scholarly journals Book review: Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans. Vol. 1, Cultural Perspectives, edited by Takeru Akazawa, Yoshihiro Nishiaki, and Kenichi Aoki. Vol. 2, Cognitive and Physical Perspectives, edited by Takeru Akazawa, Naomichi Ogihara, Hiroki C. Tanabe, and Hideaki Terashima. Springer, 2014.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick L. Coolidge ◽  
Karenleigh A. Overmann
Keyword(s):  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Brain Morphology ◽  
Learning Problem ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Genetic Studies ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Cognitive Paradigms

We review Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans, a two-volume proceedings of an international conference held in Tokyo in 2012 on the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans. The series represents an ambitious inquiry into the cultural, psychological, neuroscientific, and physical differences between the two species that may have contributed to the Neandertal demise, and we found it admirable in its multi-disciplinary scope and depth. One of the key hypotheses is that differences in learning abilities might explain the replacement of Neandertals by modern humans. Many of the papers in the first volume examine learning strategies and behaviors in human groups, both prehistoric and extant hunter–gatherer societies, though not within similar cognitive paradigms. Other papers review aspects of cultural evolution, including evolutionary rates of cultural change, niche construction, and innovation. The second volume continues with studies of cognition and psychology, including papers on individual, imitative, and instructive learning, problem-solving, and cognitive flexibility, as well as genetic studies, issues associated with reconstructing fossil crania, and brain morphology.

scholarly journals Brain morphology predicts social intelligence in wild cleaner fish

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zegni Triki ◽  
Yasmin Emery ◽  
Magda C. Teles ◽  
Rui F. Oliveira ◽  
Redouan Bshary
Keyword(s):  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Brain Plasticity ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Brain Morphology ◽  
Brain Anatomy ◽  
Environmental Complexity ◽  
Learning Abilities ◽  
Cleaner Fish ◽  
High Performing ◽  
Selective Pressures

AbstractIt is generally agreed that variation in social and/or environmental complexity yields variation in selective pressures on brain anatomy, where more complex brains should yield increased intelligence. While these insights are based on many evolutionary studies, it remains unclear how ecology impacts brain plasticity and subsequently cognitive performance within a species. Here, we show that in wild cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus), forebrain size of high-performing individuals tested in an ephemeral reward task covaried positively with cleaner density, while cerebellum size covaried negatively with cleaner density. This unexpected relationship may be explained if we consider that performance in this task reflects the decision rules that individuals use in nature rather than learning abilities: cleaners with relatively larger forebrains used decision-rules that appeared to be locally optimal. Thus, social competence seems to be a suitable proxy of intelligence to understand individual differences under natural conditions.

scholarly journals An ecocultural model predicts Neanderthal extinction through competition with modern humans

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (8) ◽  
pp. 2134-2139 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Gilpin ◽  
Marcus W. Feldman ◽  
Kenichi Aoki
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Change ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Competitive Exclusion ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Learning Ability ◽  
Volterra Model ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Interacting Species ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Cultural Competition

Archaeologists argue that the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans was driven by interspecific competition due to a difference in culture level. To assess the cogency of this argument, we construct and analyze an interspecific cultural competition model based on the Lotka−Volterra model, which is widely used in ecology, but which incorporates the culture level of a species as a variable interacting with population size. We investigate the conditions under which a difference in culture level between cognitively equivalent species, or alternatively a difference in underlying learning ability, may produce competitive exclusion of a comparatively (although not absolutely) large local Neanderthal population by an initially smaller modern human population. We find, in particular, that this competitive exclusion is more likely to occur when population growth occurs on a shorter timescale than cultural change, or when the competition coefficients of the Lotka−Volterra model depend on the difference in the culture levels of the interacting species.

scholarly journals Book review: The prehistoric apprentice: Investigating apprenticeship, know-how and expertise in prehistoric technologies; L’apprenti préhistorique: Appréhender l’apprentissage, les savoir-faire et l’expertise à travers les productions techniques des soci

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manek Kolhatkar
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Spatial Organization ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Technological Organization ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
French And English ◽  
Culture Variability

Describing cultural change and variability and inferring sociocultural dynamics about past people and communities may be among archaeology’s main goals as a field of practice. In this regard, the concept of skill has proved its usefulness to, time and again, expand the breath of archaeologists and lithic technologists’ analyses. It covers a wide range of applications, from apprenticeship, cognition, paleo-sociology, spatial organization. It is one of the main causes for material culture variability, up there with raw material constraints, design, technological organization or cultural norms. Yet, while skill has certainly been the focus of some research in the last decades, it remains quite peripheral, when considering how central the concept should be to technological inquiries. Whatever the reasons may be, this book, edited by Laurent Klaric and fully bilingual (French and English), aims at changing that, and argues for skill to become a central concern in lithic technology. Its chapters do so strongly and the end-result is a book that should become a reference for lithic technologists, whatever their research interests or schools of thought may be.

scholarly journals Cultural Perspectives of Financial and Non-Financial Incentives

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Kyriaki Kafka ◽  
Anna Maria Kanzola ◽  
Panagiotis E. Petrakis
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Economic Action ◽  
Cultural Perspectives

The present paper delineates an explanatory framework for the defining factors of incentives, both financial and nonfinancial, through the theory of human economic action and that of personality traits, which shape human goals and, ultimately, social identity. It is ascertained that three types of variables affect incentives: basic conditions (cultural change, etc.), basic values and needs (tradition, external values, etc.) and the dynamism of social identity, which includes the goals that are set. More specifically, the two basic variables that shape the incentives for human action and imbue dynamism in behavior relate to megalothymia—i.e., the need for acknowledgement of a person’s integrity along with the predisposition to be thought superior to others as well as the aspiration to a certain level of quality in life.

scholarly journals Historical and cross-cultural perspectives on Parkinson’s disease

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Xenakis Blonder
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Neurodegenerative Disorder ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Genetic Studies ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
Paralysis Agitans ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Jean Martin Charcot ◽  
British Physician

Abstract Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder, affecting up to 10 million people worldwide according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Epidemiological and genetic studies show a preponderance of idiopathic cases and a subset linked to genetic polymorphisms of a familial nature. Traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda recognized and treated the illness that Western Medicine terms PD millennia ago, and descriptions of Parkinson’s symptomatology by Europeans date back 2000 years to the ancient Greek physician Galen. However, the Western nosological classification now referred to in English as “Parkinson’s disease” and the description of symptoms that define it, are accredited to British physician James Parkinson, who in 1817 authored The Shaking Palsy. Later in the nineteenth century, French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot re-labeled paralysis agitans “Parkinson’s disease” and over a century of scientific research ensued. This review discusses European, North American, and Asian contributions to the understanding and treatment of PD from ancient times through the twentieth century.

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