scholarly journals Universalities and cultural specificities of finger counting and montring: evidence from Amazon Tsimane’ people

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Cipora ◽  
Venera Gashaj ◽  
Annabel Gridley ◽  
Mojtaba Soltanlou ◽  
Hans-Christoph Nuerk
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Education Level ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Amazon Rainforest ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Systematic Comparison ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Finger Counting ◽  
Bolivian Amazon ◽  
Research Show

Despite variety of cultures, our shared biology and the universality of finger counting suggests that numbers are embodied. Another lines of research show that numerical cognition might be bound to what our bodies are able to do. Differences in finger counting are apparent even within Western cultures. Relatively few indigenous cultures have been systematically analyzed in terms of traditional finger counting and montring (i.e., communicating numbers with fingers) routines. Even fewer studies used the same protocols across cultures, allowing for a systematic comparison of indigenous and Western finger counting routines. We analyze the finger counting and montring routines of Tsimane’ (N = 121), an indiginous people living in the Bolivian Amazon rainforest, depending on handedness, education level, and exposure to mainstream, industrialised Bolivian culture. Tsimane' routines are compared with those of German and British participants. Tsimane’ reveal a greater variation in finger counting and montring routines, which seems to be modified by their education level. We outline a framework on how different factors might affect cross-cultural and within-cultural variation in finger counting.

scholarly journals Multi-system physiological dysregulation and ageing in a subsistence population

2020 ◽  
Vol 375 (1811) ◽  
pp. 20190610
Author(s):  
Thomas S. Kraft ◽  
Jonathan Stieglitz ◽  
Benjamin C. Trumble ◽  
Angela R. Garcia ◽  
Hillard Kaplan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Physiological Condition ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Statistical Index ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Public Health Infrastructure ◽  
Health Infrastructure ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Physiological Dysregulation ◽  
Bolivian Amazon

Humans have the longest post-reproductive lifespans and lowest rates of actuarial ageing among primates. Understanding the links between slow actuarial ageing and physiological change is critical for improving the human ‘healthspan’. Physiological dysregulation may be a key feature of ageing in industrialized populations with high burdens of chronic ‘diseases of civilization’, but little is known about age trajectories of physiological condition in subsistence populations with limited access to public health infrastructure. To better characterize human physiological dysregulation, we examined age trajectories of 40 biomarkers spanning the immune ( n = 13 biomarkers), cardiometabolic ( n = 14), musculoskeletal ( n = 6) and other ( n = 7) systems among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of the Bolivian Amazon using mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal data ( n = 22 115 observations). We characterized age-related changes using a multi-system statistical index of physiological dysregulation (Mahalanobis distance; D m ) that increases with age in both humans and other primates. Although individual biomarkers showed varied age profiles, we found a robust increase in age-related dysregulation for Tsimane ( β = 0.17–0.18) that was marginally faster than that reported for an industrialized Western sample ( β = 0.14–0.16), but slower than that of other non-human primates. We found minimal sex differences in the pace or average level of dysregulation for Tsimane. Our findings highlight some conserved patterns of physiological dysregulation in humans, consistent with the notion that somatic ageing exhibits species-typical patterns, despite cross-cultural variation in environmental exposures, lifestyles and mortality. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolution of the primate ageing process'.

scholarly journals Cross-cultural and intra-cultural differences in finger-counting habits and number magnitude processing: Embodied numerosity in Canadian and Chinese university students

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Richard Morrissey ◽  
Mowei Liu ◽  
Jingmei Kang ◽  
Darcy Hallett ◽  
Qiangqiang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Magnitude Processing ◽  
Number Magnitude ◽  
Finger Counting ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pattern Of Performance

Recent work in numerical cognition has shown-that number magnitude is not entirely abstract, and at least partly rooted in embodied and situated experiences, including finger-counting. The current study extends previous cross-cultural research to address within-culture individual differences in finger counting habits. Results indicated that Canadian participants demonstrated an additional cognitive load when comparing numbers that require more than one hand to represent, and this pattern of performance is further modulated by whether they typically start counting on their left hand or their right hand. Chinese students typically count on only one hand and so show no such effect, except for an increase in errors, similar to that seen in Canadians, for those whom self-identify as predominantly two-hand counters. Results suggest that the impact of finger counting habits extend beyond cultural experience and concord in predictable ways with differences in number magnitude processing for specific number-digits. We conclude that symbolic number magnitude processing is partially rooted in learned finger-counting habits, consistent with a motor simulation account of embodied numeracy and that argument is supported by both cross-cultural and within-culture differences in finger-counting habits.

scholarly journals Co-father relationships among the Suruí (Paiter) of Brazil

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S Walker ◽  
Cédric Yvinec ◽  
Ryan M Ellsworth ◽  
Drew H Bailey
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Reproductive Strategies ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Human Mating

Partible paternity refers to the conception belief that children can have multiple fathers (“co-fathers”) and is common to indigenous cultures of lowland South America. The nature of social relationships observed between co-fathers reveals information about the reproductive strategies underlying partible paternity. Here we analyze clan, genealogical, and social relationships between co-fathers for the Suruí, an indigenous horticultural population in Brazil. We show that co-fathers roughly assort into two separate categories. In the affiliative category, co-father relationships are amicable when they are between close kin, namely brothers and father-son. In the competitive category, relationships are more likely of avoidance or open hostility when between more distant kin such as cousins or unrelated men of different clans. Results therefore imply multiple types of relationships, including both cooperative and competitive contexts, under the rubric of partible paternity. These complexities of partible paternity institutions add to our knowledge of the full range of cross-cultural variation in human mating/marriage arrangements and speak to the debate on whether or not humans should be classified as cooperative breeders.

scholarly journals Co-father relationships among the Suruí (Paiter) of Brazil

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert S Walker ◽  
Cédric Yvinec ◽  
Ryan M Ellsworth ◽  
Drew H Bailey
Keyword(s):  
South America ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Reproductive Strategies ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Indigenous Cultures ◽  
Human Mating

Partible paternity refers to the conception belief that children can have multiple fathers (“co-fathers”) and is common to indigenous cultures of lowland South America. The nature of social relationships observed between co-fathers reveals information about the reproductive strategies underlying partible paternity. Here we analyze clan, genealogical, and social relationships between co-fathers for the Suruí, an indigenous horticultural population in Brazil. We show that co-fathers roughly assort into two separate categories. In the affiliative category, co-father relationships are amicable when they are between close kin, namely brothers and father-son. In the competitive category, relationships are more likely of avoidance or open hostility when between more distant kin such as cousins or unrelated men of different clans. Results therefore imply multiple types of relationships, including both cooperative and competitive contexts, under the rubric of partible paternity. These complexities of partible paternity institutions add to our knowledge of the full range of cross-cultural variation in human mating/marriage arrangements and speak to the debate on whether or not humans should be classified as cooperative breeders.

scholarly journals The Life History of Learning Subsistence Skills among Hadza and BaYaka Foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo

Human Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheina Lew-Levy ◽  
Erik J. Ringen ◽  
Alyssa N. Crittenden ◽  
Ibrahim A. Mabulla ◽  
Tanya Broesch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic

AbstractAspects of human life history and cognition, such as our long childhoods and extensive use of teaching, theoretically evolved to facilitate the acquisition of complex tasks. The present paper empirically examines the relationship between subsistence task difficulty and age of acquisition, rates of teaching, and rates of oblique transmission among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. We further examine cross-cultural variation in how and from whom learning occurred. Learning patterns and community perceptions of task difficulty were assessed through interviews. We found no relationship between task difficulty, age of acquisition, and oblique transmission, and a weak but positive relationship between task difficulty and rates of teaching. While same-sex transmission was normative in both societies, tasks ranked as more difficult were more likely to be transmitted by men among the BaYaka, but not among the Hadza, potentially reflecting cross-cultural differences in the sexual division of subsistence and teaching labor. Further, the BaYaka were more likely to report learning via teaching, and less likely to report learning via observation, than the Hadza, possibly owing to differences in socialization practices.

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