (CTC), in contrast to previous accounts foregrounding social-reasoning skills as key to CTC. We question their analysis of the available evidence, yet for other reasons applaud the emphasis on causal understanding as central to the adaptive and collaborative dynamics of CTC.

The elephant in the China shop: When technical reasoning meets cumulative technological culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Osiurak ◽  
Emanuelle Reynaud
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Niche ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
Reasoning Skills ◽  
Technical Reasoning

Abstract The commentaries have both revealed the implications of and challenged our approach. In this response, we reply to these concerns, discuss why the technical-reasoning hypothesis does not minimize the role of social-learning mechanisms – nor assume that technical-reasoning skills make individuals omniscient technically – and make suggestions for overcoming the classical opposition between the cultural versus cognitive niche hypothesis of cumulative technological culture.

Causal Invariance as an Essential Constraint for Creating a Causal Representation of the World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia W. Cheng ◽  
Hongjing Lu
Keyword(s):  
Search Space ◽  
Causal Learning ◽  
Causal Mechanism ◽  
Intuitive Reasoning ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Specific Description ◽  
The World

This chapter illustrates the representational nature of causal understanding of the world and examines its implications for causal learning. The vastness of the search space of causal relations, given the representational aspect of the problem, implies that powerful constraints are essential for arriving at adaptive causal relations. The chapter reviews (1) why causal invariance—the sameness of how a causal mechanism operates across contexts—is an essential constraint for causal learning in intuitive reasoning, (2) a psychological causal-learning theory that assumes causal invariance as a defeasible default, (3) some ways in which the computational role of causal invariance in causal learning can become obscured, and (4) the roles of causal invariance as a general aspiration, a default assumption, a criterion for hypothesis revision, and a domain-specific description. The chapter also reviews a puzzling discrepancy in the human and non-human causal and associative learning literatures and offers a potential explanation.

A long view of cumulative technological culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. O'Brien ◽  
R. Alexander Bentley
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Reasoning Skills ◽  
Technical Reasoning

Abstract We agree that the emergence of cumulative technological culture was tied to nonsocial cognitive skills, namely, technical-reasoning skills, which allowed humans to constantly acquire and improve information. Our concern is with a reading of the history of cumulative technological culture that is based largely on modern experiments in simulated settings and less on phenomena crucial to the long-term dynamics of cultural evolution.

The technical reasoning hypothesis does not rule out the potential key roles of imitation and working memory for CTC

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alba Motes-Rodrigo ◽  
Eva Reindl ◽  
Elisa Bandini
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
Key Driver ◽  
Reasoning Skills ◽  
Technical Reasoning ◽  
Rule Out

Abstract To support their claim for technical reasoning skills rather than imitation as the key for cumulative technological culture (CTC), Osiurak and Reynaud argue that chimpanzees can imitate mechanical actions, but do not have CTC. They also state that an increase in working memory in human evolution could not have been a key driver of CTC. We discuss why we disagree with these claims.

scholarly journals Why Immersive, Interactive Simulation Belongs in the Pedagogical Toolkit of “Next Generation” Science

2013 ◽  
pp. 127-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Shane Tutwiler ◽  
Tina Grotzer
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Causal Learning ◽  
Interactive Simulation ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Pedagogical Tools ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Curricular Framework

Demonstration and simulation have long been integral parts of science education. These pedagogical tools are especially helpful when trying to make salient unseen or complex causal interactions, for example during a chemical titration. Understanding of complex causal mechanisms plays a critical role in science education (e.g. Grotzer & Basca, 2003; Hmelo-Silver, Marathe, & Liu, 2007; Wilensky & Resnick, 1999), but few curricula have been developed to expressly address this need (e.g. Harvard Project Zero, 2010). Innovative education technologies have allowed content designers to develop simulations that are both immersive and engaging, and which allow students to explore complex causal relationships even more deeply. In this chapter, the authors highlight various technologies that can be used to leverage complex causal understanding. Drawing upon research from both cognitive science and science education, they outline how each is designed to support student causal learning and suggest a curricular framework in which such learning technologies might optimally be used.

A cognitive transition underlying both technological and social aspects of cumulative culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liane Gabora ◽  
Cameron M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Aspects ◽  
Cumulative Culture ◽  
Social Accounts ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
New Information ◽  
Creative Generation ◽  
Representational Redescription ◽  
Reasoning Skills ◽  
Technical Reasoning ◽  
Cognitive Transition

Abstract The argument that cumulative technological culture originates in technical-reasoning skills is not the only alternative to social accounts; another possibility is that accumulation of both technical-reasoning skills and enhanced social skills stemmed from the onset of a more basic cognitive ability such as recursive representational redescription. The paper confuses individual learning of pre-existing information with creative generation of new information.

scholarly journals Why Immersive, Interactive Simulation Belongs in the Pedagogical Toolkit of “Next Generation” Science

2015 ◽  
pp. 1578-1597
Author(s):  
M. Shane Tutwiler ◽  
Tina Grotzer
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Causal Learning ◽  
Interactive Simulation ◽  
Next Generation ◽  
Pedagogical Tools ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Curricular Framework

Demonstration and simulation have long been integral parts of science education. These pedagogical tools are especially helpful when trying to make salient unseen or complex causal interactions, for example during a chemical titration. Understanding of complex causal mechanisms plays a critical role in science education (e.g. Grotzer & Basca, 2003; Hmelo-Silver, Marathe, & Liu, 2007; Wilensky & Resnick, 1999), but few curricula have been developed to expressly address this need (e.g. Harvard Project Zero, 2010). Innovative education technologies have allowed content designers to develop simulations that are both immersive and engaging, and which allow students to explore complex causal relationships even more deeply. In this chapter, the authors highlight various technologies that can be used to leverage complex causal understanding. Drawing upon research from both cognitive science and science education, they outline how each is designed to support student causal learning and suggest a curricular framework in which such learning technologies might optimally be used.

Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Technological Culture

Abstract The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.

A little too technical: The threat of intellectualising technical reasoning

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Human Reasoning ◽  
Technological Culture ◽  
Technical Reasoning

Abstract Osiurak and Reynaud (O&R) claim that research into the origin of cumulative technological culture has been too focused on social cognition and has consequently neglected the importance of uniquely human reasoning capacities. This commentary raises two interrelated theoretical concerns about O&R's notion of technical-reasoning capacities, and suggests how these concerns might be met.

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