The Implications of the Working Memory Model for the Evolution of Modern Cognition

Wynn, Thomas; Coolidge, Frederick L.

doi:10.4061/2011/741357

Cited by 75 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Certainly, the examination of procedural memory in the cognitive sciences (DeCaro et al, 2008;Maddox and Ashby, 2004) and archaeology (cf. Sutton, 2005;Coolidge and Wynn, 2008;Wynn and Coolidge, 2004, 2011 has been covered by a number of researchers over recent years and it is not the purpose of this paper to add more to this discussion per se. Rather, how exactly procedural memory is created by the process of proceduralization and moreover how sequential, proceduralized behaviour is in itself structured in a technological context is of more interest here.…”

Section: Proceduralizationmentioning

confidence: 95%

Psychological components of middle paleolithic technology: The proceduralization of lithic core reduction

Sumner

2011

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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Section: Proceduralizationmentioning

confidence: 95%

Psychological components of middle paleolithic technology: The proceduralization of lithic core reduction

Sumner

2011

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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“…Research suggests that language acquisition played an important role in shaping the brain, helping us to think abstractly and be more creative, but also made us vulnerable to psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia (17). Changes that contributed to our ability to think more creatively and to improve executive function (18) could have also harbored susceptibility to this pathology (19). However, while archeological evidence provides clues about other aspects of human evolution, it cannot offer insights into the origin of psychiatric disorders.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic Markers of Human Evolution Are Enriched in Schizophrenia

Srinivasan

Bettella

Mattingsdal

et al. 2016

Biological Psychiatry

102

101

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Background Why schizophrenia has accompanied us throughout our history despite its negative effect on fitness remains an evolutionary enigma. It is proposed that schizophrenia is a by-product of the complex evolution of the human brain and a compromise for our language, creative thinking and cognitive abilities. Method We analyze recent large genome-wide association studies of schizophrenia and a range of other human phenotypes (anthropometric measures, cardiovascular disease risk factors, immune-mediated diseases) using a statistical framework that draws on polygenic architecture and ancillary information on genetic variants. We used information from the evolutionary proxy measure called Neanderthal selective sweep (NSS) score. Results We show that gene loci associated with schizophrenia are significantly (p = 7.30×10−9) more prevalent in genomic regions that are likely to have undergone recent positive selection in humans, i.e. with low NSS score. Variants in brain-related genes with low NSS score confer significantly higher susceptibility than variants in other brain-related genes. The enrichment is strongest for schizophrenia, but we cannot rule out enrichment for other phenotypes. The false discovery rate conditional on the evolutionary proxy, points to 27 candidate schizophrenia susceptibility loci, twelve of which are associated with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, or linked to brain development. Conclusion The results suggest that there is a polygenic overlap between schizophrenia and NSS score, a marker of human evolution, which is in line with the hypothesis that the persistence of schizophrenia is related to the evolutionary process of becoming human.

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“…[6, 7] These are important characteristics that involved genetic changes leading to functional advantages, with cultural and societal effects. These changes which set us apart from our ancestors could have also made us vulnerable to psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, plausibly a human-specific disease.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing the Association between Early Evolutionary Markers and Schizophrenia

et al. 2017

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Schizophrenia is suggested to be a by-product of the evolution in humans, a compromise for our language, creative thinking and cognitive abilities, and thus, essentially, a human disorder. The time of its origin during the course of human evolution remains unclear. Here we investigate several markers of early human evolution and their relationship to the genetic risk of schizophrenia. We tested the schizophrenia evolutionary hypothesis by analyzing genome-wide association studies of schizophrenia and other human phenotypes in a statistical framework suited for polygenic architectures. We analyzed evolutionary proxy measures: human accelerated regions, segmental duplications, and ohnologs, representing various time periods of human evolution for overlap with the human genomic loci associated with schizophrenia. Polygenic enrichment plots suggest a higher prevalence of schizophrenia associations in human accelerated regions, segmental duplications and ohnologs. However, the enrichment is mostly accounted for by linkage disequilibrium, especially with functional elements like introns and untranslated regions. Our results did not provide clear evidence that markers of early human evolution are more likely associated with schizophrenia. While SNPs associated with schizophrenia are enriched in HAR, Ohno and SD regions, the enrichment seems to be mediated by affiliation to known genomic enrichment categories. Taken together with previous results, these findings suggest that schizophrenia risk may have mainly developed more recently in human evolution.

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The Implications of the Working Memory Model for the Evolution of Modern Cognition

Cited by 75 publications

References 58 publications

Psychological components of middle paleolithic technology: The proceduralization of lithic core reduction

Psychological components of middle paleolithic technology: The proceduralization of lithic core reduction

Genetic Markers of Human Evolution Are Enriched in Schizophrenia

Probing the Association between Early Evolutionary Markers and Schizophrenia

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