This lecture will present a brief review of a particular theory of cognitive and cultural co-evolution. The proposed hominid evolutionary scenario differs from theories that promote cognition over culture, and attribute all early hominid cultural evolution to the emergence of specialized brain “modules” devoted to specific capabilities, such as “theory of mind,” language, or gesture. A co-evolutionary scenario acknowledges the fact that cultural evolution can change the contingencies inherent in the evolutionary environments. The human brain must adapt to these contingencies. In humans, culture forms a “cognitive ecology” that defines many of the selection pressures impinging on the brain, and led to a shift away from the prevalence of built-in modular cognitive abilities (as seen in bird song, for example), and toward highly flexible neural adaptive systems that can adjust to a variety of fast changing conditions in the evolutionary environment. Three stages in this unique hominid evolutionary process will be outlined here.

Readings:

1. Consciousness and Governance: From embodiment to enculturation - an interview. In L. Andreassen, L. Brandt, & J. Vang, (Eds.) Cognitive Semiotics. 2007, 68-83

2. Evolutionary Origins of the Social Brain. In O. Vilarroya, & F.F i Argimon, (Eds.) Social Brain Matters: Stances on the Neurobiology of Social Cognition. Rodopi, 2007, 18: 215-222.