The Organization of Learning そして

Hormones and behavior

An attempt to define the field of evolutionary developmental psychology - the application of the principle of natural selection to explain contemporary human development. The authors point out that an evolutionary-developmental perspective allows one to view gene-environment interactions, the significance of individual differences, and the role of behaviour and development in evolution in much greater depth. The authors also focus on how an evolutionary perspective can foster a better understanding of human development and how developmental processes may have influenced the course of human evolution. There are chapters that explore factors influencing parenting and other aspects of family life; the role of play; and the interacting roles of an extended juvenile period, a big brain, and a complex social structure in human cognitive evolution. The authors present a hybrid approach to evolution and development, pointing out that though underlying assumptions held by evolutionary and developmental psychologists have been at odds, each field has much to offer the other.

/pdf/trying-to-fix-the-development-in-evolutionary-developmental-57rjo98ewo.pdf

Trying to Fix the Development in Evolutionary Developmental Psychology@@@The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

Testosterone influences the brain via organizational and activational effects. Numerous relevant studies on rodents and a few on humans focusing on specific behavioral and cognitive parameters have been published. The results are, unfortunately, controversial and puzzling. Dosing, timing, even the application route seem to considerably affect the outcomes. In addition, the methods used for the assessment of psychometric parameters are a bit less than ideal regarding their validity and reproducibility. Metabolism of testosterone contributes to the complexity of its actions. Reduction to dihydrotestosterone by 5-alpha reductase increases the androgen activity; conversion to estradiol by aromatase converts the androgen to estrogen activity. Recently, the non-genomic effects of testosterone on behavior bypassing the nuclear receptors have attracted the interest of researchers. This review tries to summarize the current understanding of the complexity of the effects of testosterone on brain with special focus on their role in the known sex differences.

/pdf/on-the-effects-of-testosterone-on-brain-behavioral-functions-yrwh4s9y7j.pdf

On the effects of testosterone on brain behavioral functions

A capacity for nonverbal numerical estimation is widespread among humans and animals. However, it is currently unclear whether numerical percepts are spontaneously extracted from the environment and whether nonverbal perception is influenced by human exposure to formal mathematics. We tested US adults and children, non-human primates, and numerate and innumerate Tsimane' adults on a quantity task in which they could choose to categorize sets of dots on the basis of number alone, surface area alone or a combination of the two. Despite differences in age, species and education, subjects are universally biased to base their judgments on number as opposed to the alternatives. Numerical biases are uniquely enhanced in humans compared to non-human primates, and correlated with degree of mathematics experience in both the US and Tsimane' groups. We conclude that humans universally and spontaneously extract numerical information, and that human nonverbal numerical perception is enhanced by symbolic numeracy.

/pdf/universal-and-uniquely-human-factors-in-spontaneous-number-2z4s9evsab.pdf

Universal and uniquely human factors in spontaneous number perception

The question of what computational capacities, if any, differ between humans and nonhuman animals has been at the core of foundational debates in cognitive psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and animal behavior The capacity to form nested hierarchical representations is hypothesized to be essential to uniquely human thought, but its origins in evolution, development, and culture are controversial We used a nonlinguistic sequence generation task to test whether subjects generalize sequential groupings of items to a center-embedded, recursive structure Children (3 to 5 years old), US adults, and adults from a Bolivian indigenous group spontaneously induced recursive structures from ambiguous training data In contrast, monkeys did so only with additional exposure We quantify these patterns using a Bayesian mixture model over logically possible strategies Our results show that recursive hierarchical strategies are robust in human thought, both early in development and across cultures, but the capacity itself is not unique to humans

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/6/26/eaaz1002.full.pdf

Recursive sequence generation in monkeys, children, U.S. adults, and native Amazonians

Like humans, monkeys can make accurate judgements about their own memory by reporting their confidence during cognitive tasks. Some have suggested that animals use associative learning to make accurate confidence judgements, while others have suggested animals directly access and estimate the strength of their memories. Here we test a third, non-exclusive possibility: perhaps monkeys, like humans, base metacognitive inferences on heuristic cues. Humans are known to use cues like perceptual fluency (e.g. how easy something is to see) when making metacognitive judgements. We tested monkeys using a match-to-sample task in which the perceptual fluency of the stimuli was manipulated. The monkeys made confidence wagers on their accuracy before or after each trial. We found that monkeys' wagers were affected by perceptual fluency even when their accuracy was not. This is novel evidence that animals are susceptible to metacognitive illusions similar to those experienced by humans.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2017.1541

A metacognitive illusion in monkeys.

Humans’ ability to count by verbally labeling discrete quantities is unique in animal cognition. The evolutionary origins of counting algorithms are not understood. We report that nonhuman primates exhibit a cognitive ability that is algorithmically and logically similar to human counting. Monkeys were given the task of choosing between two food caches. First, they saw one cache baited with some number of food items, one item at a time. Then, a second cache was baited with food items, one at a time. At the point when the second set was approximately equal to the first set, the monkeys spontaneously moved to choose the second set even before that cache was completely baited. Using a novel Bayesian analysis, we show that the monkeys used an approximate counting algorithm for comparing quantities in sequence that is incremental, iterative, and condition controlled. This proto-counting algorithm is structurally similar to formal counting in humans and thus may have been an important evolutionary precursor to human counting.

/pdf/the-origins-of-counting-algorithms-3wpzdfp124.pdf

The Origins of Counting Algorithms

Short-term testosterone manipulations do not affect cognition or motor function but differentially modulate emotions in young and older male rhesus monkeys

Stephen Ferrigno

Papers

Universal and uniquely human factors in spontaneous number perception

Recursive sequence generation in monkeys, children, U.S. adults, and native Amazonians

A metacognitive illusion in monkeys.

The Origins of Counting Algorithms

Short-term testosterone manipulations do not affect cognition or motor function but differentially modulate emotions in young and older male rhesus monkeys