scholarly journals Human Culture and Cognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matt Gers
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Temporal Change ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Information Environment ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Developmental Mechanisms ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Over Time

<p>Human behaviour is largely influenced by culture. Culture evolves cumulatively over time. The origins of culture in our lineage necessitated the evolution of psychological biases so humans could tractably navigate the emerging information environment. I examine the nature of these biases and conclude that they are unlikely to be genetically coded to any significant degree. This is because of the flexibility such biases needed to possess in the face of fluid cultural environments and because of the developmental mechanisms of the brain. I further outline three possible views on what the nature of the information these biases act upon might be. First there is the view that cultural information is constructed and held in individual minds but does not flow in any meaningful replicative fashion between minds. Second is the view that culture is information distributed in a population and cultural evolution is the temporal change of this populationlevel information as a result of low fidelity individual copying events. Finally, I argue that meme theory, which asserts that culture is usefully seen as bits of information that replicate in transmission, is a fruitful model of cultural evolution. Keywords Cognition, cultural evolution, culture, evolutionary psychology, memes, neuroconstructivism, psychological biases.</p>

scholarly journals Human Culture and Cognition

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Matt Gers
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Temporal Change ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Information Environment ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Developmental Mechanisms ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Over Time

<p>Human behaviour is largely influenced by culture. Culture evolves cumulatively over time. The origins of culture in our lineage necessitated the evolution of psychological biases so humans could tractably navigate the emerging information environment. I examine the nature of these biases and conclude that they are unlikely to be genetically coded to any significant degree. This is because of the flexibility such biases needed to possess in the face of fluid cultural environments and because of the developmental mechanisms of the brain. I further outline three possible views on what the nature of the information these biases act upon might be. First there is the view that cultural information is constructed and held in individual minds but does not flow in any meaningful replicative fashion between minds. Second is the view that culture is information distributed in a population and cultural evolution is the temporal change of this populationlevel information as a result of low fidelity individual copying events. Finally, I argue that meme theory, which asserts that culture is usefully seen as bits of information that replicate in transmission, is a fruitful model of cultural evolution. Keywords Cognition, cultural evolution, culture, evolutionary psychology, memes, neuroconstructivism, psychological biases.</p>

scholarly journals The evolution of high-fidelity social learning

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1928) ◽  
pp. 20200090
Author(s):  
Marcel Montrey ◽  
Thomas R. Shultz
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Bayesian Model ◽  
Individual Learning ◽  
High Fidelity ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Over Time

A defining feature of human culture is that knowledge and technology continually improve over time. Such cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) probably depends far more heavily on how reliably information is preserved than on how efficiently it is refined. Therefore, one possible reason that CCE appears diminished or absent in other species is that it requires accurate but specialized forms of social learning at which humans are uniquely adept. Here, we develop a Bayesian model to contrast the evolution of high-fidelity social learning, which supports CCE, against low-fidelity social learning, which does not. We find that high-fidelity transmission evolves when (1) social and (2) individual learning are inexpensive, (3) traits are complex, (4) individual learning is abundant, (5) adaptive problems are difficult and (6) behaviour is flexible. Low-fidelity transmission differs in many respects. It not only evolves when (2) individual learning is costly and (4) infrequent but also proves more robust when (3) traits are simple and (5) adaptive problems are easy. If conditions favouring the evolution of high-fidelity transmission are stricter (3 and 5) or harder to meet (2 and 4), this could explain why social learning is common, but CCE is rare.

scholarly journals Culture, humanities, evolution: the complexity of meaning-making over time

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1828) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joep Leerssen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Information Transfer ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Semiotic System ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
Over Time

This article outlines how the historical human sciences see ‘culture’ and its dynamic developments over time and over generations. The operations of human culture are systemically self-reflexive and, as a result, exhibit a complexity that sets them apart, as a semiotic system, from mere communicative information transfer. Peculiar to this complexity is the two-way interaction between the ‘etic’ substance of the cultural exchanges and their ‘emic’ function. Cultural signals require parallel etic/emic processing at stacked levels of complexity. As a result of this complexity, the homeostasis and autopoiesis of human culture, including its dynamics and development over time, cannot be explained fully in terms of responses to the physical environment. How, this article ponders by way of conclusion, can an evolutionary approach be reconciled with these characteristics of human culture, or the notion of culture be applied to evolutionary modelling? This article is part of the theme issue ‘Foundations of cultural evolution’.

scholarly journals Dynamical Disequilibrium, Transformation, and the Evolution and Development of Sustainable Worldviews

2013 ◽  
pp. 69-77
Author(s):  
Liane Gabora ◽  
Maegan Merrifield
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Evolution And Development ◽  
Cumulative Change ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Over Time ◽  
New Framework

This chapter begins by outlining a promising, new theoretical framework for the process by which human culture evolves inspired by the views of complexity theorists on the problem of how life began. Elements of culture, like species, evolve over time; that is, they exhibit cumulative change that is adaptive in nature. By studying how biological evolution got started, it is possible to gain insight into not just the specifics of biological evolution, but also general insights into the initiation of any evolutionary process that may be applicable to culture. The authors, thus, explore the implications of this new framework for culture on the transformative processes of individuals. Specifically, they address what this emerging perspective on cultural evolution implies for to go about attaining a sustainable worldview; that is, a web of habits, understandings, and ways of approaching situations that is conducive to the development of a sustainable world.

scholarly journals Human cumulative culture and the exploitation of natural phenomena

2021 ◽  
Vol 377 (1843) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Derex
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Type I ◽  
Type Ii ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Collective Knowledge ◽  
Cumulative Culture ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Over Time

Cumulative cultural evolution (CCE)—defined as the process by which beneficial modifications are culturally transmitted and progressively accumulated over time—has long been argued to underlie the unparalleled diversity and complexity of human culture. In this paper, I argue that not just any kind of cultural accumulation will give rise to human-like culture. Rather, I suggest that human CCE depends on the gradual exploitation of natural phenomena, which are features of our environment that, through the laws of physics, chemistry or biology, generate reliable effects which can be exploited for a purpose. I argue that CCE comprises two distinct processes: optimizing cultural traits that exploit a given set of natural phenomena (Type I CCE) and expanding the set of natural phenomena we exploit (Type II CCE). I argue that the most critical features of human CCE, including its open-ended dynamic, stems from Type II CCE. Throughout the paper, I contrast the two processes and discuss their respective socio-cognitive requirements. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines’.

Social transmission bias and the cultural evolution of folk-economic beliefs

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hirshleifer ◽  
Siew Hong Teoh
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Social Transmission ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Economic Attitudes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Beliefs ◽  
Over Time

AbstractEvolved dispositions influence, but do not determine, how people think about economic problems. The evolutionary cognitive approach offers important insights but underweights the social transmission of ideas as a level of explanation. The need for asocialexplanation for the evolution of economic attitudes is evidenced, for example, by immense variations in folk-economic beliefs over time and across individuals.

About the Brain, the Face, and Emotion

1984 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 567-568
Author(s):  
Gilles Kirouac
Keyword(s):  
The Face ◽  
The Brain

Regret in the Face of Bereavement: Adaptation to Loss Over Time

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicky Newton ◽  
Cynthia Torges ◽  
Abigail Stewart ◽  
Susan Nolen-Hoeksema
Keyword(s):  
The Face ◽  
Over Time

Conventions and temporal differences in painted faces: A study of posture and color distribution

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (11) ◽  
pp. 267-1-267-8
Author(s):  
Mitchell J.P. van Zuijlen ◽  
Sylvia C. Pont ◽  
Maarten W.A. Wijntjes
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Art Galleries ◽  
Art Collections ◽  
Color Distribution ◽  
Scientific Domain ◽  
The Face ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

The human face is a popular motif in art and depictions of faces can be found throughout history in nearly every culture. Artists have mastered the depiction of faces after employing careful experimentation using the relatively limited means of paints and oils. Many of the results of these experimentations are now available to the scientific domain due to the digitization of large art collections. In this paper we study the depiction of the face throughout history. We used an automated facial detection network to detect a set of 11,659 faces in 15,534 predominately western artworks, from 6 international, digitized art galleries. We analyzed the pose and color of these faces and related those to changes over time and gender differences. We find a number of previously known conventions, such as the convention of depicting the left cheek for females and vice versa for males, as well as unknown conventions, such as the convention of females to be depicted looking slightly down. Our set of faces will be released to the scientific community for further study.

The New Economic Populism and the Future of Inequality in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
William W. Franko ◽  
Christopher Witko
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Income Disparities ◽  
The Face ◽  
Over Time

The authors conclude the book by recapping their arguments and empirical results, and discussing the possibilities for the “new economic populism” to promote egalitarian economic outcomes in the face of continuing gridlock and the dominance of Washington, DC’s policymaking institutions by business and the wealthy, and a conservative Republican Party. Many states are actually addressing inequality now, and these policies are working. Admittedly, many states also continue to embrace the policies that have contributed to growing inequality, such as tax cuts for the wealthy or attempting to weaken labor unions. But as the public grows more concerned about inequality, the authors argue, policies that help to address these income disparities will become more popular, and policies that exacerbate inequality will become less so. Over time, if history is a guide, more egalitarian policies will spread across the states, and ultimately to the federal government.

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