Mycological rationality: Heuristics, perception and decision-making in mushroom foraging

Abstract

How do mushroom foragers make safe and efficient decisions under high degrees of uncertainty, or deal with the genuine risks of misidentification and poisoning? This article is an inquiry into ecological rationality, heuristics, perception, and decision-making in mushroom foraging. By surveying 894 Finnish mushroom foragers with a total of 22,304 years of foraging experience, this article illustrates how socially learned rules of thumb and heuristics are used in mushroom foraging. The results illustrate how traditional foraging cultures have evolved precautionary principles to deal with uncertainties and poisonous species, and how foragers leverage both simple heuristics and complex cognitive strategies in their search for, and identification of, mushrooms. Foragers also develop selective attention through experience. The results invite us to consider whether other human foraging cultures might use heuristics similarly, how and why such traditions have culturally evolved, and whether early hunter-gatherers might have used fast and frugal heuristics to deal with uncertainty.Note: The heuristics and rules discussed in this text should NOT be used as a guide for identifying mushrooms. Always consult a local expert and multiple information sources before picking or eating wild mushrooms.

Analogy as a Catalyst for Cumulative Cultural Evolution

“…With over 300 different designs, the patterns seem too complex to learn via imitation alone, and although this has not been formally tested, it is reasonable to assume that story-telling or singing aids the learning of the sequence. Further evidence from contemporary foraging groups suggests that analogy is commonly used for identifying safe versus poisonous mushrooms, for example by describing certain mushrooms as wearing hats or stockings (Kaaronen, 2020). These examples are consistent with our theory that verbal analogy use is necessary for communicating information that has a heavy memory load or involves learning a large number of complex patterns or associations.…”

Lessons for human survival in a world without ecological templates: what can we learn from small-scale societies?

“…For instance, foraging cultures have developed and used heuristics, including precautionary strategies and taboos, to deal with uncertain environments (Colding and Folke 2001, Henrich and Henrich 2010, Kaaronen 2020. In traditional Finnish https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss3/art2/ foraging cultures, for example, foragers have been documented to rely on precautionary heuristics that prohibit the picking of unknown mushrooms or mushrooms with certain traits (such as color) to set clear and well-defined boundaries for safe foraging (Kaaronen 2020).…”

“…For instance, foraging cultures have developed and used heuristics, including precautionary strategies and taboos, to deal with uncertain environments (Colding and Folke 2001, Henrich and Henrich 2010, Kaaronen 2020. In traditional Finnish https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss3/art2/ foraging cultures, for example, foragers have been documented to rely on precautionary heuristics that prohibit the picking of unknown mushrooms or mushrooms with certain traits (such as color) to set clear and well-defined boundaries for safe foraging (Kaaronen 2020). At the group level and by way of other examples, precautionary traditions and taboos have been documented as being used in protection against the consumption of dangerous marine toxins (Henrich and Henrich 2010), the governance of sustained marine resource management (Johannes 1978, Hens 2006, Hickey 2007, Smyth and Isherwood 2016, the management of livestock and pastoral risks (Roe 2020), the placing of temporary restrictions on farming to prevent the overworking of land (Sarfo-Mensah and Oduro 2007), and the setting of boundaries for protected forest patches such as sacred groves (Bhagwat and Rutte 2006, Sarfo-Mensah and Oduro 2007, Dudley et al 2009, Nganso et al 2012, Yuan et al 2020.…”

Molecular Identification of Mushroom Species in Italy: An Ongoing Project Aimed at Reinforcing the Control Measures of an Increasingly Appreciated Sustainable Food

“…Mushrooms are also classified based on what substrate they get their nutrition from. The role of experts in mycology has been of great weight since ancient times, and their growing skills over the centuries have allowed the refinement of mushroom taxonomy, leading to the current knowledges on these organisms [31]. A proper mushroom identification is fundamental to the avoidance of poisoning accidents; in this respect, the mycologist plays an even greater key role.…”

“…A proper mushroom identification is fundamental to the avoidance of poisoning accidents; in this respect, the mycologist plays an even greater key role. Factually, recent research in decision-making invites us to consider the use of simple rules of thumb, or "fast and frugal" heuristics, suggesting that good judgments do not necessarily require complex cognitive processing, and that-particularly in environments with high degrees of uncertainty-people often resort to simple heuristics when making decisions [31]. However, the phenotypic characteristics traditionally applied for mushrooms are strongly influenced by the environmental conditions, and they can often be misleading due to the phenomena of hybridization, cryptic speciation, and convergent evolution [32,33].…”