scholarly journals Cognitive capacities for cooking in chimpanzees

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1809) ◽  
pp. 20150229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Warneken ◽  
Alexandra G. Rosati
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Anticipatory Planning ◽  
Raw Foods ◽  
Important Shift

The transition to a cooked diet represents an important shift in human ecology and evolution. Cooking requires a set of sophisticated cognitive abilities, including causal reasoning, self-control and anticipatory planning. Do humans uniquely possess the cognitive capacities needed to cook food? We address whether one of humans' closest relatives, chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ), possess the domain-general cognitive skills needed to cook. Across nine studies, we show that chimpanzees: (i) prefer cooked foods; (ii) comprehend the transformation of raw food that occurs when cooking, and generalize this causal understanding to new contexts; (iii) will pay temporal costs to acquire cooked foods; (iv) are willing to actively give up possession of raw foods in order to transform them; and (v) can transport raw food as well as save their raw food in anticipation of future opportunities to cook. Together, our results indicate that several of the fundamental psychological abilities necessary to engage in cooking may have been shared with the last common ancestor of apes and humans, predating the control of fire.

Building Emotional Stability and Mental Capacity

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Dienstbier ◽  
Lisa M. PytlikZillig
Keyword(s):  
Physical Exercise ◽  
Stress Tolerance ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Brain Structures ◽  
Emotional Stability ◽  
Mental Capacity ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Mental Stimulation

Stress and aging deplete some neurochemistry and degrade various brain structures, ultimately affecting stress tolerance and cognitive capacities. However, engaging in various toughening activities prevents and even reverses the ravages of stress and aging. The toughening activities described here include mental stimulation, physical exercise, meditation, self-control, and affectionate activities. Toughening activities enhance neurochemistry and important brain structures by activating or deactivating various genes—sometimes temporarily, but sometimes for a lifetime. Those aspects of physiological toughness lead, in turn, to positive mental/psychological toughness including emotional stability, enhanced mental/cognitive abilities, and even self-control. We review research describing how much each toughening activity fosters mental/psychological toughness, and then the research showing how each activity leads to the components of physiological toughness. Finally we show how physiological toughness leads to mental/psychological toughness. We discuss the usefulness of the toughness concept by assessing the overlapping impacts of the various toughening activities.

Causal understanding is not necessary for the improvement of culturally evolving technology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Derex ◽  
Jean-François Bonnefon ◽  
Robert Boyd ◽  
Alex Mesoudi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
High Dimensionality ◽  
Noticeable Effect ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Reasoning Abilities ◽  
Downstream Effects ◽  
Salient Dimension ◽  
Causal Theories

Bows and arrows, houses, and kayaks are just a few examples of the highly-optimized tools that humans produced and used to colonize new environments. Because there is much evidence that humans’ cognitive abilities are unparalleled, many believe that such technologies resulted from our superior causal reasoning abilities. However, others have stressed that the high dimensionality of human technologies make them very hard to understand causally. Instead, they argue that optimized technologies emerge through the retention of small improvements across generations without requiring understanding of how these technologies work. Here, we show that a physical artifact becomes progressively optimized across generations of social learners in the absence of explicit causal understanding. Moreover, we find that the transmission of causal models across generations has no noticeable effect on the pace of cultural evolution. The reason is that participants do not spontaneously create multidimensional causal theories but instead mainly produce simplistic models related to a salient dimension. Finally, we show that the transmission of these inaccurate theories constrains learners’ exploration and has downstream effects on their understanding. These results indicate that complex technologies need not result from enhanced causal reasoning but instead can emerge from the accumulation of improvements made across generations.

scholarly journals PROGRAMA ADHISO PARA LA MEJORA DE LAS FUNCIONES EJECUTIVAS EN NIÑOS DE INFANTIL CON SINTOMATOLOGÍA TDAH

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Noelia García González ◽  
Mª Angélica Calleja González ◽  
Benito Arias Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
School Education ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Temporal Orientation ◽  
Metacognitive Skills ◽  
Unique Case ◽  
Preventive Program ◽  
Adhd Symptomatology

Abstract:This paper intends to present the preventive program called ADHISO, designed for the improvement in the attention and cognitive skills as well as the reduction of hyperactive and impulsive behaviour in the students of pre-school education with ADHD symptomatology. A good executive functioning is essential for proper cognitive and behavioural development (Barkley, 1998; Burgess and Simons, 2005; Diamond, 2005; Raiker, et al., 2012). For this reason, the proposed objectives are focused on assisting the skills at delayed attention, perception, organization and spatial-temporal orientation, memory and meta-cognitive abilities, guided by self-instructions that allow to benefit the self-regulation of the students that present ADHD symptomatology. The program was applied to four students of ages between four and six years, by means of an A-B design of unique case. The outcomes of the program confirm an improvement in the attention, memory and perception in all the four subjects. One of the strengths of the ADHISO program seems to be its contribution to the development of competences in self-control of the behaviour, metacognitive skills and self-instructions.Keywords: preventive program, pre-school education, executive functions, ADHDResumen:Este trabajo pretende dar a conocer el programa preventivo ADHISO diseñado para la mejora de las habilidades atencionales y cognitivas, así como las conductas hiperactivas e impulsivas de los alumnos de educación infantil que presentan sintomatología TDAH. Un buen funcionamiento ejecutivo es fundamental para un adecuado desarrollo cognitivo y comportamental (Barkley, 1998; Burgess y Simons, 2005; Diamond, 2005; Raiker, et al., 2012). Por este motivo, los objetivos propuestos se centran en favorecer destrezas en atención demorada, percepción, organización y orientación espacio-temporal, memoria y habilidades meta-cognitivas, guiados a través de autoinstrucciones que permiten favorecer la autorregulación de los alumnos que presentan sintomatología TDAH. El programa se aplicó a cuatro alumnos de edades incluidas entre los 4 y los 6 años, mediante un diseño A-B de caso único. Los resultados obtenidos confirman una mejoría en la atención, memoria y percepción en los cuatro sujetos. Uno de los puntos fuertes del programa ADHISO parece ser su contribución al desarrollo de las competencias en autocontrol del comportamiento, habilidades metacognitivas y autoinstrucciones.Palabras clave: Programa preventivo, educación infantil, funciones ejecutivas, TDAH

scholarly journals Towards ending the animal cognition war: a three-dimensional model of causal cognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Benjamin Starzak ◽  
Russell David Gray
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
Three Dimensional Model ◽  
Causal Understanding ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Causal Cognition

AbstractDebates in animal cognition are frequently polarized between the romantic view that some species have human-like causal understanding and the killjoy view that human causal reasoning is unique. These apparently endless debates are often characterized by conceptual confusions and accusations of straw-men positions. What is needed is an account of causal understanding that enables researchers to investigate both similarities and differences in cognitive abilities in an incremental evolutionary framework. Here we outline the ways in which a three-dimensional model of causal understanding fulfills these criteria. We describe how this approach clarifies what is at stake, illuminates recent experiments on both physical and social cognition, and plots a path for productive future research that avoids the romantic/killjoy dichotomy.

scholarly journals Extended parenting and the evolution of cognition

2020 ◽  
Vol 375 (1803) ◽  
pp. 20190495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Uomini ◽  
Joanna Fairlie ◽  
Russell D. Gray ◽  
Michael Griesser
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Brain Size ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cultural Learning

Traditional attempts to understand the evolution of human cognition compare humans with other primates. This research showed that relative brain size covaries with cognitive skills, while adaptations that buffer the developmental and energetic costs of large brains (e.g. allomaternal care), and ecological or social benefits of cognitive abilities, are critical for their evolution. To understand the drivers of cognitive adaptations, it is profitable to consider distant lineages with convergently evolved cognitions. Here, we examine the facilitators of cognitive evolution in corvid birds, where some species display cultural learning, with an emphasis on family life. We propose that extended parenting (protracted parent–offspring association) is pivotal in the evolution of cognition: it combines critical life-history, social and ecological conditions allowing for the development and maintenance of cognitive skillsets that confer fitness benefits to individuals. This novel hypothesis complements the extended childhood idea by considering the parents' role in juvenile development. Using phylogenetic comparative analyses, we show that corvids have larger body sizes, longer development times, extended parenting and larger relative brain sizes than other passerines. Case studies from two corvid species with different ecologies and social systems highlight the critical role of life-history features on juveniles’ cognitive development: extended parenting provides a safe haven, access to tolerant role models, reliable learning opportunities and food, resulting in higher survival. The benefits of extended juvenile learning periods, over evolutionary time, lead to selection for expanded cognitive skillsets. Similarly, in our ancestors, cooperative breeding and increased group sizes facilitated learning and teaching. Our analyses highlight the critical role of life-history, ecological and social factors that underlie both extended parenting and expanded cognitive skillsets. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Life history and learning: how childhood, caregiving and old age shape cognition and culture in humans and other animals’.

scholarly journals Meta-analysis of epigenome-wide associations between DNA methylation at birth and childhood cognitive skills

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doretta Caramaschi ◽  
Alexander Neumann ◽  
Andres Cardenas ◽  
Gwen Tindula ◽  
Silvia Alemany ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dna Methylation ◽  
Cord Blood ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Life Outcomes ◽  
Cognitive Domains ◽  
Wide Range

ABSTRACTCognitive skills are a strong predictor of a wide range of later life outcomes. Genetic and epigenetic associations across the genome explain some of the variation in general cognitive abilities in the general population and it is plausible that epigenetic associations might arise from prenatal environmental exposures and/or genetic variation early in life. We investigated the association between cord blood DNA methylation at birth and cognitive skills assessed in children from eight pregnancy cohorts (N=2196-3798) within the Pregnancy And Childhood Epigenetics (PACE) Consortium across overall, verbal and non-verbal cognitive scores. The associations at single CpG sites were weak for all of the cognitive domains investigated. One region near DUSP22 on chromosome 6 was associated with non-verbal cognition in a model adjusted for maternal IQ. We conclude that there is little evidence to support the idea that cord blood DNA methylation at single CpGs can predict cognitive skills and further studies are needed to confirm regional differences.

scholarly journals Predictive context biases binocular rivalry in children and adults with no positive relation to two measures of social cognition

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Valuch ◽  
Louisa Kulke
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Contextual Information ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Similar Degree ◽  
Eye Dominance ◽  
Adult Participants

Integration of prior experience and contextual information can help to resolve perceptually ambiguous situations and might support the ability to understand other peoples’ thoughts and intentions, called Theory of Mind. We studied whether the readiness to incorporate contextual information for resolving binocular rivalry is positively associated with Theory-of-Mind-related social cognitive abilities. In children (12 to 13 years) and adults (18 to 25 years), a predictive temporal context reliably modulated the onset of binocular rivalry to a similar degree. In contrast, adult participants scored better on measures of Theory of Mind compared to children. We observed considerable interindividual differences regarding the influence of a predictive context on binocular rivalry, which were associated with differences in sensory eye dominance. The absence of a positive association between predictive effects on perception and Theory of Mind performance suggests that predictive effects on binocular rivalry and higher-level Theory-of-Mind-related abilities stem from different neurocognitive mechanisms. We conclude that the influence of predictive contextual information on basic visual processes is fully developed at an earlier age, whereas social cognitive skills continue to evolve from adolescence to adulthood.

scholarly journals Mate Choice, Sex Roles and Sexual Cognition in Vertebrates: Mate Choice Turns Cognition or Cognition Turns Mate Choice?

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodora Fuss
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Selection ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Mating System ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Sex Roles ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Antipredator Behavior ◽  
Energy Levels ◽  
Problem Solver

The idea of “smart is sexy,” meaning superior cognition provides competitive benefits in mate choice and, therefore, evolutionary advantages in terms of reproductive fitness, is both exciting and captivating. Cognitively flexible individuals perceive and adapt more dynamically to (unpredictable) environmental changes. The sex roles that females and males adopt within their populations can vary greatly in response to the prevalent mating system. Based on how cognition determines these grossly divergent sex roles, different selection pressures could possibly shape the (progressive) evolution of cognitive abilities, suggesting the potential to induce sexual dimorphisms in superior cognitive abilities. Associations between an individual’s mating success, sexual traits and its cognitive abilities have been found consistently across vertebrate species and taxa, providing evidence that sexual selection may well shape the supporting cognitive prerequisites. Yet, while superior cognitive abilities provide benefits such as higher feeding success, improved antipredator behavior, or more favorable mate choice, they also claim costs such as higher energy levels and metabolic rates, which in turn may reduce fecundity, growth, or immune response. There is compelling evidence in a variety of vertebrate taxa that females appear to prefer skilled problem-solver males, i.e., they prefer those that appear to have better cognitive abilities. Consequently, cognition is also likely to have substantial effects on sexual selection processes. How the choosing sex assesses the cognitive abilities of potential mates has not been explored conclusively yet. Do cognitive skills guide an individual’s mate choice and does learning change an individual’s mate choice decisions? How and to which extent do individuals use their own cognitive skills to assess those of their conspecifics when choosing a mate? How does an individual’s role within a mating system influence the choice of the choosing sex in this context? Drawing on several examples from the vertebrate world, this review aims to elucidate various aspects associated with cognitive sex differences, the different roles of males and females in social and sexual interactions, and the potential influence of cognition on mate choice decisions. Finally, future perspectives aim to identify ways to answer the central question of how the triad of sex, cognition, and mate choice interacts.

scholarly journals WAYS TO INCREASE THE ACADEMIC ACTIVITY OF TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSES

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-25
Author(s):  
O.I. Taranenko ◽  
◽  
L.A. Fedko ◽  
E.V. Shchepotieva ◽  
I.F. Veremeeva
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Important Condition ◽  
Language Classes ◽  
Cognitive Activities ◽  
Definition Of

The relevance of the formation of professionally and socially significant personality traits is obvious. The theoretical and practical issues of students’ cognitive activities during their studies in higher education institutions are considered. The definition of cognitive skills is formulated and their characteristics are proposed. Being formed cognitive activity characterizes the attitude of students to the content and process of teaching, the desire for effective mastering knowledge, skills and abilities. Cognitive activity is defined as the most important condition for their academic success. The ways of increasing the cognitive activity of students, both during classes and in the process of extracurricular self-training, are proposed. The importance of self-control of knowledge in the course of independent activity in the performance of group or individual work is emphasized.

scholarly journals Information technologies inside and outside the classroom

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andra Oneci ◽  
◽  
Maria-Magdalena Joița ◽  
◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Concept Formation ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Software And Hardware ◽  
Problem Solvers ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Individualize Education

Technology is a means of accomplishing a task mainly by using technical processes, methods, or knowledge.The importance of technology in connection with any type of development is widely recognized, especially having considering nowadays’ worldwide Covid-19 context.The passage from standardized to digitalized teaching-learning process hasn’t been easy. Information technology and educational technology are now extensively being used in schools and refer to a wide multitude of teaching-and-learning–related software and hardware used during the lessons. Learning becomes effective when the students are actively engaged, are collaborating with one another, are in charge of their learning process, become critical thinkers and creative problem-solvers. Scientific thinking appears when thinking about the content of science and the set of reasoning processes that permeate the field of science: induction, deduction, experimental design, causal reasoning, concept formation, hypothesis testing, and so on, are combined. Simultaneously, teachers continue their lifelong learning process online, design digital lessons, gamify lessons, obtain real time results, are part of the staffroom at school and also part of a larger, more diverse, virtual staffroom. In conclusion, the goal of using technology inside and outside the classroom is perceived as a way to individualize education and to develop students’ competences and cognitive skills.

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