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Human cognition - Coggle Diagram

- - - - forming social groups- protection from predation
      - alarm calling- creates confusion and predator may flee
      - coalitions
        
        male-male- may increase reproductive success
        
        female-female- increase or maintain dominance rank
        
        humans- raid other groups to increase reproductive success
  - - - a gene will spread when it promotes the survival and reproduction
      - it depends on probability that the recipient shares and the costs of helpers direct fitness and benefits to recipients direct fitness
      - the benefits need to be greater than the cost
    - - politicians often use "motherland" to evoke feelings and have been shown to be more persuasive
      - Silk (1982) state that genetic relatedness predicts adoption success
      - alliance patterns in Vikings and wills correlate with coefficients of relatedness
      - Chagnon and Bugos (1979) analysed a Yanomamo axe fight and found one combatants' supporters were 78% more closely related to him than the others
      - Apicella and Silk (2019) state that there are lots of cooperation among unrelated individuals like in HG bands have low relatedness
  - - - example- "iterated prisoner's dilemma" and simulations found the winner started with cooperation and then copied the partner
    - - suggests cooperation can still happen if they don't meet again
      - individuals pay attention to others' reputation and help them accordingly
      - reputation: advetising male qualities like hunting so greater reproductive success or may be signalling qualities as collaborators (but this is critcised by Stibbard-Hawkes, 2019)
  - - - it is when 1 or more incur costs to produce a collective good
      - examples- territory, cooperative foraging, collective restraint, unions and climate action
      - solutions
        
        punishment against free riders
        
        disproportionate cost to classes
        
        leadership to regulate
    - - Nettle et al (2013)- relatively low level cues (like being observed) can increase prosocial behaviour
- - - - The social brain
        
        Dunbar and Schultz (2007)
        
        anthropoid primates live in stable, sophisticated, differentiated relationships with hierarchy which is cognitively demanding
        
        there is a correlation between brain size (neocortex only) and mean group size (Dunbar, 1992), but recently foraging is more robust correlation
        
        However, lemurs experience similar social challenges but are less encephalised than monkeys
      - Finding Fruit
        
        Milton (1981)
        
        used to remember where fruit trees are since scattered and clumped
        
        Spider monkeys (frugivore) have brain size twice size as howler monkey (folivore) (1000cc to 490cc), but also have different social groups
      - Technical intelligence
        
        Parker (2015)
        
        extractive foraging requires the use of tools which presents a cognitive demand
        
        they use fine-sensory motor control (apes do extractive foraging and have large brain and opposable thumbs)
        
        Parker suggests that the extraction evolved separately and tool use was the response
        
        Tool construction and use requires a sequence of actions that require planning and flexible recombination of elements
    - - for humans- the brain is 2% of body weight but uses 20% of basic metabolic rate
      - development
        
        takes a long time to develop
        
        can cause obstetric dilemma
        
        humans born relatively prematurely and offspring brain develops more after birth up until 5 years
      - extended pregnancy and postnatal development have high time and energy costs (some even have allomaternal care- cooperative parenting
  - - - Barton (2004)
      - predicts that relative brain size is positively correlated with peripheral vision anatomy and expansion of visual regions
      - size of visual pathways correlates with visual function
      - stero vision also correlates with brain size
  - - - correlates with increase in neocortex size and number of neurones
      - great apes had faster cerebellum growth than neocortex
      - it is particularly correlated with tool use and expanded in apes and develops extensively after birth
  - - - modifications to vocal tract and breathing control allows wide range of noises
      - neanderthal also likely had this
    - - Symbolic references
        
        some say it evolved before anatomically modern humans (70-100kya)
        
        so they had a language ready brain and language was a side effect of a large brain
        
        they say that language arose from cultural evolution and there were no genetic or shape changes
      - recent origin hypothesis
        
        Upper Palaeolithic transition- 50-40kya there was an explosion of artefacts in archaeological records
        
        Cave paintings, ornate figurines, engraved ivory and bones (these are much more complicated than before)
      - Early symbolism
        
        Ochre in Blombos cave (75kya)
        
        Shell beads (adornments) in Grotte des Pigeons in Morocco (82kya)
        
        Ochre carved with geometric patterns in Blombos Cave (100kya) (this is debated)
      - It cannot be said that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence since not all cultural artefacts get preserved in fossil records
      - language likely evolved gradually and slowly, but impossible to know because people can speak without making art
    - - evidence symbolic behaviour in Neanderthal contexts
      - evidence of adornments and intential burial
      - they have a similar FOXP2 gene which is linked to speech disorders and hyoid bone structure with profuse spinal berve bundles associated with breathing control so could have spoke
- - - - combined phylogenetic trees used to reconstruct violence evolution rates
      - based on human position on tree, predicted 2& of deaths due to interpersonal violence
      - similar to chimpanzees, and fits archaeological data and contemporary populations
      - data suggests human psychology might be adapted to deal with violent competition
    - - decisive shift to high-quality/processed food and cooking
      - reduced molar size (reduction driven by adaptations of food processing)
      - modern hunter-gatherers spend less time feeding than other great apes and less than phylogenetically expected
      - Wrangham (2017)
        
        lack of fire evidence before 400kya
        
        but humans had weak jaws and small teeth so likely couldn't eat raw food
        
        control of fire and emergence of cooking had numerous effects on behaviour
  - - - mobile bands of people (non-sedentary)
      - non-storing subsistence
      - egalitarian (both within and between groups)
      - mainly monogamous
      - low violence
    - - Hiwi- warfare, 44% of deaths are homicide in early adulthood, competition for women and territory,
      - Yanomamo- inter-community raiding and killing, kinship important for alliances
      - Waorani- inter-community raiding, kinship, alliances (this can increase marriage opportunities)
      - Andamen Islands- the south has limited resources, lethal intergroup aggression, border avoidance; the north has mutual exploitation in border areas and peace gatherings
      - Marlowe (2005)
        
        many foragers have been influenced by their association with agricultural societies
        
        Holocene foragers represent a new niche appearing due to climate change and faunal depletion
    - - also occurs in chimpanzees but is not phylogenetically widespread
      - archaeological evidence shows it goes back 10k years
  - - - studies adaptations to natural setting, survival and reproductive success, and how behaviour affects fitness
      - Robin Dunbar
        
        hypothesis- language evolved to manage social relationships and track reputations
        
        prediction- natural conservation dominated by social factors rather than politics, sports, culture etc
        
        method- eavesdropped student conversation
        
        result- support for hypothesis and slight gender difference
    - - strategies used to cooperate with others given certain kind of incentives
      - e.g. features deemed attractive
    - - primarily used to generate predictions that are then tested on actual behaviour