New book on: Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind
A new book of cognition-and-culture relevance edited by Mark Schaller, Ara Norenzayan, Steven J Heine, Toshio Yamagishi and Tatsuya Kameda:
Evolution, Culture, and the Human Mind
Published by:
Cultural anthropology of the distant future?
In a provocative post at 3 Quarks Daily Sam Kean asks: "Will the Manhattan project always exist?" raising interesting possibilities about future representations of the present, which by then will
A bubble in the Humanities market?
Philip Gerrans discuss bubbles in the academic market in "Bubble Trouble", published July 9, 2009 in the THES and available here. He argues that the humanities are in the same state financial
How to Think, Say, or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion
An excellent, humoristic and refreshing paper by Daniel M. Wegner explains why under cognitive load we tend to do precisely what we try not to do! The counterintentional error is "when we manage to
A debate in Nature on Darwin and the mind
Last April, Johan J. Bolhuis and Clive D. L. Wynne published in Nature (458(7240), 832-833) a paper entitled "Can evolution explain how minds work?" doubting the use and usefulness of evolutionary
A scientific evaluation of Charles Dickens
A paper - or is it an hoax ? - by MV Simkin, forthcoming in Physics and Society. I didn't know one could hate a writer so much.
Abstract:
I report the results of the test, where the takers had to
Keyboards, Codes and the Search for Optimality
For some of our readers, this may be old hat, but for others this article by Robert Dorit in the September-October 2009 (Volume 97, Number 5, Page: 376) issue of the American Scientist entitled
Is autonomy as a universal aspiration?
A 'Science News' dispatch reporting on the work of Charles Hewlig, Eliot Turiel and other cross-cultural moral psychologists, answers yes. Read it here.
Excerpts :
"During the teen years, kids in
3 Quarks Daily’s Prize in Philosophy
The great 3 Quarks Daily blog is holding a competition for the best philosophy blog post and one of Olivier Morin's posts on our blog, "Descartes Skull," has been nominated. You have only until
Formidability and the logic of human anger
Just out in PNAS (2009, 106:15073-15078), "Formidability and the logic of human anger" by Aaron Sell, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides supporting an evolutionary analysis of anger based conflict resolu
Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior
Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller's new book Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior (Viking, New York, 384 pages) has stirred a controversy that we have already blogged about here.
Repeated learning makes cultural evolution unique
To appear in PNAS, a critique of close analogies between biological and cultural evolution : "Repeated learning makes cultural evolution unique" by Pontus Strimling, Magnus Enquist, and Kimmo
Murder in Saint Andrews
Last week I was enjoying a very pleasant evening in St Andrews. The sky was clear, the last rays of sun were warming the beach, the sound of the sea was pleasanty resting my exhausted mind. On my way
The energetic benefits of cooperation in modern humans
Coming out in PNAS an article based on evolutionary modelling and suggesting that the energetic benefits of cooperation in modern humans explain human expansion: "Population stability, cooperation,
Is deductive inference embedded in language?
Forthcoming in PNAS: "The boundaries of language and thought in deductive inference" by Martin M. Monti, Lawrence M. Parsons and Daniel N. Osherson.
By way of introduction, here is how Martin Monti
Online videos of the 2007 CEU summer school on culture and cognition
In July 2007, we had a great summer schoool on culture and cognition at the Central European University in Budapest organised by György Gergely and Dan Sperber. The proceeding were video-recorded
Common Ground and Cultural Prominence
An interesting article in the last issue of Psychological Science shows that cultural prominence can be sustained by the need to establish common ground in conversation.
Here's the abstract:
Why do
The evolution of cooperative turn-taking
On July 1, we signalled a PNAS article on "Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation" from the Language and Cognition Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (see
Social Interaction and Geographical Distance in the Internet Era
An interesting paper deposited ar ArXiv.org by Jacob Goldenberg and Moshe Levy from the The Hebrew University, Jerusalem: "Distance Is Not Dead: Social Interaction and Geographical Distance in
Universals in turn-taking in conversation – PNAS paper
This is to announce a recent publication in PNAS under the 'anthropology' rubric, titled 'Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation', by Tanya Stivers et al (online June 24,
Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation
From the Language and Cognition Group, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen: Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., Gertie Hoymann,
Daniel Nettle on cultural variation as an evolved characteristic
In the JRAI (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute) Volume 15 Issue 2 (June 2009), an interesting article by Daniel Nettle entitled: "Beyond nature versus culture: cultural variation as an
Wine in mind
Two new websites dedicated to the psychology and philosophy of wine are born this month ! Wine Psych (winepsych.com) is the creation of psychologist and wine consultant Miles Thomas. Wine Mind
Abstract numbers: Culture or innate core knowledge?
"Do abstract numerical concepts depend on language or culture, or do they form a part of humans' innate, core knowledge?" ask Véronique Izard, Coralie Sann, Elizabeth Spelke and Arlette Streri in