Extended parenting and the evolution of cognition

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’.

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Attentional Skills in Soccer: Evaluating the Involvement of Attention in Executing a Goalkeeping Task in Virtual Reality

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11199341 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (19) ◽

pp. 9341

Author(s):

Andria Shimi ◽

Vanessa Tsestou ◽

Marios Hadjiaros ◽

Kleanthis Neokleous ◽

Marios Avraamides

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Executive Control ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Critical Role ◽

Attention Network Test ◽

Immersive Virtual Reality ◽

Attention Network ◽

Physical Abilities

Physical abilities are essential to goalkeepers in soccer but the involved cognitive abilities for these players have only recently become the focus of extensive research. In this study, we investigated the role of different aspects of attention in a basic goalkeeping task in soccer. One hundred participants assumed the role of a goalkeeper in immersive virtual reality (VR) and carried out a task that entailed blocking balls shot towards their goal. In addition, they carried out two computerized tasks each assessing different attentional abilities: the Attention Network Test provided scores for three well-established networks of attention, namely the alerting, the orienting, and the executive control. The Whack-a-Mole task evaluated inhibitory control, by measuring performance in a classic Go/No-Go task and tapping on response inhibition. A regression analysis revealed that all three attention network scores contributed to performance in the VR goalkeeping task. Furthermore, performance in the Whack-a-Mole task correlated significantly with performance in the VR goalkeeping task. Overall, findings confirm that cognitive skills relating to attention play a critical role in the efficient execution of soccer-specific tasks. These findings have important implications for the training of cognitive skills in sports.

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Shimi et al_GKVR1

10.31234/osf.io/y5q2c ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Andria Shimi ◽

Vanessa Tsestou ◽

Marios Hatziaros ◽

Kleanthis Neokleous ◽

Marios N Avraamides

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Executive Control ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Critical Role ◽

Attention Network Test ◽

Immersive Virtual Reality ◽

Attention Network ◽

Physical Abilities

Soccer is one of the most popular sports and goalkeepers are central to a team’s winning. Physical abilities are essential to goalkeepers but the involved cognitive abilities for these players are understudied and not well understood. In this study, we investigated the role of different aspects of attention in a goalkeeping task in soccer. Participants assumed the role of a goalkeeper in immersive Virtual Reality and carried out a task that entailed blocking balls shot towards their goal. In addition, they carried out two computerized tasks each assessing different attentional abilities: the Attention Network Test provided scores for three well-established networks of attention, namely the alerting, the orienting, and the executive control. The Whack-a-Mole task evaluated inhibitory control, by measuring performance in a classic Go/No-Go task and tapping on response inhibition. Results revealed that all three attention network scores predicted performance in the VR goalkeeping task. Furthermore, performance in the Whack-a-Mole task correlated significantly with performance in the VR goalkeeping task. Overall, findings confirm that cognitive skills relating to attention play a critical role in the efficient execution of soccer-specific tasks. These findings have important implications for the training of cognitive skills in sports.

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Communicative roots of complex sociality and cognition

10.32942/osf.io/fk9b6 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Anna Roberts ◽

Sam G. B. Roberts

Keyword(s):

Social Structure ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Brain Size ◽

Social Systems ◽

Complex Species ◽

Primary Driver ◽

Species Comparisons ◽

Group Members ◽

High Degree

Mammals living in more complex social groups typically have large brains for their body size and many researchers have proposed that the primary driver of the increase in brain size through primate and hominin evolution are the selection pressures associated with sociality. Many mammals, and especially primates, use flexible signals that show a high degree of voluntary control and these signals may play an important role in maintaining and coordinating interactions between group members. However, the specific role that cognitive skills play in this complex communication, and how in turn this relates to sociality, is still unclear. The hypothesis for the communicative roots of complex sociality and cognition posits that in socially complex species, conspecifics develop and maintain bonded relationships through cognitively complex communication more effectively than through less cognitively complex communication. We review the research evidence in support of this hypothesis and how key features of complex communication such as intentionality and referentiality are underpinned by complex cognitive abilities. Exploring the link between cognition, communication and sociality provides insights into how increasing flexibility in communication can facilitate the emergence of social systems characterized by bonded social relationships, such as those found in primates and humans. To move the field forward and carry out both the within and between species comparisons, we advocate the use of social network analysis, which provides a novel way to describe and compare social structure. Using this approach can lead to a new, systematic way of examining social and communicative complexity across species, something that is lacking in current comparative studies of social structure.

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Development of mound-building in Australian brush-turkeys (Alectura lathami): the role of learning, testosterone and body mass

Australian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1071/zo06007 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 54 (2) ◽

pp. 71 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ann Göth ◽

Lee Astheimer

Keyword(s):

Life History ◽

Body Mass ◽

Social Dominance ◽

Role Models ◽

Early Age ◽

Parental Role ◽

Behavioural Development ◽

Dominance Status ◽

Alectura Lathami

Australian brush-turkeys (Alectura lathami) hatch in incubation mounds of organic material and have no parental role models to learn from. When raised in outdoor aviaries, without adults, four of six males built incubation mounds at an early age of 4.5–9 months. The two males without mounds were the only ones without detectable levels of testosterone (T) at 4.5 months, whereas body mass did not explain the presence or absence of mound building. At the age of 11 months, all males had detectable T, including those without mounds. This study also investigated the development of social dominance in males kept in mixed-sex groups for 4.5 months. At this latter age, higher-ranked males tended to have higher T levels (P = 0.076), whereas dominance ranks at 4.5 months were not correlated with body mass or size, either at this age or at hatching. Overall, these results suggest that mound building develops without learning, and there is a relationship between T levels and dominance status as well as the absence or presence of mound building. These findings contribute to discussions on the role of learning in behavioural development and the role of T and body mass in avian life history.

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The role of pleiotropy vs signaller–receiver gene epistasis in life history trade-offs: dissecting the genomic architecture of organismal design in social systems

Heredity ◽

10.1038/hdy.2008.64 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 101 (3) ◽

pp. 197-211 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

B Sinervo ◽

J Clobert ◽

D B Miles ◽

A McAdam ◽

L T Lancaster

Keyword(s):

Life History ◽

Social Systems ◽

Genomic Architecture ◽

Trade Offs

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Contamination sensitivity and the development of disease-avoidant behaviour

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2011.0036 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 366 (1583) ◽

pp. 3427-3432 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Michael Siegal ◽

Roberta Fadda ◽

Paul G. Overton

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Ontogenetic Development ◽

Cultural Learning ◽

Affective Reactions ◽

Perceptual Cues ◽

Disease Avoidance ◽

Biological Basis ◽

Disease Outcomes ◽

The Social

Owing to their developing cognitive abilities and their limited knowledge about the biological basis of illness, children often have less expertise at disease avoidance than adults. However, affective reactions to contaminants through the acquisition of disgust and the social and cultural transmissions of knowledge about contamination and contagion provide impetus for children to learn effective disease-avoidant behaviours early in their development. In this article, we review the ontogenetic development of knowledge about contamination and contagion with particular attention to the role of socialization and culture. Together with their emerging cognitive abilities and affective reactions to contaminants, informal and formal cultural learning shape children's knowledge about disease. Through this process, the perceptual cues of contamination are linked to threats of disease outcomes and can act as determinants of disease-avoidant behaviours.

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Length of the Neurogenic Period—A Key Determinant for the Generation of Upper-Layer Neurons During Neocortex Development and Evolution

Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology ◽

10.3389/fcell.2021.676911 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Barbara K. Stepien ◽

Samir Vaid ◽

Wieland B. Huttner

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Cortical Neurons ◽

Mammalian Species ◽

Critical Role ◽

Exact Nature ◽

Cortical Neurogenesis ◽

Brain Functions ◽

The Relationship ◽

Development And Evolution

The neocortex, a six-layer neuronal brain structure that arose during the evolution of, and is unique to, mammals, is the seat of higher order brain functions responsible for human cognitive abilities. Despite its recent evolutionary origin, it shows a striking variability in size and folding complexity even among closely related mammalian species. In most mammals, cortical neurogenesis occurs prenatally, and its length correlates with the length of gestation. The evolutionary expansion of the neocortex, notably in human, is associated with an increase in the number of neurons, particularly within its upper layers. Various mechanisms have been proposed and investigated to explain the evolutionary enlargement of the human neocortex, focussing in particular on changes pertaining to neural progenitor types and their division modes, driven in part by the emergence of human-specific genes with novel functions. These led to an amplification of the progenitor pool size, which affects the rate and timing of neuron production. In addition, in early theoretical studies, another mechanism of neocortex expansion was proposed—the lengthening of the neurogenic period. A critical role of neurogenic period length in determining neocortical neuron number was subsequently supported by mathematical modeling studies. Recently, we have provided experimental evidence in rodents directly supporting the mechanism of extending neurogenesis to specifically increase the number of upper-layer cortical neurons. Moreover, our study examined the relationship between cortical neurogenesis and gestation, linking the extension of the neurogenic period to the maternal environment. As the exact nature of factors promoting neurogenic period prolongation, as well as the generalization of this mechanism for evolutionary distinct lineages, remain elusive, the directions for future studies are outlined and discussed.

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Psychology as a Historical Science

Annual Review of Psychology ◽

10.1146/annurev-psych-082820-111436 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 72 (1) ◽

pp. 717-749

Author(s):

Michael Muthukrishna ◽

Joseph Henrich ◽

Edward Slingerland

Keyword(s):

Critical Role ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Human Cognition ◽

Cultural Variation ◽

Historical Science ◽

Historical Texts ◽

Subject Pool ◽

Work Psychology ◽

And Behavior

Psychology has traditionally seen itself as the science of universal human cognition, but it has only recently begun seriously grappling with cross-cultural variation. Here we argue that the roots of cross-cultural variation often lie in the past. Therefore, to understand not only how but also why psychology varies, we need to grapple with cross-temporal variation. The traces of past human cognition accessible through historical texts and artifacts can serve as a valuable, and almost completely unutilized, source of psychological data. These data from dead minds open up an untapped and highly diverse subject pool. We review examples of research that may be classified as historical psychology, introduce sources of historical data and methods for analyzing them, explain the critical role of theory, and discuss how psychologists can add historical depth and nuance to their work. Psychology needs to become a historical science if it wants to be a genuinely universal science of human cognition and behavior.

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Do solitary foraging nocturnal mammals plan their routes?

Biology Letters ◽

10.1098/rsbl.2011.0258 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. 638-640 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Marine Joly ◽

Elke Zimmermann

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Skills ◽

Large Scale ◽

Deciduous Forest ◽

Brain Size ◽

Social Systems ◽

Route Planning ◽

Movement Pattern ◽

Food Resources ◽

Foraging Strategies ◽

Detection Distance

Large-brained diurnal mammals with complex social systems are known to plan where and how to reach a resource, as shown by a systematic movement pattern analysis. We examined for the first time large-scale movement patterns of a solitary-ranging and small-brained mammal, the mouse lemur ( Microcebus murinus ), by using the change-point test and a heuristic random travel model to get insight into foraging strategies and potential route-planning abilities. Mouse lemurs are small nocturnal primates inhabiting the seasonal dry deciduous forest in Madagascar. During the lean season with limited food availability, these lemurs rely on few stationary food resources. We radio-tracked seven lemurs and analysed their foraging patterns. First change-points coincided with out-of-sight keystone food resources. Travel paths were more efficient in detecting these resources than a heuristic random travel model within limits of estimated detection distance. Findings suggest that even nocturnal, solitary-ranging mammals with small brains plan their route to an out-of-sight target. Thus, similar ecological pressures may lead to comparable spatial cognitive skills irrespective of the degree of sociality or relative brain size.

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