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Text of the page (random words):
nd of making her open the door plug in mrs jones s story as told above mrs jones opens the door billy and julia shout trick or treats mrs jones gives them candies 1 cultural cognitive causal chains edit human interaction involves many cases of ad hoc cultural cognitive causal chains scccs that do not follow a significant long term pattern over many people yet other scccs can be long lasting systematical and across a large population for example the halloween custom mentioned above the latter kinds of scccs arguably stabilize mental representations intra and inter individually to an extent that they can be considered as cultural if their behavior practices and resulting artifacts significantly represent their population a cccc therefore always implies scccs but a sccc just leads to a cccc if it involves one or more scccs that significantly indicate mental representations or public productions citation needed cognitive causal chain ccc a causal chain where each causal link instantiates a semantic relationship social cognitive causal chain sccc a ccc that extends over several individuals cultural cognitive causal chain cccc a social ccc that stabilizes mental representations and public productions in a population and its environment table 1 overview of cognitive causal chains constituting the epidemiology of representations from 1 cultural stability diversity and massive modularity edit epidemiology of representations suggests that both cultural diversity and stability macro level together can be explained by the massive modularity of the human brain and mind micro level and scccs this means that the manifold of human cultural behavior is ultimately explained by the manifold of domain specific human cognitive abilities mental representations and respective sccc this claim would have broad impact when applicable it is discussed in further detail by sperber and hirschfeld for the cases of folkbiology folksociology and supernaturalism 2 here is an example think about a human cognitive sub system that must have been very important for human cognitive evolution i e a module with an innate basis like the ability that allows humans to recognize and interpret visual patterns as faces 3 4 one can call this cognitive sub system the human face recognition module it was most likely built by evolution to recognize and interpret animal faces via decoding facial expressions produced by a complex system of facial muscles humans with certain types of brain damage lose this ability cf prosopagnosia social emotional agnosia yet the module also processes visual input that is relatively similar to patterns of natural faces such can be cultural artifacts like portraits caricatures masks and made up faces citation needed according to the epidemiology of representation the effectiveness defined by its relevance of a public production depends on the extent to which it exploits a human cognitive module cultural artifacts rely on and exploit a natural disposition often they exaggerate crucial features as in caricature or in make up and constitute what ethologists call superstimuli 2 two domains of cognitive modules can therefore be distinguished the proper natural domain and the actual cultural domain in the above example the first relates to natural faces the second to portraits caricatures masks and made up faces those categories can intersect like shown in figure 2 since made up faces literally overlap the proper with the actual domain they are the most effective and relevant public product in the example therefore they lead to the most stable cccc if they significantly reflect the population s behavior the other stimuli in the cultural domain will theoretically be as efficient and stable depending on the extent that they exploit the face perception module 2 figure 2 a hypothetical venn diagram of the cognitive domains of the human face module inter individual stability of mental representations edit epidemiology of representations states that there must be a sccc the mechanism inter linking a mental representation with an individual behavior for the latter and explains its stability over time and space by the relevance theoretical status of the underlying behavior there are three minimal conditions for an inter individual replication that ensures transfer stability for b to be an actual replication of a b must be caused by a together with situational and background conditions b must be similar in relevant respects to a b must inherit from a the properties that make it relevantly similar to a 1 here is an example imagine one a produces a line drawing a see figure 3 and then shows it to a friend b for ten seconds an asks the friend ten minutes later to reproduce it as exactly as possible with another line drawing b after that a second person is shown for ten seconds the figure drawn by your friend and presented with the same task this is iterated with nine further participants now theoretically it is most likely that each drawing will differ from its model a and that the more distant two drawings are in the chain the more they are likely to differ imagine further you conduct exactly the same little experiment but with the line drawing in figure 4 the result you theoretically get this time may be such that the distance in the chain of two drawings on the one hand and their degree of difference on the other hand should be two variables independent of one another 1 meaning that it was a chain of stable replications theoretically this is because figure 4 looks like a five branched star drawn without lifting the pencil whereas figure 3 has no perceivable meaning at least in our western culture the second chain is a sccc but not so the first arguably and on the one hand the second causal chain was driven by perceiving the shared meaning of the stimulus by inferring the underlying mental representation and a sequential reproduction of by new behavior on the other hand the first causal chain was driven by mere imitation that does not crucially depends on recognition of the underlying meaning there are forms of inter individual transfer of behavior that blend reproduction and imitation to different extends however the more the meaning of a stimulus is actually reproduced rather than imitated by a subject the more stable the transfer of the underlying mental representation is supposed to be over time 5 epidemiology of representations cognitive science and domain specificity edit like cognitive science the epidemiology of representations is also based on the assumption that domain specificity characterizes cognitive abilities or mechanisms 6 epidemiology of representations assumes that human animals are cognitively predefined by their evolved neurophysiology i e their cognition is massively modular however it also acknowledges that cognitive development plays a functional role for the formation of mental representations concepts intuitive theories and the like 1 2 accordingly theories in cognitive science argue that humans are evolutionarily equipped with a certain brain body setup cf common coding theory that allows them to encode and decode specific kinds of information to their memory via interacting with their environment this is sensory specific i e visual acoustic tactile and olfactory perception etc and task or reasoning specific i e formulation of intuitive theories hence by these theories humans are assumed to have 1 an innate cognitive potential that 2 is realized during a natural cognitive development 6 7 the reason for the first argument comes from fields like evolutionary anthropology and evolutionary psychology stating that evolution has been selecting merely those animals that have evolved adaptive mental and neural mechanisms to efficiently cope with specific challenges regarding their environment e g getting food shelter mates etc 8 the reason for the second argument comes from cognitive development stating that animals especially humans in their infancy are highly sensitive to input patterns since their cognitive system automatically and rapidly adapts their environment 7 since the human brain is organized into areas that focus on the processing of distinct sensory input and output and also interact with one another humans are assumed to learn and perform best in processing those patterns of information for which their neurophysiological system has been evolved 6 mental representations manifest for example in human long term memory figure 1 other evidence for massive modularity is that human cognitive performance for respective domains correlates with the degree of damage to the corresponding cortical areas 9 epidemiology of representations versus memetics edit see also evolutionary psychology and culture the cognitive approach in the epidemiology of representations differs from other philosophical theories with evolutionary orientation such as memetics formulated by the british ethologist and evolutionary biologist richard dawkins cf 10 11 roughly speaking the three crucial differences between the two approaches are the following epidemiology of representations atomizes culture to mental representations and individual behavior whereas memetics atomizes culture to memes individual behavior in sccc is replicated whereas memes are imitated cf inter individual stability of mental representations stability of mental representation over time is explained by relevance and domain specificity of individual behavior whereas stability of memes depends on the benefit of their own transmission 5 with the epidemiology of representations sperber has argued that the notion of meaning is disregarded in memetics and that this is questionable since the study of society and culture without an explanation of how meaning is perceived and reproduced is contradictory 5 if memetics nevertheless attempts to explain culture based on evolutionary biology it will need to present empirical evidence for the transfer of memes that is showing that elements of culture inherit all or nearly all their relevant properties from other elements of culture that they replicate 5 references edit 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 sperber d 2001 conceptual tools for a natural science of society and culture radcliffe brown lecture in social anthropology 1999 proceedings of the british academy 111 297 317 1 2 3 4 5 sperber d hirschfeld l 1999 culture cognition and evolution cambridge mass in robert wilson frank keil eds mit encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences pp cxi cxxxii cite book cs1 maint multiple names authors list link meltzoff a keith moore m 1994 imitation memory and the representation of person infant behavior and development 17 1 83 99 doi 10 1016 0163 6383 94 90024 8 pmc 4137868 pmid 25147416 morton j johnson m h 1991 conspec and conlern a two process theory of infant face recognition psychological review 2 98 2 164 81 doi 10 1037 0033 295x 98 2 164 pmid 2047512 1 2 3 4 sperber d 2000 an objection to the memetic approach to culture oxford in robert aunger ed darwinizing culture the status of memetics as a science permanent dead link 1 2 3 bermúdez josé luis 2010 cognitive science an introduction to the science of the mind cambridge univ press 1 2 carey s 2009 the origin of concepts usa oxford university press cosmides l tooby j 1992 in j barkow l cosmides and j tooby eds the adapted mind oxford oxford university press pp 163 228 cite book cs1 maint multiple names authors list link kandel e r schwartz j h jessell t m 2000 principles of neural science new york mcgraw hill isbn 9780838577011 cite book cs1 maint multiple names authors list link dawkins r 1976 the selfish gene oxford oxford university press dawkins r 1982 the extended phenotype oxford oxford university press v t e evolutionary psychology history evolutionary thought theoretical foundations adaptationism cognitive revolution cognitivism gene selection theory modern synthesis criticism evolutionary processes acquired characteristics adaptations altruism cheating hamiltonian spite reciprocal baldwin effect by products evolutionarily stable strategy exaptation fitness inclusive kin selection inbreeding avoidance kin recognition parental investment parent offspring conflict mismatch natural selection sexual selection costly signaling male female intrasexual competition mate choice sexual dimorphism social selection species typical behavior areas cognition emotion affect display display rules facial expression behavioral modernity cognitive module modularity of mind adaptive unconscious unconscious cognition automatic and controlled processes cognitive specialization computational theory of mind domain generality domain specificity learning dual process theory cognitive tradeoff hypothesis evolution of the brain evolution of nervous systems fight or flight response arachnophobia basophobia ophidiophobia folk biology taxonomy folk psychology theory of mind intelligence flynn effect wason selection task motor control skill multitasking numerical cognition number sense approximate number system parallel individuation system sleep visual perception color vision eye naïve physics culture aesthetics literary criticism musicology anthropology biological crime language origin psychology speech morality moral foundations religion origin social contagion behavioral contagion emotional contagion epidemiology of representations universals development attachment bonding biology affectional maternal paternal bond caregiver deprivation childhood attachment cinderella effect cognitive development education neuronal recycling hypothesis science of reading language acquisition personality development socialization human factors mental health cognitive ergonomics computer mediated communication engineering psychology human computer interaction media naturalness theory neuroergonomics depression digital media use and mental health hypophobia imprinted brain hypothesis mind blindness psychological effects of internet use rank theory of depression schizophrenia screen time smartphones and pedestrian safety social aspects of television societal effects of cars distracted driving lead crime hypothesis mobile phones and driving safety texting while driving sex activity adult attachment age disparity arousal concealed ovulation coolidge effect desire fantasy hormonal motivation incest taboo westermarck effect jealousy mate guarding mating preferences mating strategies orientation ovulatory shift hypothesis pair bond romantic love physical sexual attraction sexuality male female sexy son hypothesis sex differences aggression autism cognition crime division of labour emotional intelligence empathising systemising theory gender role intelligence memory mental health narcissism neuroscience schizophrenia substance abuse suicide variability hypothesis related subjects academic disciplines behavioral evolutionary economics behavioral epigenetics genetics affective behavioral cognitive evolutionary neuroscience biocultural 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