Explaining brain size variation: from social to cultural brain

Schaik, Carel P. van; Isler, Karin; Burkart, Judith M.

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2012.04.004

Cited by 154 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 96 publications

(126 reference statements)

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“…6) and capable of various degrees of expression. Although there is broad agreement (2,8,9,15,22) that accurate transmission is necessary for cultural accumulation, the actual fidelity (i) required to accumulate particular behaviors, (ii) associated with different social-learning mechanisms, and (iii) typically exhibited by different species are all largely unknown (22). Experimental studies of artifact reproduction in humans suggest that the required fidelity and relevant mechanisms depend on the complexity and difficulty of the production process.…”

Section: High-fidelity Social Reproductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For many species, constraints such as small body size, unstable environments, and unavoidable mortality from predation and disease may simply make large brains impractical. In this framework, highfidelity social learning can increase the payoffs of large brains (8,15) but is not associated with its own unique costs, as it is thought to rely on cognitive abilities that overlap (15) or evolved in tandem with (8) asocial learning and problem solving. This approach actually parallels the suggestion of Boyd and Richerson (11) that initial enhancements of social-learning capacities were a byproduct of selection on other capacities, and similarly shifts the question back to identifying the unique trait (4) or combination of traits (8) that pushed humans, and no others, into an auto-catalytic coevolutionary feedback loop.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Evolutionary neuroscience of cumulative culture

Stout

Hecht

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

126

152

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Culture suffuses all aspects of human life. It shapes our minds and bodies and has provided a cumulative inheritance of knowledge, skills, institutions, and artifacts that allows us to truly stand on the shoulders of giants. No other species approaches the extent, diversity, and complexity of human culture, but we remain unsure how this came to be. The very uniqueness of human culture is both a puzzle and a problem. It is puzzling as to why more species have not adopted this manifestly beneficial strategy and problematic because the comparative methods of evolutionary biology are ill suited to explain unique events. Here, we develop a more particularistic and mechanistic evolutionary neuroscience approach to cumulative culture, taking into account experimental, developmental, comparative, and archaeological evidence. This approach reconciles currently competing accounts of the origins of human culture and develops the concept of a uniquely human technological niche rooted in a shared primate heritage of visuomotor coordination and dexterous manipulation.brain evolution | cultural evolution | archaeology | imitation

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Section: High-fidelity Social Reproductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary neuroscience of cumulative culture

Stout

Hecht

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

126

152

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“…There may be four general conditions preventing selection on increased brain size, in spite of potential cognitive benefits: (i) small body size; (ii) the inability to achieve a stable increase in net energy intake; (iii) the inability to improve survival through cognitive performance; and (iv) limited opportunities for social learning [49,80].…”

Section: Evolutionary Limitations On Brain Sizementioning

confidence: 99%

“…When larger brain size improves survival, this produces selection for a slowerpaced life history via selection on a physiology that makes longer life possible [95], thus creating a direct link between larger brains and slower life history. In effect, then, a cognitive improvement can only be favoured by natural selection if it actually improves survival (or reproduction, but empirical data suggest this is rare) by a broad enough margin to compensate for the cost to development and reproduction [49]. Many lineages may not encounter external conditions where this is the case.…”

Section: Evolutionary Limitations On Brain Sizementioning

confidence: 99%

The costs and benefits of flexibility as an expression of behavioural plasticity: a primate perspective

Schaik

2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Traditional neo-Darwinism ascribes geographical variation in morphology or in behaviour to varying selection on local genotypes. However, mobile and long-lived organisms cannot achieve local adaptation this way, leading to a renewed interest in plasticity. I examined geographical variation in orang-utan subsistence and social behaviour, and found this to be largely owing to behavioural plasticity, here called flexibility, both in the form of flexible individual decisions and of socially transmitted (cultural) innovations. Although comparison with other species is difficult, the extent of such flexibility is almost certainly limited by brain size. It is shown that brains can only increase relative to body size where the cognitive benefits they produce are reliably translated into improved survival rate. This means that organisms that are very small, face many predators, live in highly seasonal environments, or lack opportunities for social learning cannot evolve greater flexibility, and must achieve local adaptation through selection on specific genotypes. On the other hand, as body and brain size increase, local adaptation is increasingly achieved through selection on plasticity. The species involved are also generally those that most need it, being more mobile and longer-lived. Although high plasticity buffers against environmental change, the most flexible organisms face a clear limit because they respond slowly to selection. Thus, paradoxically, the largest-brained animals may actually be vulnerable to the more drastic forms of environmental change, such as those induced by human actions.

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“…Another possibility is that capuchins' performance is attributable to their social cognitive skills rather than their general intelligence [8]. Several hypotheses propose that cooperative breeding leads to increased cognitive ability, especially in social domains [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marmoset monkeys evaluate third-party reciprocity

et al. 2014

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Many non-human primates have been observed to reciprocate and to understand reciprocity in one-to-one social exchanges. A recent study demonstrated that capuchin monkeys are sensitive to both third-party reciprocity and violation of reciprocity; however, whether this sensitivity is a function of general intelligence, evidenced by their larger brain size relative to other primates, remains unclear. We hypothesized that highly pro-social primates, even with a relatively smaller brain, would be sensitive to others' reciprocity. Here, we show that common marmosets discriminated between human actors who reciprocated in social exchanges with others and those who did not. Monkeys accepted rewards less frequently from non-reciprocators than they did from reciprocators when the non-reciprocators had retained all food items, but they accepted rewards from both actors equally when they had observed reciprocal exchange between the actors. These results suggest that mechanisms to detect unfair reciprocity in third-party social exchanges do not require domain-general higher cognitive ability based on proportionally larger brains, but rather emerge from the cooperative and pro-social tendencies of species, and thereby suggest this ability evolved in multiple primate lineages.

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Explaining brain size variation: from social to cultural brain

Cited by 154 publications

References 96 publications

Evolutionary neuroscience of cumulative culture

Evolutionary neuroscience of cumulative culture

The costs and benefits of flexibility as an expression of behavioural plasticity: a primate perspective

Marmoset monkeys evaluate third-party reciprocity

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