Signature Redacted

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Signature Redacted Hive Thinking - A Theory on the Evolution of Cognitive Specialization and Applications to Digital Marketing. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF T ECHNOLOGY by JUL 19 2016 Harry A. Rein LIBRARIES B.S. Computer Science and Engineering ARCHIVES Massachusetts Institute of Technology SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY June, 2016 0 2016 HARRY REIN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature of Author: .-Signature redacted: Deparutnent4fnE rf Grieglagineering and Computer Science Certified by: Signature redacted en Urban, Professor Emeritus and Chairman of MIT Center for Digital Business Thesis Superior Accepted y: Signature redacted Dr. ChristopherJ, Terman Senior Lecturer MIT Computer ScIvnee and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory HIVE THIN KING A THEORY ON THE EVOLUTION OF COGNITIVE SPECIALIZATION, AND APPLICATIONS TO DIGITAL MARKETING BY HARRY REIN 4 90 1Ilgi/>(arefs, i'ot/er (111(1 alndL te's( (V atLJe/w f eo<6e(/> II? (acy./mient come uitu aeie --xi 4' o>e Mwat c,/ cords (/h1/ e/g,1l /et our (ly(/tattwiot aw/ wIte/lectual cfarv0??y, 'Ylarwumf 4 4tawe conwensation acot low foe can, ft've our a/eitait/$qy p/ iumatl na ure to si>e offU (wor01( A Model of Conscious Reasoning A Brief History of Typing - Black Bile to Intuition The Cognitive Functions Intuition and Sensing - Perceptive Functions Thinking and Feelings -Judgemnent Functions Introverted and Extraverted Forms Our Model of Conscious Reasoning Functional Preferences - Conscious Thought Functional Relationships - Fully Rounded Cognition Hive Minds A Brief Story - Two groups of humans meet in the woods Hive Minds - Collective Consciousnesses The Necessity of Language and Words Designing Hives - Duals, Quatras and Further Symmetry and Asymmetry Applications to Digital Marketing A Terrible Used Car Salesman 7 Adaptive Advertising Emotionally Intelligent Digital Worlds ABSTRACT The purpose of this work is to put forward a theory of the evolution of cognitive specialization and demonstrate its significance towards the future development of human and computer interaction by demonstrating it in a modern context. For millennia, great minds have wrestled to build a typing model to classify the differences in human behavior. Recent theories have driven towards a theory of four functional abilities of the mind coming in two attitudes that drive asymmetrical development resulting in cognitive types, or personalities. Modern digital systems currently have rudimentary models of human cognition, it is this document's belief that by encoding a typing model our systems will begin to understand and act in a manner more similar to human behavior. The theoretical, more human extension of this work is to observe the evolution of a single 'hive consciousness' - a collection of individual minds acting as a single sustaining entity - with the underlying belief that it is the development of an optimal hive structure, not the development of an optimal individual mind, that results in the emergent seemingly specialized cognitive styles. The grounded, implementation based extension of this work is to demonstrate in a simple web-based digital marketing implementation - a system that can drive user actions, monitor those actions as to create an understanding of that particular user's cognitive type, and finally adapt it's contents as to optimally convince the user to consider a purchase decision. "The year is 10, 000 BCE and a Homo "The year is 2, 000 CE and a man wakes Sapien male wakes up to his family in his humble home just outside of sleeping beside him in a camp they had Boston. Remembering the meeting he has built the prior evening. Remembering the later that afternoon, he walks down the cold winter from the previous year, he rises stairs to make breakfast. As the news hums and walks around the camp to get a sense in the background, his intuitive mind races as to the region that their nomadic travels through the potential partners that may had led them. As the clouds race by, his join the meeting - considering which intuitive mind races through potential next members he should call on the train ride migration patterns - considering where in. As he finishes his coffee, he walks back to find their next meal. As he returns to upstairs to wake the children and tell them his family, he wakes the children and tells to get ready for school. Noticing his them of the plan to follow the buffalo daughter looks a bit red, he checks her tracks a few more miles, into a patch of head for a fever, humming a soft song as land with far more vegetative protection. his wife comes in to pick out their son's Noticing his children's sighs and moans of outfit for the day." hunger, he helps them lace their leather moccasins and hums a soft song as his wife gathers up the family's belongings for the next stretch of the journey." PART I - A MODEL OF CONSCIOUS REASONING 1. A BRIEF HISTORY OF TYPING - BLACK BILE TO INTUITION For millennia, mankind has come to the recognition that individuals seem to fall into distinct groups in the ways that they engage with the world. Around 400 BC, the Greek physician Hippocrates suggested four 'humors' that work together to make up the human disposition - blood in the liver, yellow bile in the spleen, black bile in the gall bladder and phlegm in the brain - a concept that was extended in the second century AD by another prominent Greek physician, best known as Galen of Pergamon. He, in a similar manner to Hippocrates, searched for physiological reasons for different behaviors in humans, concluding that there Figure 1 there exist four general temperaments - sanguine (optimistic and Galtd "" of"Pcp'unOn'S fOu "'efl(1d1 teinpcl-anwlelts social), choleric (short-tempered or irritable), melancholic (analytical and quiet), and phlegmatic (relaxed and peaceful). These four temperaments stem from an excess of the four humors purported by Hippocrates, resulting in an imbalance of psyche - a type. Modern scientists, held to far more rigorous academic standards, quickly dismiss the concept of bodily liquids driving human behavior, however the model of personality driven off of a system of four has remained. Present thinking points to the seminal work in the field of personality typing - Carl justaf Jung's Puchologische Tpen. In this work, Jung sets out to reconcile the theories of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler into a single theory of the conscious and subconscious psyche, concluding that "it is one's psychological type which from the outset determines and limits a person's judgement" [3]. It is, he believes, a balance between two attitudes the introverted and extraverted attitude and four functions of conscious thought intuition, sensation, thinking and feeling - that drive outward behavior amongst individual minds. His research was quickly adopted in the United States by Katharine Cook Briggs who had begun dcv\eloping her AA A own theory on personality typing before recognizing the similarity with Jung's work. Katherine, along wNith her daughtcr Isabel Briggs Myers, pulled together their theory F1Eil El into the well acclaimed Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, in an attempt to adapt the theory of psychological types for practical use. Their test, nicknamed the MBTI, was used 10o initially in World War II in order to help women who were entering the industrial workforce for the first time to A identify jobs that were well suited to their mind's preferences [5]. M Europe also took note of Jung's findings when Ausra Augustinaviciute merged the jungian ideology with that of Polish psychiatrist Antoni Kgpinski's theory of information metabolism, in the early 1970's. Their resultant ideology, named Socionics, used the same eight fundamental Figure 2 An individual mind cognitive functions as described by Jung. Her philosophy can be moddeld as a stack of their cognitive (Unctions. ordered by the stemmed from a basic belief that intra-human individnti-s fe)rCirence to communication is a creative, rather than a craft skill, and CoscioUIsly act in that pfarticuilar statt of mind. Most individual's that individuals differ in a model-able way in the ways by consisio, behaviorl is (riven by which they approach this creative act. Augustinaviltite* their piminary and secondary fi"n tin ifit ro (ore a stack of twO found that her Socionic formulae, a classification system of can sufiLr its a model. sixteen types, formed a basic formula by which a science could be formed about the understanding and agreement between people. Throughout this document I will use a model that sticks strongly to Jung's initial findings, extended through the lenses of the tightly coupled Socionics and the more practical sense of the NBTI. Both model's stem from the core ideology of .jung which believed that a psychological type is an inborn psychological structure that delineates a specific nature of informational exchange between a person and his or her social environment. I have chosen this model as many of the prominent researchers before me had - through extensive research into the topic and personal experience with the types outlined in the literature. II. THE COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS In order to adequately conclude about the outward behavior of the human mind, we must first abstract away from the fundamental workings to observe from a far more teleological standpoint. A delve into the neurological basis for this work would miss the point - we are not focused on understanding the patterns of neuronal firings that give rise to conscious thought, we are instead looking from a high level view as to the emergent properties that seem to occur when individuals enoage with their environment.
Recommended publications
  • Handedness Development: a Model for Investigating the Development of Hemispheric Specialization and Interhemispheric Coordination
    S S symmetry Review Handedness Development: A Model for Investigating the Development of Hemispheric Specialization and Interhemispheric Coordination George F. Michel Psychology Department, University of North Carolina Greensboro, P.O. Box 26170, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170, USA; [email protected] Abstract: The author presents his perspective on the character of science, development, and handed- ness and relates these to his investigations of the early development of handedness. After presenting some ideas on what hemispheric specialization of function might mean for neural processing and how handedness should be assessed, the neuroscience of control of the arms/hands and interhemi- spheric communication and coordination are examined for how developmental processes can affect these mechanisms. The author’s work on the development of early handedness is reviewed and placed within a context of cascading events in which different forms of handedness emerge from earlier forms but not in a deterministic manner. This approach supports a continuous rather than categorical distribution of handedness and accounts for the predominance of right-handedness while maintaining a minority of left-handedness. Finally, the relation of the development of handedness to the development of several language and cognitive skills is examined. Keywords: development; handedness; lateralization; hemispheric specialization; interhemispheric Citation: Michel, G.F. Handedness coordination; embodiment Development: A Model for Investigating the Development of Hemispheric Specialization and Interhemispheric Coordination. 1. Introduction Symmetry 2021, 13, 992. https:// There is a general consensus among neuroscientists that the human left and right doi.org/10.3390/sym13060992 hemispheres of the brain have different perceptual, motor, emotional, and cognitive func- tions with the most distinctive difference of a left-hemisphere predominance in praxis (e.g., Academic Editor: Gillian Forrester gestures and tool use) and language (speech and comprehension) functions [1].
    [Show full text]
  • Socionics Vs MBTI
    Socionics Theorem The MBTI ® Brief History: Socionics theorem, available The MBTI ®, available since the since the 1970s, currently 1940s, currently represents one represents one of the least of the most widely used and known albeit newest accepted interpretations of Carl interpretations of Carl Jung’s Jung’s original Psychological original Psychological Types . Types , first written in the 1920s. Created primarily by Aushra Created primarily by Isabel Augusta, a Lithuanian Briggs, an American psycho- Psychologist and ‘ILE’ type theorist and ‘INFP’ type according to the Socionic model according to the Myers-Briggs of the psyche. Temperament Instrument ®. A relatively new and modern Based almost entirely off Carl theorem with re-worked theories Jung's theories with the inclusion and ideas from Carl Jung, of a 'four types of person' model Sigmund Freud and Antoni derived from centuries old Kepinski. observations. The Sixteen Psychological Types: Sixteen base types identified as Sixteen absolute types identified secondary reference points for as primary reference points for understanding relationships. understanding individuals. Generally places an emphasis on Generally places an emphasis on an individual type as relative to an individual type as absolute other types to varying degrees. with specific 'pros and cons'. Minimal potential for The Forer Maximal potential for The Forer Effect when describing individual Effect when describing as types. individuals as types. The Sixteen Inter-Type Relations: Relationships between four out Relationships between all sixteen of sixteen types appear unequal types appear equal and and asymmetrical. symmetrical. It is generally ‘easier’ to It is generally ‘harder’ to understand relationships because understand relationships because inter-type interactions are the the individual types themselves 'reference point'.
    [Show full text]
  • Socionics: the Effective Theory of the Mental Structure and the Interpersonal Relations Forecasting Bukalov A.V., Karpenko O.B., Chykyrysova G.V
    Socionics: the effective theory of the mental structure and the interpersonal relations forecasting Bukalov A.V., Karpenko O.B., Chykyrysova G.V. (International Institute of Socionics, Melnikova str., 12, Kiev, 02206, Ukraine. E-mail: [email protected] ) Socionics, the theory of informational metabolism, has developed a whole spec- trum of new intellectual technologies used in personnel management, pedagogic, investigation of interpersonal relations in family, psychotherapy, for formation of effective workgroups and development of artificial intelligence systems. It is de- scribed the basic categories of modeling of the informational structure of psyche and the main principles of modeling of interaction between the subjects as the dif- ferent types of the informational structures. 1. Introduction The scientific basis of Socionics was created in early 70-th of the XX century by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė (Lithuania). Socionics is a further development of Jung ty- pology transformed into a science of 16 psychological types of personality. A. Augustinavičiūtė used A. Kępiński concept of information processes in creating her own informational model of human mind - the “A” (Aušra's 8-element) mod- els. This allowed describing various aspects of personality thinking and behavior by representing personality as a type of informational metabolism (TIM) with indi- cation of its strong and weak sides. This implied the possibility of describing and forecasting not only behavior of IM types, but relationships between such types as well. These relationships are condi- tioned by informational exchange between identical IM functions located at differ- ent positions in the IM model of types. Such description is an advance in the sphere of sciences about human being.
    [Show full text]
  • Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience Cognitive Neuroscience Michael S
    MD DALIM #870693 9/24/06 GREEN PURPLE Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience Cognitive Neuroscience Michael S. Gazzaniga, editor Gary Lynch, Synapses, Circuits, and the Beginning of Memory Barry E. Stein and M. Alex Meredith, The Merging of the Senses Richard B. Ivry and Lynn C. Robertson, The Two Sides of Perception Steven J. Luck, An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique Roberto Cabeza and Alan Kingstone, eds., Handbook of Functional Neuroimaging of Cognition Carl Senior, Tamara Russell, and Michael S. Gazzaniga, eds., Methods in Mind Steven M. Platek, Julian Paul Keenan, and Todd K. Shackelford, eds., Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience Edited by Steven M. Platek, Julian Paul Keenan, and Todd K. Shackelford The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa- tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email special_sales@mitpress. mit.edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Evolutionary cognitive neuroscience / edited by Steven M. Platek, Julian Paul Keenan, and Todd K. Shackelford. p. cm.—(Cognitive neuroscience) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 13: 978-0-262-16241-8 ISBN 10: 0-262-16241-5 1. Cognitive neuroscience. 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Transforming the Enterprise Architecture Through Personnel Design
    E3S Web of Conferences 138, 02010 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/201913802010 CATPID-2019 Transforming the enterprise architecture through personnel design Igor Petrov1*, Lev Bulychev1 , Natalia Bushueva2 , and Aleksandr Zheltenkov 3 1Vyatka State University, 36, Moskovskaya str., Kirov, Russia 2 University named after S.Yu. Witte, 2nd Kozhukhovsky passage, 12, bld.1, Moscow 3 Moscow Region State University, 105005, Radio str, 10A, Moscow, Russia Abstract. Changes in the external environment, market and technology require adaptability and flexibility of organizations. It is realized through system monitoring and continuous business transformation and requires changes in the system of goals and indicators, policies, business processes, organizational structure, and IT solutions. Such transformations need systemic coordination in several functional areas: strategic management, performance management, business process management, organizational design, information systems design, personnel management, knowledge management, etc. The article describes possibilities of transforming the enterprise architecture through personnel design. This method is not studied well enough as the human factor is mostly unpredictable, but it is the basis of all transformations. The developed methodology was tested at the department of Vyatka State University. As a result, the authors have identified reasons for the low efficiency of certain types of activities and described necessary intertypes for strengthening positions. The research states that intertype analysis allows to simulate the microclimate in a department or organization. Moreover, understanding intertype relationships helps to manage implicit knowledge and communication between employees, which is very important according to Kaizen. 1 Introduction Currently, the company needs to respond quickly to changes in the external environment, market and technology, to be flexible and meet different internal and external standards.
    [Show full text]
  • A Differential–Developmental Model (DDM): Mental Speed, Attention Lapses, and General Intelligence (G)
    Commentary A Differential–Developmental Model (DDM): Mental Speed, Attention Lapses, and General Intelligence (g) Thomas R. Coyle Department of Psychology, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA; [email protected]; Tel.: +1-210-458-7407; Fax: +1-210-458-5728 Academic Editors: Andreas Demetriou and George Spanoudis Received: 23 December 2016; Accepted: 6 June 2017; Published: 12 June 2017 Abstract: The aim of this paper is to provide a parsimonious account of developmental and individual differences in intelligence (measured as g). The paper proposes a Differential– Developmental Model (DDM), which focuses on factors common to intelligence and cognitive development (e.g., mental speed and attention lapses). It also proposes a complementary method based on Jensen’s box, namely a chronometric device. The device systematically varies task complexity, and separates two components of mental speed that differentially predict intelligence and cognitive development (reaction time and movement time). The paper reviews key assumptions of DDM, preliminary findings relevant to DDM, and future research on DDM. Keywords: cognitive development; differential–developmental model (DDM); Jensen’s box; intelligence; mental speed; attention lapses; reaction time; movement time 1. Introduction All models are wrong, but some are useful. ([1], p. 202). The aim of this paper is to provide a parsimonious account of developmental and individual difference in intelligence (measured as g). 1 To this end, the paper proposes a Differential– Developmental Model (DDM), which focuses on factors common to cognitive development and intelligence (e.g., mental speed and attention lapses). The model attempts to bridge the two disciplines at the heart of the Special Issue: differential psychology, which focuses on individual differences in intelligence, and cognitive development, which focuses on age differences in intelligence.
    [Show full text]
  • The Foundations of Socionics ᅢ까タᅡモ a Review
    Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Cognitive Systems Research 47 (2018) 1–11 www.elsevier.com/locate/cogsys The foundations of socionics – A review Karol Pietrak Institute of Heat Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Nowowiejska 21/25, 00-665 Warsaw, Poland Received 3 May 2017; received in revised form 22 June 2017; accepted 16 July 2017 Available online 22 July 2017 Abstract This paper discusses the foundations of the theory of socionics, including the rationale behind Ausˇra Augustinavicˇiut e’s_ model of information processing by the human psyche, and the philosophical thought behind the concept of information metabolism elements. Socionics was developed in the former Soviet Union and may be regarded as analogous to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator typology of personality. The main goal of this paper is to present socionics to the English-speaking community, in order to better take advantage of its explanatory potential in the fields of interpersonal communication and psychological disorders. Reviewed topics include aspects of Jungian analytical psychology and Kezpin´ski’s information metabolism theory, upon which Augustinavicˇiut e_ based her model. After the model is presented, its theoretical implications are briefly discussed. Ó 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Cognitive psychology; Biological cybernetics; Socionics; Information metabolism 1. Introduction it is built upon the analysis of interactions between living organisms (especially humans) with their environment. In the 1980s, Lithuanian sociologist Ausˇra Augustinav The work of Augustinavicˇiut e_ is based on the findings of icˇiut e_ wrote several papers collected and published in Freudian psychoanalysis (Freud, 1915, 1920, 1923), Jun- 1998 in a book entitled ‘‘Socionics.
    [Show full text]
  • The Causal Role of Consciousness: a Conceptual Addendum to Human Evolutionary Psychology
    Review of General Psychology Copyright 2004 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 2004, Vol. 8, No. 4, 227–248 1089-2680/04/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.8.4.227 The Causal Role of Consciousness: A Conceptual Addendum to Human Evolutionary Psychology Jesse M. Bering Todd K. Shackelford University of Arkansas Florida Atlantic University By concentrating on the unconscious processes driving evolutionary mechanisms, evolutionary psychology has neglected the role of consciousness in generating human adaptations. The authors argue that there exist several “Darwinian algorithms” that are grounded in a novel representational system. Among such adaptations are information- retention homicide, the killing of others who are believed to possess information about the self that has the potential to jeopardize inclusive fitness, and those generating suicide, which may necessitate the capacity for self-referential emotions such as shame. The authors offer these examples to support their argument that human psychology is characterized by a representational system in which conscious motives have inserted themselves at the level of the gene and have fundamentally changed the nature of hominid evolution. Evolutionary psychologists frequently reca- However, in certain cases, this approach may pitulate the theme that adaptive behaviors are not accurately capture the complexities of hu- guided by unconscious processes servicing ge- man evolution because it tends to ignore the role netic selection in individual organisms (Buss, of consciousness in the emergence of unique 1995, 1999; Daly & Wilson, 1999; Dawkins, human adaptations. We define consciousness as 1986; Leger, Kamil, & French, 2001; Symons, that naturally occurring cognitive representa- 1992). Among many other examples, such tional capacity permitting explicit and reflective “blind” fitness-enhancing algorithms include accounts of the—mostly causative—contents of those that are devoted to mate selection, child mind, contents harbored by the psychological rearing, and altruism.
    [Show full text]
  • Theory of Mind for a Humanoid Robot
    Theory of Mind for a Humanoid Robot Brian Scassellati MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab 545 Technology Square – Room 938 Cambridge, MA 02139 USA [email protected] http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/scaz/ Abstract. If we are to build human-like robots that can interact naturally with people, our robots must know not only about the properties of objects but also the properties of animate agents in the world. One of the fundamental social skills for humans is the attribution of beliefs, goals, and desires to other people. This set of skills has often been called a “theory of mind.” This paper presents the theories of Leslie [27] and Baron-Cohen [2] on the development of theory of mind in human children and discusses the potential application of both of these theories to building robots with similar capabilities. Initial implementation details and basic skills (such as finding faces and eyes and distinguishing animate from inanimate stimuli) are introduced. I further speculate on the usefulness of a robotic implementation in evaluating and comparing these two models. 1 Introduction Human social dynamics rely upon the ability to correctly attribute beliefs, goals, and percepts to other people. This set of metarepresentational abilities, which have been collectively called a “theory of mind” or the ability to “mentalize”, allows us to understand the actions and expressions of others within an intentional or goal-directed framework (what Dennett [15] has called the intentional stance). The recognition that other individuals have knowl- edge, perceptions, and intentions that differ from our own is a critical step in a child’s development and is believed to be instrumental in self-recognition, in providing a perceptual grounding during language learning, and possibly in the development of imaginative and creative play [9].
    [Show full text]
  • Comparative Studies of Human Cognitive Evolution: the Future of Anthropology? Pp
    Using comparative studies of primate and canid social cognition to model our Miocene minds A thesis presented by Brian Alexander Hare to The Department of Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Anthropology Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts January 2004 1 © 2004 – Brian Alexander Hare 2 Table of contents Abstract pp. iv Acknowledgements pp. v Introduction Part I: Comparative studies of human cognitive evolution: The future of anthropology? pp. 1 Identifying derived features of hominin cognition Part II: Do chimpanzees know what conspecifics know? pp. 22 Part III: Chimpanzees deceive a human competitor by hiding pp. 54 Evidence for selection pressures on social cognition Part IV: Do capuchin monkeys know what conspecifics can and cannot see? pp. 89 Part V: Chimpanzees are more skillful in competitive than cooperative cognitive tasks pp. 99 Part VI: The domestication of social cognition in dogs pp. 132 The future of comparative studies on human cognitive evolution Part VII: Can competitive paradigms increase the validity of experiments on primate social cognition? pp. 140 Part VIII: Tempering Darwin’s greatest difficulty: How, when, and why did the human mind evolve? pp. 173 References pp. 208 3 4 Brian Alexander Hare Using comparative studies of primate and canid social cognition to model our Miocene minds Thesis Advisors: Professors Richard Wrangham, Marc Hauser, and Michael Tomasello Abstract The greatest challenge facing anthropology is in explaining the evolution of human cognition. The evolution of unique social problem solving skills likely explain much of what is unique about our phenotype including language and culture.
    [Show full text]
  • Developmental Differentiation of Executive Functions on the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery
    Neuropsychology © 2018 American Psychological Association 2018, Vol. 32, No. 7, 777–783 0894-4105/18/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/neu0000476 Developmental Differentiation of Executive Functions on the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery Natacha Akshoomoff and Timothy T. Brown Roger Bakeman University of California, San Diego Georgia State University Donald J. Hagler Jr. On Behalf of the University of California, San Diego Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition, and Genetics Study Objective: The NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (NTCB) is a brief computerized method for evaluating neuropsychological functions in children, adolescents, and adults. We examined how performance on the 2 executive function measures of cognitive flexibility and inhibitory control was related to performance on the other NTCB measures across development. Method: Participants were 1,020 typically developing individuals between the ages of 3 and 21 from the Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition, and Genetics Study who were divided into 5 age groups (3–6, 7–9, 10–13, 14–17, and 18–21). Scores were adjusted for sex, level of parental education, and family income. Results: Although the correlations between the 2 executive function measures were moderate and consistent across age groups, their correlations with the other 5 cognitive measures were highest in the youngest age group and decreased across the older age groups. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that all NTCB measures loaded onto a single factor for the 3- to 6-year-olds. Across the older age groups, the executive function and processing speed measures loaded onto one factor, and the vocabulary knowledge, oral reading, and working memory measures loaded onto a second factor.
    [Show full text]
  • Heterochrony in Chimpanzee and Bonobo Spatial Memory Development
    Rosati Alexandra (Orcid ID: 0000-0002-6906-7807) Heterochrony in chimpanzee and bonobo spatial memory development Alexandra G. Rosati Correspondence Departments of Psychology and Anthropology University of Michigan 530 Church St Ann Arbor, MI 48109 [email protected] Keywords: Comparative cognition; spatial cognition; life history; ecology; apes Funding information: This work was supported by an L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, and AGR was supported by NIA R01AG04395. Figures and tables: 5 Black-and-white figures, 2 tables This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1002/ajpa.23833 This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Abstract Objectives: The emergence of human-unique cognitive abilities has been linked to our species’ extended juvenile period. Comparisons of cognitive development across species can provide new insights into the evolutionary mechanisms shaping cognition. This study examined the development of different components of spatial memory, cognitive mechanisms that support complex foraging, by comparing two species with similar life history that vary in wild ecology: bonobos (Pan paniscus) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Materials and Methods: Spatial memory development was assessed using a cross- sectional experimental design comparing apes ranging from infancy to adulthood. Study 1 tested 73 sanctuary-living apes on a task examining recall of a single location after a one-week delay, compared to an earlier session. Study 2 tested their ability to recall multiple locations within a complex environment.
    [Show full text]