Précis: The Emotional Mind: The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition

An affective approach to culture and cognition may hold the key to uniting findings across experimental psychology and, eventually, the human sciences. Many accounts of the human mind concentrate on the brain’s computational power, yet for nearly 200 million years before humans developed a capacity to reason the emotional centers of the brain were running the show. To attain a clearer picture of the evolution of mind, we challenge the cognitivist and behaviorist paradigms in psychology by exploring how the emotional capacities that we share with other animals saturate every thought and perception. Many of the distinctive social and cultural behaviors of our species, including, bonding, social learning, hierarchy, decision-making, self-identity, can be integrated if we use an affective approach.

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The Evolution of Intelligence

Darwin's Unfinished Symphony ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691182810.003.0006 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 123-149

Author(s):

Kevin N. Laland

Keyword(s):

Social Learning ◽

Brain Size ◽

Brain Evolution ◽

Human Mind ◽

Feedback Mechanism ◽

Eminent Scientist ◽

Cultural Processes ◽

The Brain ◽

Size And Structure ◽

Complex Organ

This chapter fleshes out the “cultural drive” hypothesis proposed by eminent scientist Allan Wilson. It first considers the question of exactly how social learning could drive brain evolution when some animals managed to copy with tiny brains. Greater specification of the feedback mechanism by which cultural processes fostered the evolution of cognition was required if the argument was to be compelling. Second, the chapter looks at how many variables (e.g., diet, social complexity, latitude) had been shown to be associated with brain size in primates. In order to evaluate the hypothesis that cultural processes had played a particularly central role in the evolution of the human mind, whether social learning was a genuine cause of brain evolution must first be established. Third, the chapter argues that talk of increases in “brain size” is rather simplistic. The brain is a complex organ with extensive substructure, and with particular features and circuitry known to be important to specific biological functions. How the brain had changed over evolutionary time, and whether the observed changes in size and structure were consistent with what the cultural drive hypothesis predicted, also had to be established.

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Evolution and the Human Mind: how far can we go?

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement ◽

10.1017/s1358246100007207 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 49 ◽

pp. 267-275

Author(s):

Henry Plotkin

Keyword(s):

Biological Sciences ◽

Evolutionary Theory ◽

Experimental Psychology ◽

William James ◽

Human Mind ◽

Human Sciences ◽

Conceptual History ◽

Wilhelm Wundt ◽

The Social

There is a close coincidence in time between the appearance of psychology as a science and the rise of evolutionary theory. The first laboratory of experimental psychology was established in Germany by Wilhelm Wundt just as Darwin's writings were beginning to have their enormous impact, especially as they might be applied to understanding the human mind (Darwin, 1871). Psychology is an important discipline because it straddles the boundary between the biological sciences and the social or human sciences (defined as those sciences that study exclusively human characteristics) of anthropology, sociology and economics. Given that importance, and given that new sciences lack the conceptual history within which older, established sciences might be mired, it might have been expected that psychology would have embraced in a way that established sciences did not the equally new, sensational and central theorem of biology which spoke to the origins of species as well as the origins of their traits and, crucially, the functions of those traits. Yet for over a century evolutionary theory had virtually no presence in psychology, despite having powerful friends like William James at court (James, 1880).

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Beérkezett könyvek

Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle ◽

10.1556/mpszle.63.2008.3.10 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 63 (3) ◽

pp. 607-608

Author(s):

Csaba Pléh

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Human Mind ◽

Frankfurt Am Main ◽

Conscious Decision ◽

Better Than

ErősFerenc, LénárdKataés BókayAntal(szerk.) Typus Budapestiensis. Tanulmányok a pszichoanalízis budapesti iskolájának történetéről éshatásáról. Thalassa, Budapest, 2008, 447 oldalHargittaiIstván: Doktor DNS. Őszinte beszélgetések James D. Watsonnal. Vince Kiadó, Budapest, 2008, 223 oldalKutrovátzGábor,LángBenedekésZemplénGábor: A tudomány határa. Typotex,Budapest, 2008, 376 oldalEngerl, C. andSinger, W. (eds) Better than conscious? Decision making, the human mind, and implications for institutions . MIT Press, Cambridge, 2008, xiv + 449 oldalKondor, Zsuzsanna: Embedded thinking. Multimedia and the new rationality. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 2008, xi + 169 oldalSíklakiIstván(szerk.): Szóbeli befolyásolás. I–II. Typotex, Budapest,_n

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Social Learning

10.23943/princeton/9780691150703.001.0001 ◽

2013 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

William Hoppitt ◽

Kevin N. Laland

Keyword(s):

Spatial Distribution ◽

Social Learning ◽

Learning Strategies ◽

Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

Cultural Evolution ◽

Experimental Psychology ◽

Academic Disciplines ◽

Mathematical Methods ◽

Indispensable Tool ◽

Social Learning Strategies

Many animals, including humans, acquire valuable skills and knowledge by copying others. Scientists refer to this as social learning. It is one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of behavioral research and sits at the interface of many academic disciplines, including biology, experimental psychology, economics, and cognitive neuroscience. This book provides a comprehensive, practical guide to the research methods of this important emerging field. It defines the mechanisms thought to underlie social learning and demonstrate how to distinguish them experimentally in the laboratory. It presents techniques for detecting and quantifying social learning in nature, including statistical modeling of the spatial distribution of behavior traits. It also describes the latest theory and empirical findings on social learning strategies, and introduces readers to mathematical methods and models used in the study of cultural evolution. This book is an indispensable tool for researchers and an essential primer for students.

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Neuroscience: The New English Major?

The Neuroscientist ◽

10.1177/10738584211003992 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 107385842110039

Author(s):

Kristin F. Phillips ◽

Harald Sontheimer

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Graduate Education ◽

Human Behavior ◽

Undergraduate Curriculum ◽

Virginia Tech ◽

Bachelor's Degree ◽

State University ◽

Human Interactions ◽

English Major ◽

The Brain

Once strictly the domain of medical and graduate education, neuroscience has made its way into the undergraduate curriculum with over 230 colleges and universities now offering a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience. The disciplinary focus on the brain teaches students to apply science to the understanding of human behavior, human interactions, sensation, emotions, and decision making. In this article, we encourage new and existing undergraduate neuroscience programs to envision neuroscience as a broad discipline with the potential to develop competencies suitable for a variety of careers that reach well beyond research and medicine. This article describes our philosophy and illustrates a broad-based undergraduate degree in neuroscience implemented at a major state university, Virginia Tech. We highlight the fact that the research-centered Experimental Neuroscience major is least popular of our four distinct majors, which underscores our philosophy that undergraduate neuroscience can cater to a different audience than traditionally thought.

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Consciousness, decision making, and volition: freedom beyond chance and necessity

Theory in Biosciences ◽

10.1007/s12064-021-00346-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hans Liljenström

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Free Will ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Brain Structures ◽

Complex Process ◽

Neural Information ◽

Neural Information Processing ◽

Stochastic Population Model ◽

The Brain

AbstractWhat is the role of consciousness in volition and decision-making? Are our actions fully determined by brain activity preceding our decisions to act, or can consciousness instead affect the brain activity leading to action? This has been much debated in philosophy, but also in science since the famous experiments by Libet in the 1980s, where the current most common interpretation is that conscious free will is an illusion. It seems that the brain knows, up to several seconds in advance what “you” decide to do. These studies have, however, been criticized, and alternative interpretations of the experiments can be given, some of which are discussed in this paper. In an attempt to elucidate the processes involved in decision-making (DM), as an essential part of volition, we have developed a computational model of relevant brain structures and their neurodynamics. While DM is a complex process, we have particularly focused on the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) for its emotional, and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) for its cognitive aspects. In this paper, we present a stochastic population model representing the neural information processing of DM. Simulation results seem to confirm the notion that if decisions have to be made fast, emotional processes and aspects dominate, while rational processes are more time consuming and may result in a delayed decision. Finally, some limitations of current science and computational modeling will be discussed, hinting at a future development of science, where consciousness and free will may add to chance and necessity as explanation for what happens in the world.

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PHYSICS OF THE MIND: OPINION DYNAMICS AND DECISION MAKING PROCESSES BASED ON A BINARY NETWORK MODEL

International Journal of Modern Physics B ◽

10.1142/s0217979208050231 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 22 (25n26) ◽

pp. 4482-4494 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

F. V. KUSMARTSEV ◽

KARL E. KÜRTEN

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Social Networks ◽

Chaotic Behavior ◽

Opinion Dynamics ◽

Human Mind ◽

Critical Parameters ◽

Opinion Formation ◽

Natural Catastrophes ◽

Risk Condition ◽

Binary Network

We propose a new theory of the human mind. The formation of human mind is considered as a collective process of the mutual interaction of people via exchange of opinions and formation of collective decisions. We investigate the associated dynamical processes of the decision making when people are put in different conditions including risk situations in natural catastrophes when the decision must be made very fast or at national elections. We also investigate conditions at which the fast formation of opinion is arising as a result of open discussions or public vote. Under a risk condition the system is very close to chaos and therefore the opinion formation is related to the order disorder transition. We study dramatic changes which may happen with societies which in physical terms may be considered as phase transitions from ordered to chaotic behavior. Our results are applicable to changes which are arising in various social networks as well as in opinion formation arising as a result of open discussions. One focus of this study is the determination of critical parameters, which influence a formation of stable mind, public opinion and where the society is placed “at the edge of chaos”. We show that social networks have both, the necessary stability and the potential for evolutionary improvements or self-destruction. We also show that the time needed for a discussion to take a proper decision depends crucially on the nature of the interactions between the entities as well as on the topology of the social networks.

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Motivational system modulates brain responses during exploratory decision-making

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-95311-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Chia-Wei Li ◽

Carol Yeh-Yun Lin ◽

Ting-Ting Chang ◽

Nai-Shing Yen ◽

Danchi Tan

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

High Performance ◽

Behavioral Activation ◽

Motivational Orientation ◽

Performance Group ◽

Reward Seeking ◽

Brain Responses ◽

Low Performance ◽

Risk Choice ◽

The Brain

AbstractManagers face risk in explorative decision-making and those who are better at such decisions can achieve future viability. To understand what makes a manager effective at explorative decision-making requires an analysis of the manager’s motivational characteristics. The behavioral activation/inhibition system (BAS/BIS), fitting the motivational orientation of “approach” or “avoidance,” can affect individual decision-making. However, very little is known about the neural correlates of BAS/BIS orientation and their interrelationship with the mental activity during explorative decision-making. We conducted an fMRI study on 111 potential managers to investigate how the brain responses of explorative decision-making interact with BAS/BIS. Participants were separated into high- and low-performance groups based on the median exploration-score. The low-performance group showed significantly higher BAS than that of the high-performance group, and its BAS had significant negative association with neural networks related to reward-seeking during explorative decision-making. Moreover, the BIS of the low-performance group was negatively correlated with the activation of cerebral regions responding to risk-choice during explorative decision-making. Our finding showed that BAS/BIS was associated with the brain activation during explorative decision-making only in the low-performance group. This study contributed to the understanding of the micro-foundations of strategically relevant decision-making and has an implication for management development.

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Human Mind and Its Carriers: Is It Possible to Transform Ourselves into Robots?

Вопросы философии ◽

10.21146/0042-8744-2021-9-105-117 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 105-117

Author(s):

Vadim V. Vasilyev ◽

Keyword(s):

Personal Identity ◽

Human Person ◽

Human Mind ◽

John Searle ◽

David Chalmers ◽

Main Emphasis ◽

Theories Of Mind ◽

Continuous Stream ◽

Previous State ◽

The Brain

In this paper I discuss some aspects of the problem of carriers of human mind and person. The main emphasis is placed on the origin of our idea of the identical self in the stream of perceptions, the need for a physical carrier of our self and person, and on possibility of replacing the biological carriers of self and person with artificial analogues. I argue that the idea of identical self is constructed by reflection on memories, that its truth is guaranteed by continuous stream of perceptions kept in memories, and that the stream of perceptions presupposes the presence of a normally functioning brain, which can be considered as a carrier of our mind and person. Therefore, personal identity turns out to be dependent on the identity of the brain in time. An attempt to copy the structures of mind and person onto other possible carriers can thus only lead to creation of duplicates of the original person, but not to the continuation of its existence on another carrier. I argue that the gradual replacement of their components with artificial analogues is a more promising way of transforming the biological carriers of human person. To access the possible consequences of such a replacement I analyze arguments of John Searle and David Chalmers, designed to show, respectively, the disappearance of consciousness and person with such a replacement and, on the contrary, their preservation in a previous state. I explain why Searle’s arguments are unconvincing, and demonstrate that Chalmers’ arguments are based on a hidden premise, the confirmation of which is possible in the context of dubious theories of mind-body identity, epiphenomenalism or panpsychism only. I conclude that in the current situation it is impossible to predict which consequences for our person would follow such a replacement.

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