7b. Cauchoix, M., & Chaine, A. S. (2016). How can we study the evolution of animal minds? Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 358.
During the last 50 years, comparative cognition and neurosciences have improved our understanding of animal minds while evolutionary ecology has revealed how selection acts on traits through evolutionary time. We describe how cognition can be subject to natural selection like any other biological trait and how this evolutionary approach can be used to understand the evolution of animal cognition. We recount how comparative and fitness methods have been used to understand the evolution of cognition and outline how these approaches could extend our understanding of cognition. The fitness approach, in particular, offers unprecedented opportunities to study the evolutionary mechanisms responsible for variation in cognition within species and could allow us to investigate both proximate (i.e., neural and developmental) and ultimate (i.e., ecological and evolutionary) underpinnings of animal cognition together. We highlight recent studies that have successfully shown that cognitive traits can be under selection, in particular by linking individual variation in cognition to fitness. To bridge the gap between cognitive variation and fitness consequences and to better understand why and how selection can occur on cognition, we end this review by proposing a more integrative approach to study contemporary selection on cognitive traits combining socio-ecological data, minimally invasive neuroscience methods and measurement of ecologically relevant behaviors linked to fitness. Our overall goal in this review is to build a bridge between cognitive neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists, illustrate how their research could be complementary, and encourage evolutionary ecologists to include explicit attention to cognitive processes in their studies of behavior.
During the last 50 years, comparative cognition and neurosciences have improved our understanding of animal minds while evolutionary ecology has revealed how selection acts on traits through evolutionary time. We describe how cognition can be subject to natural selection like any other biological trait and how this evolutionary approach can be used to understand the evolution of animal cognition. We recount how comparative and fitness methods have been used to understand the evolution of cognition and outline how these approaches could extend our understanding of cognition. The fitness approach, in particular, offers unprecedented opportunities to study the evolutionary mechanisms responsible for variation in cognition within species and could allow us to investigate both proximate (i.e., neural and developmental) and ultimate (i.e., ecological and evolutionary) underpinnings of animal cognition together. We highlight recent studies that have successfully shown that cognitive traits can be under selection, in particular by linking individual variation in cognition to fitness. To bridge the gap between cognitive variation and fitness consequences and to better understand why and how selection can occur on cognition, we end this review by proposing a more integrative approach to study contemporary selection on cognitive traits combining socio-ecological data, minimally invasive neuroscience methods and measurement of ecologically relevant behaviors linked to fitness. Our overall goal in this review is to build a bridge between cognitive neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists, illustrate how their research could be complementary, and encourage evolutionary ecologists to include explicit attention to cognitive processes in their studies of behavior.
NOTE TO EVERYONE: Before posting, please always read the other commentaries in the thread (and especially my replies) so you don't just repeat the same thing.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion of physical fitness benefits of cognition in terms of heritability has made me think about how different it means to be fit for survival currently as opposed to long ago. The challenges that early humans needed to overcome in order to survive are wildly different than what it takes for a human to survive today. Of course, there are the same needs of shelter, food, water, etc. but the cognitive abilities are used in fundamentally different ways.
ReplyDeleteMegan, a question is: what were the adaptive challenges in ancestral environments that selected for cognitive mechanisms that are still present today?
DeleteCertain adaptive challenges that humans faced in ancestral environments that led to the selection of cognitive mechanisms include include risk assessment. The ability to use cognition to assess and assign a level of risk to different situations meant life or death on multiple occasions, more frequently then we deal with today. Effective problem solving cognitive mechanisms also allowed for individuals and groups to thrive. For example, if a tribe developed tools it provided more opportunity for food and resource collecting. There are many more challenges we faced as ancestral humans which selected for our present day cognitive mechanisms, many of which we still require to survive, despite living in a very different environment.
DeleteAdaptive challenges in ancestral environments laid the foundation for enduring cognitive mechanisms that are still present today. Although our world and social norms have evolved, these core adaptations persist, shaping our responses to contemporary challenges. Face-recognition and social intelligence, initially for navigating social groups, continue to influence our interactions today. The tools our ancestors used, like rocks and branches, have turned into today's high-tech gadgets, showing how their clever problem-solving skills are still important. Like Nicolas mentioned above, decision-making, which started as a way to stay safe in the past, still helps us figure out what might happen when we do something today. These old cognitive mechanisms are like timeless foundation rules that influence how we act even as the world changes.
DeleteThis paper reminds me a bit about the failure of behaviorism. Proximate studies targets on the implementational level of cognition, and the ultimate approaches focus on explicit behaviors. For this reason, the failure of behaviorism underestimate the proximate things.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it seems to be a good idea that we start from the animal intelligence to discover what cognition is. Language could be consider as a disruptive factor, as it might be the key leading us trapped by homunculus, whereby a concept is explained in terms of the concept itself, and symbol-grounding problem that how the symbol in the mind represent the real world.
Evelyn, yes, focussing on behaviors, rather than on explaining the causal mechanisms of behavioral capacities ("how") was one of the shortcomings of behaviorism; and explaining of "why" requires considering both contemporary and ancestral adaptive pressures. And category learning as well as communication already covered a lot of the ground of cognition well before language evolved uniquely in our species.
DeleteEvelyn, I completely agree with you that it is indeed a good idea to start from animal intelligence to discover more about cognition. Speaking more precisely about categorization, I found interesting that animals also categorize on a daily basis, for more primary instincts than ours, such as distinguishing different groups of preys and of landscapes, etc. Since we've discussed since the beginning of this class the importance of categorizing as a function of cognition, to potentially help solving the "Easy Problem", it appears very interesting to me that animal cognition could also be a way to solve the "Easy Problem".
DeleteI found the discussion on how variation in neurocognitive ability is evidence that supports the idea that cognition can evolve under natural selection very interesting. The paper highlights the three necessary conditions for selection and evolution of cognitive functions: variability in cognition between individuals, heritability of cognitive performances, and a relationship between cognitive variation and fitness under specific environmental conditions. This suggests that cognitive abilities are not fixed within a species, but can vary among individuals and be subject to evolutionary pressures. Additionally, the paper mentions the high inter-individual variability in cognitive performances observed in studies across different species, further supporting the idea of widespread variation in cognitive abilities.
ReplyDeleteMarie-Elise, genetic variance is important in many respects, both in driving evolution (along with environmental variance) and explaining it. But the causal mechanisms underlying traits need to be explained too, especially in cognitive evolution.
DeleteThis reading emphasizes the range of cognitive abilities held by different species, dependent on the various environmental pressures and different means for survival. Furthermore, it discusses two approaches that have the ability to aid in the explanation of cognitive abilities of animals, drawing parallels with human evolution by utilizing both comparative and fitness perspectives. Moreover, this reading highlights the impact of factors like diet and social group size on variations in brain size, which stress that social factors are relevant in cognitive development. Bearing in mind the role of social intelligence in cognitive evolution, I wonder whether individual differences in capacity, such as personality traits, are taken into consideration when examining the role of social intelligence in cognitive evolution.
ReplyDeleteMelika, it depends on whether the interest is in the causal mechanisms of social cognition or their variability and origins.
DeleteUnderstanding the evolution of animal minds can present challenges when tackling the reverse engineering of cognitive capacity. This challenge primarily arises from an essential yet somewhat controversial assumption, which suggests that comprehending a specific brain region, including its characteristics (size, location, connections), and functions, can provide insights into the broader endeavor of reverse engineering cognitive capacity. This concept is related to our Week 4 discussions, where we explored the idea of whether locating various brain components brings us closer to understanding human cognitive capacity.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth considering that understanding brain regions might prove helpful if they reveal new mechanisms that can be computationally modeled, much like how neural networks and deep learning are inspired by the brain. However, if we're merely contemplating the number of neurons and brain size, this approach may be susceptible to the same critiques raised by Fodor about brain imagery.
Natasha, good integrative points.
DeleteWhat stood out to me the most is the case of linking the neurophysiology and ecology of brood parasites (p10). While researchers were able to infer reasonings to the physiological structures in the brain based on the parasites’ behaviour (e.g., specific region of the hippocampus being relatively larger than other species due to their specific needs for spatial memory), they were not able to reverse engineer how brood parasites go about executing such behaviour (i.e., the “easy” problem). As Natasha mentioned, this ultimately goes back to Fodor’s concerns about how there are limits to physiological perspective.
DeleteThe question of how the mind evolved is fascinating to me. The cognitive abilities of species is dependant on how fit one is and the external environment and the behavioural response is based on strategic decision making base on external information gathered by the individual. I think one animal that is so extraordinary is the octopus and the way he adapts so well to the environment. Their cognitive abilities are remarkable. Was it innate though or did their mom teach them everything. How did they end up so smart?
ReplyDeleteMarine, cephalopods like octopus (and their cousins, squid, nautilus and cuttlefish) are brilliant; their exceptional intelligence seems to come from an early branching.
DeleteBut look up whether octopus rear their young: More altricial species, like mammals and birds do, but fish, reptiles and invertebrates tend to lay lots of eggs and sometimes guard them, but let the young fend for themselves once they hatch. Octopus die when their eggs hatch. (Ask ChatGPT the difference between r and K selection, and between altricial and precocial offspring.)
Hi, I wanted to add on to what you said, because what’s really interesting to me is that some animals don’t have parental bonds, and they still somehow know how to survive on their own. These animals are independent since birth, and that makes me think of the same question, are all of their behavioural responses innate?
DeleteAlso, the concept of finding a mate is really interesting to me, it’s instinctual. For example, some animals will have one mate and will remain with them their whole life, and I am wondering if for some species, it was always like this, or whether at one point they had multiple mates and it was not an advantageous situation.
I agree in how fascinating and remarkable it is how cognitive abilities adapt to the environment, and how these abilities can be studied via the methods outlined in the paper. In the same vain as some of the 7a responses, I feel as though this paper, and the evolutionary approach to animal cognition can only address the easy problem by observing the adaptive behaviors, but the question of how feeling emerges seems all the more elusive.
DeleteI additionally found the sections on methodology to be interesting, namely the focus on bridging the gap between invasive, low sample experimental research, and large scale but less rigid or informative observational research. I wonder how we can best apply these methodologies to human research, particularly how our certainty about our own cognitive states and our ability to "mind-read" when looking at other humans can be used in research.
Jessica, yes, of interest are cognitive capacities<, conserved across millennia of evolution, rather than just behaviors themselves.
ReplyDeleteI am a little confused about figure 3, does anyone mind explaining it/ give an example?
ReplyDeleteTo my understanding, Figure 3 is attempting to show how different traits are linked with certain cognitive abilities which can describe how cognition is affected by selection. The overarching traits that are selected will give rise to specific behaviours that then will either positively or negatively correlate with cognitive capabilities. Thus, depending on the selected traits, we will see different dynamics play out in terms of the cognitive abilities that are expressed. Additionally, an important point of the figure identifies the fact that many cognitive abilities are linked to more than one behaviour, which can further complicate how expression occurs.
DeleteThis article discusses the use and combination of neurophysiology and evolutionary biology to explain cognitive evolution. Cognitive abilities have likely evolved due to fitness necessity, such as the example given with the parasite-host birds. The host birds needed to evolve their cognitive abilities to better discriminate between their own eggs and the parasitic eggs to retain resources for their own offspring. Cauchoix and Chaine also emphasize the importance of researching the social and ecological contexts which lead to cognitive evolutionary pressures. This method will help explain the why of cognition but not so much the how of cognition. The focus is strongly on observable behaviours, typically combinations of cognitive abilities, which remain difficult to reverse-engineer and explain how cognition occurs.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to find a peer who was also discussing the ecological side Cauchoix and Chaine mentioned.
DeleteYeah, I like that they point out possible areas of exploration; they address the lack of cooperation between cognitive scientists and behavioral ecologists has left a gap in understanding "cognition in the wild." There is a gap in the categorization of the term 'behavior' as well: ecologists view behavior as a reaction to ecological contexts, while cognitive scientists define it as a specific motor response to a cognitive test. Cauchoix suggests the use of an alternative path model currently used that combines these multifaceted factors “between behaviors, cognitive traits, and fitness” with observations and experiments to better understand the relationships “cognition, behavior, and selection and how these relationships will influence the evolution of cognition.”
However, I agree that these pathways will likely not explain how cognition occurs or reverse-engineer it, likely only contributing more understanding of specific cognitive functions.
I think the emphasis on integrating cognitive science with evolutionary ecology is important in recognising the environment that one is exposed has an impact on one’s behaviour. I don’t think it is possible to disentangle the two; I think this sheds light on why T3 is not just T2 with wheels and a camera. This paper emphasises on how behaviour can evolve based on the conditions (and therefore the needs) of a species, but at an even more basic level, being able to understand what those are requires sensorimotor) performance capacity, making it evident that T3 is what Turing should have aimed for.
DeleteDaniel, funnily enough, I was also looking for a classmate discussing the ecological considerations discussed in the paper.
DeleteI think the gap between cognitive scientists and behavioural ecologists is quite problematic. The issue, as the paper discusses, is that our current methods for measuring cognitive performance in the wild, even the non-invasive ones like MRI, present many confounds (like stress) that could and likely would impact fitness and cognitive performance of the subject. Another issue, one that I believe requires more emphasis, is that the type of cognitive performance measures currently employed are not accurate representations of say, a mechanical task the subject might actually encounter in the wild. Because of this, the cognitive capacities selected for through evolution may not be equipped to behave appropriately to the paradigms presented by the researcher. This type of research should be conducted mostly observationally, and the cognitive performance measures should be applied to things the subject actually encounters in the wild. Studying problem-solving capacity in brood parasite hosts for example, is a good direction.
Animals behavior can be analyzed through 2 different types of questions. The first ones, called proximal, address the behaviors directly, in a sense that it gives a response to the “how” questions. How does the animal produce this exact behavior at this time? What are the triggers? how did it develop during the animal’s lifetime (so at the ontogenetic level)?
ReplyDeleteThe second ones try to give an explanation to the “why” questions. This time, it relies on the phylogenetic evolution of the species, and it seems like those questions are closer to the evolutionary perspective seen in 7a. Could we say that this perspective is close to reverse-engineering cognition if, as suggested by the authors, social and ecological contexts were more often implemented in the hypotheses to be tested?
Furthermore, I liked the fact that, despite using the W word “cognition”, they specify what is included in that term (perception, learning, memory, attention, decision-making process and executive functions).
I actually think that the idea of reverse-engineering cognition is better captured by the proximate or "how" approach than the ultimate or "why" approach. You can see this in how the reading characterizes the proximate approach as the domain of cognitive science while the ultimate approach is the project of evolutionary psychology. The issue with the "ultimate" evolutionary approach is that its explanations will all take the form of "environmental/social pressure X lead to the development of gene Y which expresses cognitive trait Z," without explaining how the neural structure that Y gives rise to actually performs cognitive ability Z. As a result, we would not be able to reverse-engineer cognition from these kinds of explanations.
DeleteThe integrative approach proposed in this paper highlighted something I've been thinking across the weeks of this course, which is that different approaches to reverse-engineering cognition like computationalism, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology all fall short in one way or another, but by integrating these approaches we might get closer. By integrating approaches we can look at how brain structure and function is selected for in natural environments, or how socio-cultural contexts select for certain capacities, both of which might get us closer to the HOW of cognition than these approaches individually.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way. Combining different methods and using an integrative approach will definitely lead to a more nuanced understanding. Computationalism reveals how the mind functions, neuroscience delves into its neural underpinnings, and evolutionary psychology illuminates the adaptive roles of cognitive abilities, providing insights into their evolutionary origins. To fully understand the intricate dynamics underlying cognitive development, it is essential to combine these different techniques. The paper emphasizes the significance of integrating both proximate and ultimate perspectives, urging researchers to explore the relationship between cognitive functions and environmental settings. We need to underscore the importance of bridging the gap between different fields.
DeleteHi Adrienne and Julide—I completely agree with both of your points, as this was an aspect of the readings this week that stuck out to me as well. I think that both of the readings this week do a good job of highlighting the issues that arise when only one perspective or approach is taken when attempting to reverse-engineer cognition, and the second reading by Cauchoix and Chaine offer guidance for a possible solution. The authors of this paper acknowledge this issue by highlighting the breadth of tasks that cognition allows one to be able to do, as “most cognitive abilities intervene in a broad array of contexts and behaviours” as well as stressing the need to understand the different contexts and forces which make certain cognitive abilities more adaptive in different contexts (12). This paper provides information on how to merge evolutionary biology and cognitive science—what advice can be taken from this reading to further integrate different fields to achieve the reverse-engineering of cognition? How do we remedy the potential conflicts and contradictions of multiple positions?
DeleteEvolutionary psychology suggests we've developed certain cognitive capacities to tackle specific voluntary challenges. Until now, only evolutionary psychology has provided a concrete explanation for why we can do what we do. That being said, like others have said, its contribution to identifying a specific mechanism or addressing the "how" remains uncertain. As Adrienne mentioned, a clear answer to the 'why' might pave the way to understanding the 'how'. However, it's still uncertain whether evolutionary psychology can successfully draw that link.
DeleteI agree with this thread; one of the things I adore about Cogsci is the interdisciplinary aspect of it so I think there is much to be gained by different fields coming together to examine the same thing (especially in the case of cognition). I want to respond to Shona's excellent question about how we could remedy the potential conflicts and contradictions of multiple positions; I don't think it's possible to remedy anything until we get started as it really depends on the research question and the specific subject that is being studied. That said, I understand that you meant to refer to the general contradictions that may arise when trying to marry different fields together. I do think that these contradictions and conflicts can be resolved if everyone involved is on the same page and take care to define all terms (in a non-weasel way). Once this groundwork is done, it will be much easier to do studies across fields. I intend to do research on bilingualism and its effect on moral decision-making and I am trying to think of ways I could use my minor in Ling to help my research design and provide me with an complementary POV to Psyc; it's not obvious as one might think, so I definitely understand why people don't collab across fields often. BUT I think (and hope) there are people out there willing to do it and it is just a matter of time before they come together and do it (especially with the rise of the popularity of interdisciplinary approach).
DeleteThis article lays out the case for pursuing a shift in the field of evolutionary biology to analyse not only the evolution of behaviours, but also the evolution of the cognitions that allow certain behaviours to be generated. If done well, research into the evolution of animal cognition would generate significant insights into the field of cognitive science, by allowing us to reconstruct how and why cognitions emerged in biological systems. This paper proposes that progress in the budding field of the evolution of cognition will come from integrating research on the proximate and ultimate causes of cognition, through pinpointing the agents for selection that drive cognitive evolution, and through research on animal cognition in the wild.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder to what extent we can gain insights into the evolution of cognition through observing artificial neural nets? If cognitive functions evolve when they display variation, heritability, and improve fitness, all of the above are often involved in machine learning, so perhaps observation of artificial deep learning algorithms could be used to help understand the evolution of organic cognitive mechanisms…
Hi Daniel, regarding your question about artificial neural nets, I think there is a lot of promise in their use in research on the evolution of cognition. As others have already mentioned in the comments above, integrating different approaches to understanding cognition may be a better approach in its reverse-engineering than fixating on any particular approach, which may on its own have many limitations. However, in the case of the study of the evolution of cognition, it may be difficult to impactfully apply neural nets until the field progresses somewhat. We still lack clarity regarding the links between cognitive abilities, behaviors, and whether these behaviors lead to survival and reproductive advantages. All of these are highly variable – to list some examples: a behavior may be made possible by a number of overlapping cognitive abilities; a behavior may only lead to advantages in a specific environment; some behaviors may be strongly linked to some cognitive abilities and weakly linked to others; some cognitive abilities may originate from causal mechanisms different than those our current theories speculate they do. To model the evolution of cognitive functions with deep learning algorithms, we would need to take much of this into account.
DeleteI appreciate the way this paper frames the ultimate and proximate approaches, I think it makes for a very clear distinction into how researchers generally separate evolutionary research. I do think this article overstates how much we understand about cognition, and consequently how much we can use it in tandem with evolutionary perspectives to understand the mind. Their definitions of cognitive processes (attention, memory, etc) were all well and good, but I believe that unless we truly understand the important building blocks that permit these processes now, it will be impossible to tie them to any evolutionary changes, or that these would at best be correlational, at worst misleading. I appreciate that understanding environmental pressures can make our assessment of behaviour more ethologically valid, but I don’t think it really does anything for explaining cognition beyond armchair postulation.
ReplyDeleteI understand the perspective that we need to comprehend the process of cognition before we can apply it to evolutionary changes. I believe this is true for the proximate approach, which focuses on the mechanisms underlying cognition and behaviour, because this is essentially the easy problem (which we have yet to solve). However, I believe it is the opposite for the ultimate approach. As stated in the article, focusing on the evolutionary history and selective pressures that caused behaviours can tell us how aspects of cognition came to be. This in turn could help reverse engineer cognition.
DeleteNico, the ultimate approach focuses on the evolutionary context which has caused certain adaptive behaviours or traits to develop in human beings. This perspective can be said to be behaviourist in that it focuses on the observable outcomes of cognition rather than the actual mechanisms involved in it. Thus, while I understand what you’re getting at, I disagree that the ultimate approach could help us reverse engineer cognition. It may be beneficial in our overall understanding of human behaviour to understand the context which brought about certain adaptations, but knowing why a certain cognitive capacity may have developed does not allow us to access how it works. To take Searle’s Chinese Room example, just as undergoing the computational procedure which one uses when speaking Chinese cannot allow us to understand Chinese, studying how the Chinese language developed or language-associated behaviours of Chinese speakers would not either.
DeleteConsidering cognitive capacities through an evolutionary lens is, I think, useful for building a large-scale framework of thinking and for understanding more base-level abilities (like egg recognition and even spatial memory for food hoarding, as the authors suggest). If either method will help cognitive science, it seems like it will be the fitness approach to studying the proximate perspective. But even in the case of the spatial-memory-food-hoarding example, this approach can only take us as far as identifying the brain differences between populations and associating hippocampal variation with memory variation (something we were aware of since Brenda Milner and HM). I don't think this approach will be able to unlock the finer details of how the "mechanisms" (a word which it seems like the authors are using in a Weasel Way) actually produce their effects.
ReplyDeleteI think there are also simply more effective ways to be answering questions of cognitive science than making MRI brain atlases of birds (particularly because cross-species comparisons for anything beyond basic perception seems flawed). While their still may be valuable overlap in studying cognitive science and evolution, it seems like cognitive science is maybe more helpful to questions of evolution than questions of evolution are to it.
"Cognition emerges when the brain transforms information into mental constructs or representations" pretty well summarizes my problems with this whole paper. What do they mean by 'transforms information' what is a 'mental construct or representation'. I think there is a lot of interesting theory and data collection coming out of evolutionary psychology, but none of it gives me a causal explanation. Most of it feels like saying nothing in a lot of words. Saying you've proved that spatial reasoning helps us find food seems inane on some level. We already know these traits are helpful. The data is good to have but point me to what gene lets me pick out referents and how it developed and I'll be a lot happier.
ReplyDeleteHi Marie, I completely agree. I think one of the issues when examining evolutionary ecological perspectives in order to reverse-engineer cognition is that “behaviour” in this domain is defined as the response to social and ecological situations that are a *combination* of many cognitive abilities. Indeed, the paper makes a great argument for how cognitive abilities can be subject to natural selection; it’s quite interesting how the same species of bird (chickadee) living in different climates show differing hippocampal structure and behavioural output (spatial memory) as a result of local adaptation! However, we do not know what cognitive abilities have directly caused a change in neuroanatomical structure of the brain, if any. As you said, these changes in structural neuroanatomy are only correlated with improved spatial memory and may be a result of another cognitive capacity entirely or a combination of both. This approach still does not help us understand the causal mechanisms (HOW: hard problem).
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ReplyDeleteFirst, in summary, the reading from Cauchoix and Chaine discusses the integration of Niko Tinbergen's idea of proximate and 'ultimate' perspectives in understanding animal cognition from an evolutionary perspective. They differentiate the two perspectives, calling the proximate approach to understand the mechanisms of how animal minds work, while the ultimate approach tries to understand the selective pressures and the evolutionary history of behaviors or traits.
ReplyDeleteThen, the authors define cognition as “when the brain transforms information into mental constructs or representations." Thus, it is important to consider the role of cognitive adaptations in addressing adaptive challenges for animals. These challenges require cognitive adaptations to improve an organism's chances of survival and reproduction. In retrospect of this issue, this perspective puts into context the idea of symbol grounding, demonstrating how cognitive functions must become grounded to enhance survival and reproduction.
Moreover, the authors’ emphasis on these neural processes reminds me of our week four discussion. The article, similar to Fodor’s arguments, acknowledges the difficulty of reverse-engineering cognitive processes from understanding the brain structure (I think it's also important to acknowledge the limitations and harm of invasive techniques discussed then).
Thus, Cauchoix and Chaine’s detailed explanations of cognitive adaptations in various species–humans, birds, etc–emphasize the complex factors influencing cognitive development (more on this discussed in my reply to Kaitlyn).
But, it reaffirms that knowing these factors doesn't necessarily explain "how" or "why" cognitive functions emerge, like knowing the “where” and “when” functions of the brain mentioned in week four.
Making a link with my skywriting from 7a, I think that contrary to the 7a reading this reading does not try to say that evolutionary psychology can explain the “how” of our cognitive capacities with respect to the easy problem of cognition. Instead, this paper shows that evolution can offer an explanation as to why we have the cognitive and behavioral capacities that we possess today. Indeed, the reading introduces two approaches that allow the investigation of the evolution of cognitive processes in animals: the comparative approach and the fitness approach. However, the reading seems to argue for the fitness approach as more advantageous than the comparative approach when studying neurocognitive evolution. The fitness approach, as described by the authors, measures contemporary selection to understand the evolution of traits, so basically what this approach does is that it examines natural selection to understand why a trait evolved. As mentioned, this approach is shown to be helpful in understanding why we have certain cognitive abilities, but the authors do not try to make the case that it could explain how we bring about these abilities because this approach is mainly focused on why and how we got these behaviors but not on how we are producing them (what are the mechanisms inside of us that produce behaviors and cognitive abilities).
ReplyDeleteHi Valentina,
DeleteI like this perspective! This framing seems like its own easy and hard problems of evolution, wherein the authors here try to answer the hard problem of why we evolved the way we did. They suggest that cognition has evolved as a consequence of fitness, as you say, wherein each aspect of the cognition we see today arose due to selective pressure. I think that using this to guide our understanding of the HP of cogsci makes a nice parallel, in which, if we are to believe that modern cognitive capacities are all things that are (or were at some point in history) advantageous for survival, it provides a sort of framework for us to guide hypotheses about what underlies cognition mechanistically.
I believe the author has fallen for the pitfalls of behaviorism.The author seeks to draw connections between cognitive attributes, behavior, and fitness and examine how these interrelationships affect the evolution of cognition from animal to homo sapien. The author's attempt to crack an ideal function between the input and output (behavior) of birds, and to further impose this function onto human beings as a collective evolutionary outcome, is arguable. This paradigm fails to respect the anatomical, multiple evolution variants and which Prof.harnad mentioned in the previous discussion, lack of connection between both contemporary and ancestral adaptive pressures.
ReplyDeleteHowever, study the cognitive development for animals, especifically their physical attributes, can indeed allow us to determine specific brain structures based on their cognitive functionality. This could potentially validate the existence of analogous structures in humans. That would discover shallow congnitive behavior, which may crack some mystery part of the cognitive map.At a higher level, the representation of symbols by animals and their role in evolution will have implications for human cognition and evolutionary research.
Hi! I also think that Cauchoix and Chaine’s evolutionary approach is inclined to behaviourism, but I don’t think it is entirely behaviourism. While evolutionary theory in behaviourism ignores our thoughts and feelings, Cauchoix and Chaine are suggesting an integrative approach that focuses primarily on our thoughts and taking evolution into account. The proximate studies especially focus on how neural activities and the anatomical structure of the brain lead to what we can do. I do have some concerns about the integrative evolutionary approach to cognitive science, especially whether it would lead to eugenics, since the fitness benefits of cognition values intellectual performance.
DeleteI thought the arguments about brain sizes were quite surprising. In my studies, I have been taught repeatedly that with the exception of the frontal lobe brain sizes should not be taken into account to measure brain abilities. In this reading, some compelling arguments about birds go against this claim. I do still believe that connection speed and neuronal density have more to do than just the brain size (e.g. elephant vs octopus). One thought that followed me through the reading was about the testing of cognitive abilities. Even though the researchers tried to be ecologically valid by replicating “real life” scenarios it is still humans testing animals through their human bias. Is it possible to bypass this process? Because even using AI, a human mind would be behind the AI.
ReplyDeleteHi Garrance, I was also shocked to read this but I certainly still do not think there is a direct correlation between brain size and higehr cognition. The part of the reading that suggested that it may be specialization of hippocampal structures—which happens to be accompanied by larger brain size—is a more plausible diagnostic for increased cognitive functions is much more appealing to me. The reading also mentions that we simply do not have neuro-cognitive imaging tools that can accurately focus on these smaller sections of the brain in other species right now, but once we do, this hippocampus specialization–higher cognition correlation hypothesis will be more readibly testable.
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DeleteM. Cauchoix and A. Chaine argued in favor of integrating cognition into evolutionary ecology approaches to gain a better understanding of how the mind/cognition evolves. They lament the emphasis on the outcome of cognition (behavior in the ecological sense) rather than on the ‘mechanisms’ of cognition (the how) - considered as a black box. They advocate for the integration of the proximal approach (how the mind works) of cognitive neuroscience and the ultimate approach of evolutionary biology (why certain behaviors have been selected by evolution). I understand how cognitive neuroscience can help in understanding the evolution of animal minds, but I still have difficulty in figuring out concretely how the evolutionary approach could also benefit our understanding of cognition (e.g. understanding the 'How' can help in finding the 'Why', but is it reciprocal?)
ReplyDeleteHi Joann,
DeleteFrom my understanding, Cauchoix and Chaine argue that integrating the ultimate approach of evolutionary biology with the proximal approach of cognitive neuroscience can help us better understand how cognition evolves. They say that by studying the ecological pressures that shape cognition and the mechanisms underlying cognitive processes, we can gain a more complete understanding of how cognitive systems evolve and how cognitive structures and function relate to the problems they evolved to solve. So, by understanding the evolutionary context in which cognitive abilities have evolved, we can better understand the adaptive value of cognitive processes and how they have been shaped by natural selection. So this would somewhat help us understand the how and the why of cognition (from my understanding).
The reading “How Can We Study the Evolution of Animal Minds?” (2016) highlights two main ways to study the cognition of animals: (1) the proximate approach, and (2) the ultimate approach.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the authors, the proximate approach involves studying the neurophysiological systems that underlie certain behaviors (Cauchoix & Chaine, 2016). I mentioned neural models and sensory systems in my previous skywriting; I believe this research method would therefore involve sensory transduction, as well as populating coding and labeled-line coding (two common forms of neurocircuitry that underlie sensory-related behaviors). These would be the physical and thus observable parts to “feeling” that we could study.
On the other hand, the “ultimate” method looks at behavior from a more evolutionary perspective (Cauchoix & Chaine, 2016). More specifically, they investigate why varying adaptive traits can arise in animals— reasons could include that there are certain pressures within a specific environment, and developing such traits would increase their chances for survival. However, as the reading notes, this approach cannot tackle the “how” questions— it simply involves an input (the factor that pressures the organism to adapt) and an output (the resulting adaptation). “Feeling” can indeed be shaped and affected by natural selection related factors, however there is still the unknown of the processes that occur in between. In research, these “black boxes” cause limitations and overlook important components.
What seems to differ between the proximate and ultimate approaches is that the proximate studies the processes tare at the origin of an outward behavior while the ultimate approach focuses on that output behavior, the consequence. Anterior mechanisms like decision-making require perception of the environment, which can be modulated by attention. But the critique about the mentioned ecological ultimate approach, is that it doesn’t investigate how perception or attention are integrated to get the most strategic decision-making responsible for a behavior, which doesn’t enlighten us about how the mind works that is the easy problem.
ReplyDeleteFrom the paper that emphasizes the importance of integrating proximate and ultimate factors, thanks to the fitness approach to explain the persistence of some cognitive traits throughout evolution, we now need to explain how those adaptive cognitive traits, seemingly essential to sentient species work.
Based on my understanding, we humans nowadays survive and thrive completely based on the traits and cognitive capabilities that we inherited through the evolutionary process. It seems that we can do things that our ancestors could not do, such as we can now live in the ocean without the need for the ability to breathe underneath the water, but I think those traits set up the maximum range instead of indicating exactly what we can do or cannot: we still cannot breathe under the water biologically without the help of external devices. We are now still fitting ourselves with the environment, however, the range of “environment” is much extended than in ancient times: both natural and artificial.
ReplyDeleteHi Eugene,
DeleteI like the points you’ve brought up and wanted to add onto what you’ve said. Evolutionary psychology explains the narrative as to why we have the cognitive abilities that we do (it tells a story of why we do what we do). I think the reasons we can do more than our ancestors is because evolutionary psychology doesn’t actively take into account the environment we live in, and its explanation is limited to finding why something would be useful that we or animals have evolved to have as far as cognitive abilities go. Just like evolutionary psych cannot answer how we do what we do, it can only explain our abilities from one viewpoint, which is why discrepancies like the one you call out exist.
Hi Ethan,
DeleteI think the points you made on evolutionary psychology are valid and intriguing. I agree that the field of EP is mostly focused on explaining adaptations in the ancestral context, I just wanted to add to this point by saying that the discrepancy mentioned by Eugene is even more glaring due to the rapid pace of our technological and cultural changes in the modern world. As to your last point, regarding EP’s limit to only being able to explain from their standpoint, I think this again emphasizes the necessity to really push for a integrated approach between biologist, neuroscientists and evolutionary psychologists so that a lot of these gaps that exist within one field can be addressed by another.
Great points Eugene! In all the discussion of the environment and inherited traits that we obtain through the evolutionary process, I thought about epigenetics (I mentioned this a bit in my 7a skywriting). It is insane to think about how trauma, stress and environmental factors can completely impact the genes of future generations. With what is going on in Palestine, it is heartbreaking to think about what this means and how the effects of war can carry over for generations at a biological level. This could be an important area to consider within the field of evolutionary psychology.
DeleteThis paper highlights important ideas into how we can use modern technology and combine fields of study to further our understanding of human and animal behavior and evolution. I would only like to comment on their explanations of cognitive functions as different steps in information processing. The definitions of perception, learning, memory, etc. all seem clear and systematic and kid-sib friendly except for the fact that it all involves some sort of construction or manipulation of “mental representations”, which for our purposes is a big weasel word. The next step would be to define mental representations, without getting caught in the homunculus trap.
ReplyDeleteThis reading seemed like an interesting contrast to the Fodor reading from a few weeks ago, in which he argued against the utility of studying the brain in order to reverse-engineer consciousness. While I agreed with some of his points, throughout this course I’ve often felt like the brain must have a role to play in this process. In my opinion, this week’s reading on the natural selection of cognition presented a promising way in which we can study the brain in order to learn how to reverse-engineer consciousness. This is because, unlike just measuring brain activation during a task, researchers are able to study associated behaviors with the activation and trace their heritability. Perhaps by going back a few generations, we can learn what caused different brain mechanisms to develop, and how they’re structurally supported. I think this would be useful in learning about cognition because it doesn’t just involve copying the brain as it exists today – which we’ve already noted as being a waste of time – but learning more about the “architecture” that supports cognitive abilities. Obviously the authors reference many difficulties with these studies (as a lot of other people have pointed out in their skies), but I think if the methods are refined this could be a very useful tool in learning about cognition, especially if used in conjunction with other methods.
ReplyDeleteThree separate hypotheses explored within the paper try to explain the evolution of cognition in animals.
ReplyDeleteEach is intricate, but I would summarize them as 1. basic ability to find food and survive immediate dangers, 2. social intelligence; outmaneuvering the competition, and 3. quick adaptation to varying environments.
It seems obvious, once they are stated clearly, that they all apply, to a varying degree, in explaining the existence of different cognitive systems in some or most animals. The insight seems to reside, then, in the extent to which each hypothesis is adequate in explaining specific behaviour in specific animals subject to specific evolutionary pressures and in the context of specific existing evolved capacities. That is to say: if an animal already has pseudo-wings, adaptations that grant it lighter bones may be more adaptatnive than if the animal did not have these pseudo-wings, regardless of the extent to which it uses them. When extended to cognition, similar patterns can be reached.
Cauchoix & Chaine argue about the importance of the collaboration between cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary biology. They emphasize that to study the evolution of cognition in animals, less-invasive technologies are necessary, which wouldn’t require captivity, such as the EcoG. Indeed, the physical and social environments have a great influence on organisms, such that they can lead to changes in cognitive functions and behaviors. The brain tends to adapt to new environments to increase the organism’s likelihood of survival and successful reproduction. Therefore, studying animals in captivity is likely to lead to changes in neural circuitry, affecting behaviors and cognitive abilities in animals. These results may lead to inaccurate conclusions in the quest to understand selection effects on the evolution of cognition.
ReplyDeleteCauchoix and Chaine point out that a problem of the field of animal psychology is that the different subfields do not communicate and integrate their results. Neuroscience on one side is focused on the mechanism whilst EP focuses on the genetic history. They argue for the integration of these two approaches : it would improve both sides. Are we getting closer to answering the hard question? I think we might be because if we are able to identify the mechanism, the reasons it arose and the way it evolved we have a big piece of the puzzle I believe.
ReplyDeleteHi Emma, although I understand what you mean, I still am not sure whether the integration of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology will help in answering the hard problem. The integration of the two may help to really close in on the easy problem with EP (fitness method) helping to explain the “why” and the neuroscience portion helping out with answering the “how” part with its understanding and breakdown of mechanisms. However, even with the integration, it may be too far-fetched to say that we are getting closer to answering the hard problem of why and how we are both able to do what we are able to do but also FEEL. Neither of these fields have yet to truly push into the realm of feelings.
DeleteThe bird hoarding and brood parasitism examples have been used to illustrate the power of the fitness approach (the theory that short term selection is the primary cause of evolutionary change and speciation) in linking ecological context (problems of the environment) to the evolution of cognitive abilities and neural structure. Measuring cognitive functions, analyzing functional connectivity and specific circuits in the brain as well as researching the social and ecological contexts which lead to cognitive evolutionary pressures only allows us to understand the “what”. “when”, “where” and maybe the “why” of cognition though. Comparing the physiological structures in organisms doesn’t allow us to reverse engineer “how” they go about doing the things they do. Therefore, because we can’t discern how such neural connections and circuits produce behavior, we run the risk of falling into the same functional localization trap that Fodor criticizes. The only scenario where the Fitness Approach could be beneficial is it allows us to generate questions about the brain that reveal new mechanisms that can be computationally modeled (like neural networks).
ReplyDeleteI appreciate how they mentioned the integration of evolutionary ecology and cognitive neuroscience, and how they believe that both studies can be complementary to each other and encourage the different approaches instead of seeing it in just one perspective just as the past readings have e.g. computationalism. However, similar to the controversy of studying the localization of the brain in order to understand cognition, the evolutionary fitness approach and comparative cognition has its limitations and is questionable regarding how it can contribute to reverse engineering our cognitive capacities.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I appreciated about this paper was how concretely and clearly each concept was introduced and defined, and that while the topics and examples were complex, they were thoroughly explained (although their description of cognition-related words were somewhat different from what we have learned, but we can’t expect everyone to have the same level of understanding of words like categorization as we do as students in this course). However, I find it quite interesting that with all this talk about the connection between evolution and cognition, there was no reference to the role of language as the uniquely human evolutionary advantage that reciprocally influences our cognitive capacities. If we are to take a cognitive ecology perspective, especially in the realm of social cognition, I would assume that language should be a hot topic of discussion in the evolution of cognitive performances. I understand that the evolution of language is not much of a Darwinian concern, but I do think it is worth considering how much our linguistic and speech abilities have revolutionized our cognitive development and overall fitness.
ReplyDeleteI found an interesting part of the article to be when it discussed methods of recording neural activity of animals in their natural environments. This reminded me of contemporary studies in computational psychiatry, where a variety of large data measurements regarding interpersonal interactions are taken from a device that a person wears (such as in a group setting, measuring each person's movement patterns or patterns of speech). These measurements then can then be applied in fields such as improving communication methods and efficiency in a company. This relates to the reading as there are often many psychological methods in motivation science to adjust behaviors, but these methods may not be effective in the long term if we don't consider what caused the inefficient behaviors in the first place. Thus similar methods that were used to understanding animal evolutionary behaviors could be applied in modern settings to understand certain human behaviors
ReplyDeleteThe article started with definitions that do not align with how we define them in this class. The paper also talks about capturing wild animals to observe and control their behavior. It acknowledges the stress this would cause, but only because of how it would affect results. This makes me wonder the extent to which the ethics of experiments on animals have changed since the publication of this article in 2016.
ReplyDeleteMiriam, good point, and I agree. But alas the ethics have not improved much.
DeleteThis article explores neurophysiology and evolutionary biology in tandem to explain the process of cognitive evolution. I personally found the case study of evolutionary ecology of spatial memory quite interesting as I worked in a lab that also studied this. I am curious if there has been any more advancements on the question of whether a larger hippocampus can be directly correlated to genetic adaptation or if this is a case of neuroplasticity.
ReplyDeleteHey Maria, I don’t think that the question here is whether “a larger hippocampus can be directly correlated to genetic adaptation or if this is a case of neuroplasticity.” From my understanding, the authors explore factors like hippocampal size having already established that it is a result of both selection and neuroplasticity: it’s not a question of either-or. For instance, take the homing pigeon example: homing pigeons need high spatial memory ability. The hippocampus is the brain area associated with this ability, hence, individuals with large hippocampal size and high amounts of hippocampal connectivity would be at an advantage (meaning that this trait will be “selected for,” passed onto its offspring.) However, my understanding is that there would also be a factor of neuroplasticity that comes into play here, as the fact that homing pigeons use their high spatial memory on a regular basis would increase connections in the brain area responsible for this function.
Delete(writing this late sorry!). I found this section about brain size and the hippocampus interesting as well. To me, it follows that greater neuroplasticity would increase one's ability to adapt to a new environment, thus making them more likely to survive and pass on their genes in the case of an environmental crisis. Just an enlarged hippocampus, which could suggest great memory capacity does not seem to me to necessarily be an advantage. I think to an extent, a greater memory might help an animal survive "these red berries made me sick last time, I won't eat them again", but as we saw with the fictional Funes and with real individuals with hypermesia, an increased memory capacity may not help with survival, and might interfere with categorization, which of course plays a huge role in survival, and mate choice(reproductive fitness). I do wonder though if this example only applies to humans. Let me know what you think!
DeleteI found the third comparative hypothesis of neurocognitive evolution, the Cognitive Buffering Hypothesis, to be very interesting, even if it was only briefly mentioned. This hypothesis essentially suggests that cognitive abilities evolve as a means to cope with environmental variability and unpredictability, and species facing rapidly changing environments are expected to possess greater cognitive flexibility and adaptability. It should be mentioned (obvious though it is) that humans are incredibly adaptable and flexible creatures, and we are capable of generalizing our cognitive abilities to entirely new situations. I believe that the Cognitive Buffering Hypothesis is an interesting explanation for how adaptable and generalizable our cognitive capacities are: we evolved greater cognitive flexibility as a result of highly variable and unpredictable ecological niches. Now, is creativity, a fundamental aspect of human cognition, not just cognitive flexibility and generalizability in its most extreme case?
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, as discussed in a paper written by Eyesenck and Eysenck, creativity and divergent thinking is one facet of human cognition that has yet to be replicated in AI. These AI systems exhibit some semblance of creativity, namely combinatorial creativity (i.e., finding associations between unrelated ideas) and exploratory creativity (i.e., creating something related to past creations, like art). However, AI systems have yet to exhibit transformational creativity (i.e., creating something from nothing, such as an abstract theory like General Relativity), which is a hallmark of human intelligence and cognition. The creativity and cognitive flexibility/generalizability of humans may actually be the product of thousands of years of evolution due to highly variable and unpredictable environments, as hypothesized by the Cognitive Buffer Hypothesis. Unless similarly exposed, AI may never develop transformational creativity.
This sentence in the article impressed me deeply: “Fitness measured in artificial selection experiments on cognition or brain size have reported costs and benefits of improved cognitive performances in insects (Dukas, 2008; Kawecki, 2010) or increased brain size in fishes (Kotrschal et al., 2013a), but the value of these traits in nature are unknown. In humans, general intelligence is correlated with school achievement, job performance, health, and survival (Deary et al., 2010), but not necessarily actual fitness (i.e., number of lifetime offspring that reproduce).”
ReplyDeleteAnimals are tricky to learn and observe because they have their uncertainties. When it comes to observing the habits, characteristics, and thoughts of animals, after all, they are not humans. Humans can tell it, but animals cannot. This takes a long time to study.
However, the statement made me realize that it is more challenging for humans to research than I imagined. Putting aside some of the science and technology we use, for example, exploring the brain waves of our brains for a phenomenon and characteristic of the brain’s response to a particular thing. It is possible to study and observe the changes in the brain and thoughts of this human being and to speculate on cognitive capacity.
Nevertheless, we want to observe a person, in that case, if he has high intelligence, we can only observe his usual test scores, usual working status, work performance, and specific interpersonal skills.
However, sometimes, we do not do well in exams, and our work status could improve. Moreover, sometimes I want to communicate with only some. Does this mean that we do not have intelligence? This topic will rise to a philosophy or a mindset question about how to truly define a person as intelligent.
Hi Siyuan,
DeleteI also agree with what you mentioned about with testing the general intelligence of animals being tricky than humans.
Also, it is true that measuring human general intelligence can sometimes be challenging, since the scores of standardized tests like the Stanford-Binet test, aptitude tests (ACT, SAT), etc, do not always correlate with the intelligence of that person. So, just because sometimes we do not perform well on exams does not mean that we do not have intelligence (it doesn't mean that we're not smart).
Since a lot of the tests that are done are still based more on rote memorization, I think the tests can become more application-based. These application-based tests can assess how individuals integrate their learned knowledge into real-life situations. I think that could be a better measurement of human general intelligence.
One sentence in this article that sparked my thinking was “costs of new defences include developing the cognitive or morphological structures… influence the evolution of recognition abilities.” To summarize, the authors point out that the costs of evolution will affect the evolution of recognition abilities. Not only does fitness affect the evolution of cognition, but the costs of producing better strategies affect the evolution of cognitive functions, as well as perception and executive functions. Unfortunately, while cost is an interesting finding that influence evolution of cogitation in addition to fitness, cost is an observable causal outcome that varies in specific cases and cannot be directly used to reverse engineer human.
ReplyDeleteHi Jinyu, I also thought that the costs in evolutionary processes were an interesting point. The investment in cognitive enhancements or morphological adaptations, driven by the need for defense strategies, comes with associated costs. These costs can include not only the energy expenditure in developing and maintaining these structures but also potential trade-offs with other physiological or behavioral aspects. As you mentioned, the evolution of recognition abilities would be impacted and so the benefits gained through improved recognition must outweigh the costs for such traits to persist and evolve over time. The ‘specific cases’ you mentioned would have to do with adaptation to specific environments, selective pressures, and ecological niches involved with the evolution of cognition. Reverse engineering human cognitive capacities involves the underlying mechanisms and processes that give rise to these abilities (neural networks, cognitive architectures, etc). While costs are relevant evolutionarily, it does not delve into these mechanisms, and a combination of neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and computational modeling is necessary in reverse engineering.
DeleteLike some comments mentioned above, I was surprised about how extensively the authors base their conception of higher cognition on brain size. But the paper does bring up the scepticism when it comes to correlating (and inferring causation between) the two, and I agree that increasing the granularity of the brain region and the specific cognitive skill definitely makes sense when it comes to making conclusive statements about cognitive ability. I also found that this reading could have also gone a little further and studied cognition at the scale of a group of animals. I'm thinking of task allocation in animals that live in heards (some hunt, some care for the young) and how variability in a group can actually increase the fitness of an overall group. This could be an interesting avenue to explore for humans as well.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe article explores how cognitive processes are likely significant targets
of natural selection. Hence, cognition has likely been shaped by evolutionary forces to solve recurring problems regarding survival and reproductive success.
faced by our ancestors. This evolutionary perspective aligns with the concept that sensorimotor capacities and categorization are not just by-products of brain complexity but adaptive outcomes shaped by environmental demands.
If cognition can be naturally selected for its survival advantages, consciousness must be too. An adaptation enabling the depth of thought required for complex social interactions and future planning - both important for an individual's reproductive success, or fitness.
If consciousness emerged through evolutionary processes,, its progression may be driven by our rapidly changing digital and global environment, which requires advanced abstract thinking and intricate problem-solving skills. Such an evolutionary shift could refine our mental capabilities, equipping us to better maneuver through and adjust to this new digital age. Consequently, the future could witness an expansion in human cognitive abilities, possibly leading to innovative ways of communicating and a more sophisticated level of consciousness, better suited to address the complexities of a highly interconnected world.
I had first write this until I thought: This already exists! That’s exactly what Elon Musk's Neuralink is doing!
The project is a direct application of the principle that cognition and consciousness are malleable traits shaped by natural selection. By implanting devices that could potentially enhance human cognitive and sensory processing, Neuralink intersects with the evolutionary trajectory of human consciousness. The project seeks to amplify cognitive functions such as memory and reasoning, which evolution has already fine-tuned for survival and reproductive success.
It’s basically accelerating the evolutionary process. By providing the brain with direct interfaces to digital information and augmented cognitive capacities, Neuralink might not only compensate for deficits due to injury or disease but also expand the brain's innate abilities. This aligns with the adaptive necessity for advanced abstract thinking and complex problem-solving in our digital era.
In essence, Neuralink represents an attempt to merge human cognition with artificial intelligence, potentially fostering a leap in the evolution of consciousness. It proposes to enhance human cognitive complexity, paving the way for new forms of communication and a more advanced consciousness—a step that mirrors the evolutionary demand for fitness in a hyper-connected world. Neuralink's aspirations resonate with the possibility that the future of human cognitive development might not be purely biological but also technologically integrated, suggesting a new phase of co-evolution with our own creations.
This reading clarified how evolutionary psychology is less concerned with the "how" than the field of cognitive science, which would call for the reverse-engineering of causal mechanisms. Evolution can only at times explain "why", which in this case is: What was the adaptive advantage provided by the cognitive capacity and how did it evolve'? But not how the genes or the brain actually produce the capacity. However, explaining both how and why is part of the easy problem. The fitness approach argues that behaviors that are studied in the field of psychology should be placed in the context of understanding why they have evolved in the first place. While this approach can be helpful in cognitive science's understanding of why we have certain capacities, it does not help to explain how organisms are able to do what they are capable of doing, as we are still left merely studying behaviors and not how to execute them.
ReplyDeleteThis is my second blog post for this article: The article considers the evolution of language framed as a natural selection process. It also suggests that our language didn't originate solely from natural selection by acknowledging that human linguistic abilities grew and changed with our culture, showing how the way we talk is shaped by the society we live in. This brings me to the question: Could the development of language be an innate neurological process simply awaiting activation through cultural interactions?
ReplyDeleteWe know that categories help us organize our perceptions, but then what would be the very first steps from basic gestures to The extensive collection of words we use today. At what point did we evolve from simple signals to complex statements? Moreover, if our cognitive functions influenced language's evolution, what does that mean for consciousness? Is our awareness shaped by language, or is language just a side effect of our brain's natural evolution?
The paper examines cognitive evolution under natural selection, highlighting that for traits like cognition to evolve, there must be variability among individuals, heritability of these cognitive performances, and a relation between this variation and fitness under specific environmental conditions.
DeleteI think you definitely can apply these ideas to language evolution, suggesting that language, as a cognitive function, evolved through natural selection and was influenced by both genetic factors and environmental conditions, including cultural interactions. The development of language likely required both innate neurocognitive mechanisms and environmental triggers, like social interactions, for its activation and subsequent evolution. The transition from basic gestures to complex language likely involved a gradual process where simple signals evolved to convey more nuanced information, influenced by increasing social complexity and cognitive capacities. This evolution was likely driven by the fitness benefits associated with effective communication in various environmental contexts. Thus, while language is a product of our cognitive evolution, I think one can say that it has also shaped our consciousness, forming a reciprocal relationship between cognitive functions and linguistic abilities.
It does seem to be that Darwin’s conditions for evolution appear to apply to our mental evolution and capabilities as well. There is evidence that variability in cognition is not only present but substantial across individuals and species. It is to note however, that the environmental factors that caused our cognition to evolve in past human history is drastically different from what the average human has to endure in today’s day and age. For example, we do not need to worry about being better hunters. It is important to consider, in my opinion, that our need for survival before modern day was such a necessity that our brains and cognitive evolution shaped our survival. I wonder however if our brains/cognition will continue at the rate it has in the past, or if we as a species have a lack of need for further evolution. Perhaps as things get easier for us, using AI as an example, how might our cognitive functions and brain structures evolve in the far future? Would the principles of natural selection still apply in the same way or are we transcending certain aspects of traditional evolution?
ReplyDeleteThis article addresses the question of how can we follow evolutionary history to examine the similarities, differences, and formation of the systems involved in consciousness between humans and animals?
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, we run once again into the easy problem when looking at an animal’s mind from a solely cognitive science perspective. There is a black box as to how we reach an outcome, in this case referring to the outcome of evolved cognitive capabilities in animals. Evolutionary biology, however, may possess the key to this box. The brain and cognition, as we may often forget in our ~superior~ human nature, are both simply results of natural selection. Through integrating evolutionary biology and cognitive science can construct, under the particular social and ecological pressures, an idea of how the mind evolved in both humans and animals. Specifically, the fitness benefits or the advantages of a certain trait under certain conditions, will allow us to find more insight. I think taking a step in this direction would certainly help the field of cognition, as it is currently unjustly held a bit separate from evolution.
The authors of this week’s article mentioned an interesting point when addressing some issues inherent to the field, and I want to focus on their limited discussion of psychometric limitations. I found this to be a limitation rarely spoken about in the field at large, but their points on developing new psychometric methods and technologies that help isolate the cognitive abilities they wish to investigate. They even try to help the case of this field and its lack of environment inclusion by suggesting we start investigating how cognition will evolve and how these genes interact with the environment. This helps alleviate one of my main gripes with the field and I believe allows for it to have a more holistic approach, especially when coupled with their suggestion to integrate studies of natural selection on neurocognitive traits.
ReplyDeleteCauchoix and Chaine's paper brings an interesting perspective by linking evolutionary pressures with cognitive adaptations, which resonates with our ongoing dialogue on how cognition has been shaped over time. Their focus on the fitness approach is particularly relevant as it ties cognitive traits to survival and reproduction, a notion that falls right in with the environmental challenges discussed in previous classes. However, while the paper provides a robust framework for considering the 'why' of cognitive evolution, it stops short of delving into the 'how' – the mechanics of cognition itself. This echoes our discussions around the pitfalls of behaviorism and the challenges of reverse-engineering cognition without slipping into circular explanations. The paper underscores the need for an integrated approach, yet it remains unclear how this would concretely advance our understanding of the cognitive processes. It's this gap between theory and application that still needs bridging, much like all the discussions we've had on the hard problem.
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of the comments above. A challenge studying cognition using evolutionary theory is that the origin of cognition is hard to trace. However, it is interesting to think about what triggered the evolution of cognition. What potential survival advantages did developing cognition bring to animals, and is cognition still advantageous today? Yet, this helps very little in addressing the EP and HP, since if everything is to be explained using evolutionary theory, there is little useful information that can be used in reverse engineering cognition.
ReplyDeleteThe approach that stood out the most to me was the “fitness approach.” The contemporary take that includes similarity Darwin’s theory of evolution intrigued me as the Darwin theory is discussed in so many theories in psychology and evolution, I wanted to dive deeper into how it fit into this context. The significance of short-term selection in shaping long-term evolution is evident in the fitness approach. It observes, for example birds, in its habitat through a socio-ecological context and looks at behaviors that are pertinent to survival. This allows us to see more recent examples in their natural habitat rather than just looking at previous experiments and findings. While this theory is concise and intriguing, I think there are some ways it may not help us as much as it proceeds us to. It seems almost against cognitive science since it has us assume that when reverse engineering cognition, we do not need to know the specific brain structures that are involved or how they are involved. I personally believe it is necessary to know and understand how these brain structures work in explaining cognition, so I do not think this approach is the most helpful that we have read about.
ReplyDeleteThe section “Integration of Cognitive Neurosciences Methods” points out a real disconnect between cognitive scientists and behavioral ecologists in studying cognition in the wild. Initial efforts to bridge this gap have been through using problem-solving and specially designed mechanical tasks. But these methods have limitations—they often leave cognitive processes unclear and have constraints on the number of test subjects. The proposed use of psychometrics and new hardware—automated learning tasks with operant boxes and passive transponders—is a step in the right direction. Short-term captivity can provide a controlled environment for cognitive and neural studies, but one must be wary in conducting these studies as captivity-induced stress can mess with both the well-being and cognitive abilities of the subjects.
ReplyDeleteBeyond only worrying about the effects of captivity on well-being and cognitive ability, which is noble and important respectively, a main issue of captivity when studying cognition arises through the nature of cognition itself, cognition is how one does things! Many animals evolve in very specific niches, where the scope of what they do is intrinsically tied with the environment in which they evolve, captivity nigh-necessarily alter the environmental conditions, which can lead to errors in modeling.
DeleteI mentioned in last week's sky responding to you (noticing I'm replying to you again just now haha) the case of bats raised in helium rich atmospheres, while here of course the alterations are the experiment itself, many factors of captivity could change our observations in similar ways we wouldn't notice.
And with the prevalence of baldwinian evolution throughout the tree of life, short term captivity could be further unproductive as learned capacities in the wild could not function adequately in captivity.
I thought that an example they give was odd, the example was given when they were discussing heritability of different traits one of which being brain size, they provided statistical evidence that brain size was heritable then cited an example that females with larger brains showed better performance at a numerical learning task and to this to be providing evidence for an association between increased brain size and higher cognition. I don't think that a number learning task is enough grounds to say they have higher cognition.
ReplyDeleteThe text recognizes the difficulties in accurately measuring the heritability of traits due to various environmental factors that can influence similarities among relatives. While twin and family studies offer evidence for the heritability of specific brain and cognitive traits in humans, they can't eliminate the impact of prenatal environmental effects. For example, twins may behave differently and have incredibly different personalities. Moreover, the text underscores that estimating heritability in wild animal populations remains a significant and unresolved challenge, emphasizing the importance of continued research in this area; since the communication between animals is still mysterious, it is still challenging to know what animals are talking from a human's point of view.
ReplyDeleteGoing into this reading, I was extra curious because the evolution of the mind of animals has always been an interesting topic to me. Most research begins with understanding how and why animals (excluding humans) do what we’re research. I liked the definition of cognition in the reading: “brain activity as the neural machinery encodes, manipulates, stores, and recalls information”. The comparative approach is very intuitive but it is mostly based on assumptions of the conditions that affected the evolution. So it doesn’t seem to be an incredibly reliable approach of researching cognitive evolution. The fitness approach, also intuitive (I just had never thought of it, I guess), goes deeper than the comparative approach which in turn provides more detail. The question becomes “would you rather finish something fast, or finish it with perfection?” Perfection is a bit of an overstatement in a scientific context, but what I mean is going in as deep as you can to provide the maximum knowledge that you can. In my opinion it’s the latter. We see this in the case studies as well. In the spatial memory research, they used the comparative approach and we can see how the approach’s drawbacks affect the study. Despite finding solutions to the drawbacks, the approach still doesn’t answer some of the questions about variations within a specific population.
ReplyDeleteContemporary selection seems to be an interesting avenue that can yield positive results in terms of answering questions about which cognitive functions are related to fitness and which are not, hence providing us with tools that we didn’t have before. That is why the fitness approach, in my opinion, is very important.
My final thought is that the approach to be used depends on the context. Both approaches have their benefits and their drawbacks. For a complete analysis, I do think that combining these two approaches would yield the best results.
I just realized that my skywriting for 7b got deleted, so I'm reposting it from my notes:
ReplyDeleteThe reading mentions 3 necessary Darwinian conditions for the evolution of cognitive functions: Traits/cognitive functions will evolve if (1) there is variability in cognition between individuals, (2) that this variability in cognitive performances is heritable, and (3) that this variation is related to variance in fitness. Since variability is key for evolutionary psychology, I was wondering how this can apply to the Turing Test. If a successfully reverse-engineered TT would be made, does it supposed to have variability in these cognitive capacities as well? Since the 1st point relates to variability in cognition between individuals, I was confused about how this can be the case regarding a Turing Test.
This paper advocates for two approaches to investigate the reasons behind thinking: comparative vs. fitness approaches. What surprised me the most was the idea that answers to the easy problem can provide insights into answers for the hard problem. Understanding how something works might enable us to narrow down the space of possible adaptations that could have led to the observed mechanism today. However, I have reservations about whether the opposite is true. Can information about why something has evolved be used to understand how it works? I am inclined to say yes because knowing why something has evolved means understanding the problem it was trying to solve; therefore, any possible mechanism it uses has to address the problem. However, I don't believe the knowledge derived from this is of high significance. While it allows us to reduce the number of possible mechanisms, I doubt it enables a substantial reduction.
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