Middle childhood: Evolutionary and cross-cultural perspectives
An interesting special issue of Human Nature (22/3, Sept. 2011) on middle childhood:
From Benjamin C. Campbell’s Introduction:
“Middle childhood is recognized by developmental psychologists as a
Anthropological light on the mind-body problem
In the last issue of Cognitive Science (vol. 35, #7, Sept 2011), “Cross-Cultural Similarities and Differences in Person-Body Reasoning: Experimental Evidence From the United Kingdom and Brazilian
Evolutionary-psychology bashing analysed
Online in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, an interesting article by Edouard Machery and Kara Cohen: “An Evidence-Based Study of the Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences” available
Google Effects on Memory
A new article entitled "Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips" by Sparrow, Liu & Wegner should be of interest to scholars interested in the
Generosity as a by-product of selection for reciprocity
A new article entitled "Evolution of direct reciprocity under uncertainty can explain human generosity in one-shot encounters" by Andrew W. Deltona, Max M. Krasnowa, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby
Polemics on Evolutionary Psychology
In PLoS Biology (July 19, 2011) a polemical article entitled “Darwin in Mind: New Opportunities for Evolutionary Psychology” by Johan J. Bolhuis, Gillian R. Brown, Robert C. Richardson, and Kevin
Offensive inanity in the name of evolutionary psychology
Satoshi Kanazawa has caused a scandal by publishing a blog post (later withdrawn) claiming, with specious evidence, that black women were less attractive than others (and black men were more attrac
Patrick Suppes Prize for Nancy Nersessian
Nancy Nersessian has been awarded the inaugural Patrick Suppes Prize for Philosophy of Science. This award to Nancy Nersessian is a nice recognition of what can be done with interdisciplinary
Bradley Franks’ Culture and Cognition
A new and important book by Bradley Franks: Culture and Cognition: Evolutionary Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
The blurb: "Human culture depends on human minds for its creation, meaning
Where and when did languages emerge? The answer
In Science, a new paper by Quentin D. Atkinson "Phonemic Diversity Supports aSerial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa" is generating a lot of well-deserved interest (see here,
Cultural evolution of linguistic structures
Forthcoming in Nature an article by Michael Dunn, Simon J. Greenhill, Stephen C. Levinson and Russell D. Gray entitled “Evolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order
Is social cognition reducible to theory of mind?
In an article entitled "Social cognition is not reducible to theory of mind when children use deontic rules to predict the behaviour of others” (coming out in the British Journal of Developmental
War as a moral imperative
Jeremy Ginges and and Scott Atran again illustrate the relevance of a cognition and culture approach to major political and societal concerns with their article, "War as a moral imperative (not just
Evolutionary Theory and the Ultimate–Proximate Distinction in the Human Behavioral Sciences
The January issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science publishes a paper by Thomas Scott-Phillips, Thomas Dickins, and Stuart West entitled "Evolutionary Theory and the Ultimate-Proximate
Culture evolves
A new issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences with the title 'Culture evolves', edited by Andrew Whiten, Robert A. Hinde, Christopher B. Stringer and Kevin N.
The dawn of “culturomics”
A team lead by Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Lieberman Aiden (Harvard University) just published in Science a paper "Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books" that promises
Folk epistemology
Of clear cognition-and-culture interest, a special issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology (Volume 1, Number 4 / December 2010) on "Folk Epistemology". For the table of content,
1) Editor
In EHB : Sixteen misconceptions about the evolution of human cooperation, by West et al.
Now officially published online in Evolution and Human Behavior is a paper by West, El Mouden and Gardner (all from Oxford University) that has been circulating, as a manuscript, in the academic
In TiCS: Space, Time and Number
Trends in Cognitive Sciences is publishing a special issue on space, time and number with articles by Brian Butterworth, Manuela Piazza, Daniel B.M. Haun and collaborators, and Dori Derdikman and
New book: Human evolution and the origin of hierarchies
Philosopher Benoît Dubreuil just published a book at Cambridge University Press: Human evolution and the origins of hierarchies: the state of nature. [1] Based on his dissertation, the book promises
Special issue of Mind and Society on experimental economics
Note the Special issue of Mind and Society on "Experimental economics and the social embedding of economic behavior and cognition".
Here is the abstract of the introductory article, "The implication
Which network structures favor the rapid spread of new ideas, behaviors, or technologies?
Forthcoming in PNAS, an article entitled "The spread of innovations in social networks" by Andrea Montanari and Amin Saberi (full text available here).
Abstract : Which network structures favor the
Why the West Rules–For Now
Ian Morris, a Stanford historian, has just published a new sweeping history of humanity. In Why the West Rules--For Now, he builds a theory of the evolution of human societies and tries to explain
Social interaction in utero?
Fascinating findings by Umberto Castiello, Cristina Becchio, Stefania Zoia,Cristian Nelini, Luisa Sartori, Laura Blason, Giuseppina D'Ottavio, Maria Bulgheroni, and Vittorio Gallese in an article