Four Routes of Cognitive Evolution

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Four Routes of Cognitive Evolution

• Cecilia Heyes
• ELSE / UCL

Joint ELSE / ABC Workshop Exploring the
Boundaries of Rationality, London, 19-20 June
2003
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Extension
Natural selection changes rules and
representations
or Developmental selection
or Input processes
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Labels
Phylogenetic construction
Phylogenetic inflection
Ontogenetic construction
Ontogenetic inflection
Heyes (in press) Four routes of cognitive
evolution. Psychological Review.
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Stomach example
Foods input process
Enzymes rules reps
Natural selection New enzymes gt higher
fitness (Phylogenetic construction)
Natural selection New jaw gt higher
fitness (Phylogenetic inflection)
Developmental selection Proliferation with use,
loss with disuse (Ontogenetic construction)
Developmental selection Ingestion gt strength gt
more better food (Ontogenetic inflection)
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Types of Evidence

• Natural selection
• Poverty of the stimulus
• Genetically heritable

• Developmental selection
• Wealth of the stimulus
• Not genetically heritable

Adaptive character Neural localisation
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Examples of other routes

• Face processing
• Theory of mind
• Imitation

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Face processing
Distinctive rules / reps - configural
processing Neonatal face preference

• BUT
• Neonatal effect subcortical

Farah et al (1998) Psych Rev, 105, 482-498
Ontogenetic construction
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Theory of mind
Distinctive rules / representations - reps of
mental reps
Invariant development Autism is heritable

• BUT
• Hearing-impaired / siblings
• Nonhuman primates

• BUT
• Problems more general
• Earliest in joint attention

Phylogenetic or Ontogenetic Construction
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Imitation
Innate mechanism with distinctive rules / reps ?
Ontogenetic inflection
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Can learning counteract automatic imitation ?
Heyes, Bird Haggard (in prep)
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(No Transcript)
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Conclusion

• There are at least two sources and two loci of
  evolutionary change affecting cognitive processes
• It is possible that few adaptive characteristics
  of cognition are adaptations

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• Why describe developmental selection
• as evolutionary ?
• Optional
• Historical accident that VSR first identified at
  genetic level
• Doesnt make all cognitive change evolutionary
• Information acquisition without systematic change
• to input or mechanisms (e.g. fact learning)
• Changes to input and/or mechanism that are
  neutral
• or delecterious wrt fitness

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Why not ascribe all adaptive effects of LDC to
natural selection ?

• Some not foreseen by natural selection when LDC
  mechanism phylogenetically constructed
• e.g. serrated finger nails
• In these cases ascription to natural selection
  non-discriminative / non-explanatory, like appeal
  to laws of physics