Adaptations to Predators and Prey

Abstract

Predator‐prey interactions have shaped our evolutionary lineage since long before we were human. Predation has had a profound influence on the evolution of our perceptual, emotional, cognitive, and social systems, stretching back to the origin of vertebrates. More recently, hunting has shaped the evolution of the hominin lineage, including the evolution of big brains, tool use, and cultural transmission in our genus. This chapter reviews the many influences predator‐prey interactions have had on human psychology. A survey of the evolutionary history of predator‐prey interactions in our lineage is followed by reviews of the influence of predator‐prey interactions on various domains of human psychology including perception, foraging, emotions, learning, inference, and reasoning. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research on the influence of predator‐prey interactions on human psychology and behavior.

A Sign of Things to Come: Behavioral Change through Dynamic Iconography

“…In an article on the effects of animacy (the life and motion perceived in an object) on attentional capture, Pratt et al (2010) highlighted how animacy affects prioritization in visual processing. Indeed, humans have developed systems to maximize the chances of detecting potential predators and other dangers, one of these systems being animacy detection (Barrett 2005). Animacy signals something unpredictable that one might have to react to; thus, our attention system evolved to detect animacy automatically and quickly (New, Cosmides, and Tooby 2007), with attentional prioritization given to animate objects before the stimulus is fully identified (Ptak and Fellrath 2013).…”

Men’s Physical Strength Moderates Conceptualizations of Prospective Foes in Two Disparate Societies

“…At the same time, culture acts as a repository of locally-relevant information. As a result, we can expect evolved mechanisms to be both open to, and dependent on, socially-transmitted information (Barrett, 2005;Fessler and Machery, 2012). Hence, while guns and power drills were not part of our species' ancestral environment, other weapons and tools were, and we can expect the mind to readily acquire, retain, and use information about the properties of modern exemplars of these two categories, including their affordances in combat.…”

Toward a Sustainable Handling of Interlinear-Glossed Text in Language Documentation

“…2). As negative information arouses strong emotional responses such as fear, disgust, and anger, some theorize that humans evolved broad cognitive domains receptive to negative information as a survival response to predators and toxic food sources [88][89][90][91][92] , which may explain why both survival and negative emotional information are particularly salient.…”