Lecture 20 This Week Getting Starting on the Book Review Project Caorael Chapter Dunbar on the Evolution of Language Read Chapters 7 and 8 Page 1 of 11 Lecture 20 Getting Started on the Book Review Project A Track – Read Another Book on Evolution of Cognition and Write a Book Review B Track – Write a Book Review of Dunbar or Summary of Another Book C Track – Summarize Dunbar Part 1. A summary of what your book said about the topic. Do not just passively summarize your book. What is right and wrong about the authors claims Part 2. Develop your own "take" on a theory of what language and mind are and how they evolved. Be sure to support your views with arguments that seem to make sense to you and are consistent with what you have read. If you think that there are open, unresolved issues, that the question in general or parts thereof just can't be answered, say so, and why you think so. Page 2 of 11 Lecture 20 Buss, D.M. (1998) Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. Allyn & Bacon Deacon, T. W. (1996) The symbolic species: The coevolution of language and the brain. New York: Norton. Dennett, D.C. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea : Evolution and the Meanings of Life. Touchstone Books Donald, M. (1991) Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Donald, M. (2001) A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness. W.W. Norton & Company Lieberman, P. (1991) Uniquely human: The evolution of speech, thought, and selfless behavior. Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press Mithen, S. (1996). The prehistory of the mind: The cognitive origins of art, religion and science. London: Thames & Hudson. Pinker, S. (1997). How the mind works. New York, NY: W.W. Norton. Plotkin, H. (1997) Evolution in mind: An introduction to evolutionary psychology. Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press Tattersall, I. (1998) Becoming human: Evolution and human uniqueness. Orlando, FL: Harcourt-Brace & Co. Page 3 of 11 Lecture 20 Examples of Empirical Results Supporting Evolutionary Psychology Facial Expressions Language Chomsky: Universal Grammer “Poverty of the simulus” Human languages have such a complex structure that they cannot be learned just from the information available to a child Detecting Violations of Rules Probabilistic Reasoning Page 4 of 11 Lecture 20 Detecting Violations of Rules Logic and Reasoning General Content Free Mechanisms People are very bad at … Wason Selection Task IF a person goes into Boston, then that person takes the subway Boston Arlington subway cab If P, then Q Test for P(Q?) and ~Q(~P?) Huge Number of Other Examples Social Exchange (Reciprocal Altruism) Cheater detection If you take benefit B, then you must satisfy requirement R Can detect violations of If-Then rules if task is cheater detection If you are drinking beer, you must be 21 or older Beer Coke 21 or over Page 5 of 11 younger that 21 Lecture 20 Probabilistic Reasoning Company suspects 2% of its employees use illicit drugs. Company institutes random drug tests Drug test is 95% accurate; that is, P[positive test| drug use] = .95 P[negative test| no drug use] = .95 Mary Jane is selected at random; her test is positive. What is probability that Mary Jane uses illicit drugs? Gerd Gigerenzer Gigerenzer, G., Todd, P. M., & the ABC Group (1999). Simple heuristics that make us smart. New York: Oxford University Press. Probabilities verses Frequencies Fast and frugal heuristics fill part of our mind's "adaptive toolbox" of decision strategies. Together, these heuristics produce a rationality which is ecological, rather than merely logical - decision making that is welladapted to specific environmental settings or domains and specific classes of problems, rather than being universally applicable to all situations and problems. Page 6 of 11 Lecture 20 Mary Jane's Probability Test Says: "Positive" "Negative" Total Truth Clean Drug User Total 49 19 68 (5% of Col) (95% of Col) 931 1 (95% of Col) (5% of Col) 980 20 932 1000 (98% of Total) (2% of Total) For 1000 employees there would be 68 "positive" test results. But 49 of these "positive" tests would be false alarms and only 19 would be hits. P[Mary Jane is drug user | "positive" test] = 19/68 = .28 If company fired all employees with "positive" test results, for every 1000 employees they would fire 49 innocent people and only 19 guilty people. Page 7 of 11 Lecture 20 Alternative Models of Human Evolution Linnda R. Caporael Inclusive Fitness (Evolutionary Psychology) Cosmides and Tooby Gene’s eye view of evolution (selfish genes) General Selection Theories Based on Darwinian Principles Focal Trait and adaptive advantage of this trait Donald (1991) Calvin and Brickerton (2000) Lots of others Sociality Theories Dunbar (1993) Machiavellian intelligence (Byrne & Whiten 1988) Complexities of group living and social exchange Page 8 of 11 Lecture 20 Multilevel Evolutionary Theories Other levels where selection can occur (e.g. chromosomes, individuals, groups). Dual inheritance (Culture and genes) Boyd and Richardson Tomasello Page 9 of 11 Lecture 20 Inclusive Fitness (Evolutionary Psychology) The “Hardliners” Sociobiology Dawkins, Dennett, Cosmides and Tooby, Pinker, … Genes and their transmission from generation to generation, i.e. helping kin can increase fitness of a gene at the expense of the idenividual (Hamilton, 1964) Environment and development are secondary factors Very controversial See review of Dennett’s ‘Darwin’s dangerous idea Steven J. Gould Gene’s eye view of evolution (selfish genes) Page 10 of 11 Lecture 20 Inclusive Fitness (Cont) Many Evolutionary Psychology Hypotheses Have Been Reevaluated and Questioned or Rejected Mating preferences Women as gold diggers and Men sowing their wild oats (Buss 1987) Role of culture, gender equality Scientific Explanation Verses Retelling of Well Known Cultural Stereotypes Very narrow view of genetic causation Page 11 of 11