Prof. Robin Dunbar
The (Neuro-)Anatomy of Friendship
Date: June 10, 2022 7:00 PM (IST)
Abstract: Friendships have evolved to buffer us against the stresses of living in large social groups. They have a bigger effect on our psychological health and wellbeing, as well as our physical health and wellbeing, than anything else. Friendships are, however, extremely expensive to create and to maintain, both in terms of their time cost and in terms of their underpinning neurobiology. The behavioral, cognitive and neurobiological bases of friendships in comparative perspective are explored , and show how we use these as a basis for forming communities.
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Robin Dunbar is a professor of Evolutionary Psychology at University of Oxford, UK. He aims at understanding how we have evolved to be a social animal. His contributions are towards investigating behavioural, cognitive and neuroendocrinological underpinnings of forming social bonds – a prime necessity for all of us as a part of the society. He is best known for his Dunbar’s Number, a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships". Apart from being a fellow at Magdalene College, Royal Anthropological Institute, British Academy, Association of Psychological Science (USA), he also holds the European Research Council Advanced grant (2012) and STIAS fellowship (2010). His insights and expertise have placed him on the advisory editorial board of many prestigious journals. He has authored over 20 books and published over 300 articles. You can find inspiration in finer detail on his University Webpage.
Prof. David Geary
Evolution of Vulnerability
Date: August 17, 2021 7:30 PM (IST)
Abstract: Traits that facilitate competition for reproductive resources or that influence mate choice generally have a heightened sensitivity to stressors. They have evolved to signal resilience to infectious disease and nutritional and social stressors and are compromised by exposure to man-made toxins. The sensitivity of these traits can in theory be used to generate a priori predictions about sex-, age-, and trait-specific vulnerabilities for any sexually reproducing species. The model is first illustrated with nonhuman species and used to understand stressor-related disruptions of boys’ and girls’ physical growth and play behavior, as well as aspects of boys’ and girls’ and men’s and women’s social-cognition and spatial abilities. There is much that remains to be determined, but enough is now known to reframe trait sensitivity in ways that will allow us to better identify and understand vulnerable human traits, and eventually ameliorate or prevent their expression.
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David Geary received a BS in psychology from Santa Clara University in 1979 and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside, in 1986. He’s currently a Curators’ Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences and Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at the University of Missouri. His work spans topics ranging from children’s mathematical cognition to the evolution of sex differences. He’s written four sole authored books: Children’s Mathematical Development (1994), Male, Female (3 editions, 1998, 2010, 2021), Origin of Mind (2005), and Evolution of Vulnerability (2015).
He also co-authored one book, Sex Differences (2008), co-edited a five-volume series on Mathematical Cognition and Learning, and a volume on evolution and human development. He’s published more than 325 articles and chapters across psychology, education, and biology. He served on the President’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel and was appointed by President G. W. Bush to the National Board of Advisors for the Institute of Educational Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Among other honors, he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a recipient of a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health, and a recipient of the G. Stanley Hall Award for Lifetime Distinguished Contributions to Developmental Psychology.
Prof. Merlin Donald
Abstract: Merlin Donald’s theoretical work on human cognitive evolution bridges several disciplines in natural science, social science, and humanities. His early theoretical work (1991) on human cognitive evolution was unique in its incorporation of both technology and culture into a cognitive theory grounded primarily in brain function, and in the Darwinian theory of brain-culture coevolution in which adaptation to an expanding cultural environment gradually becomes the dominant driver of cognitive evolution. His work has been translated into eleven languages and has found a large audience in many disciplines that revolve around the topic of human origins, or anthropogeny, and the human future. He is currently working on an issue that concerns us all: the potentially radical effect of high technology on human cognitive evolution. His main thesis is that our mental powers as a species are closely tied to our emergence as cultural beings. The human journey has not been only about brain evolution, but rather about brain-culture co-evolution. The human mind is thus the “hybrid” middle kingdom, the joint progeny of brain and culture. The brain contributed a source of raw biological intelligence with a potential for being rewired for symbolic communication and thought. Culture – especially in its technological aspect but also in its key role in the invention of languages – did most of the rewiring.
The state of human cognition in an evolving world of smart machines: A Darwinian perspective
August 20, 2020 06:30 PM (IST)
Professor Donald is currently trying to understand how the slow-moving biology of the brain can deal with the rapidly changing ‘cognitive ecology’ triggered by the new media and the Internet. We are living through a revolution in information technologies that are aimed directly at the core operations of the human mind. Even more than the Gutenberg revolution, the IT revolution can change the basic structure of the “cognitive ecology,” and, from what we know of brain development, the latter can deeply affect the developing brain. This topic - the impact of the new media on brain and mind, has triggered many recent books and articles, ranging from Utopian visions of a future human “singularity,” to Dystopian visions of a world in which human beings evolve into shallow, distractible, creatures dominated by AI who have lost most of their past intellectual skills. Unfortunately, these discussions can lead nowhere without a solid theoretical framework to give shape to the debate. This lecture will provide a very long-term evolutionary framework within which we can approach this important topic in a systematic manner.
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Prof. Merlin Donald obtained his PhD from McGill University in 1968. A cognitive neuroscientist with a background in philosophy, he is the author of many scientific papers and two influential books: Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition (Harvard University Press, 1991) and A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001). He is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, the Royal Society of Canada, and the World Academy of Art and Science. He has served as Professor and Head of Psychology at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada; founding Chair of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio; Honorary Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark; and Fellow of the Swedish Collegium, Uppsala, Sweden, 2015-2016.
Introduction to Cognitive Archaeology
Date: July 14, 2020 at 8:30 PM (IST)
The state of human cognition in an evolving world of smart machines: A Darwinian perspective
August 20, 2020 06:30 PM (IST)
The state of human cognition in an evolving world of smart machines: A Darwinian perspective
August 20, 2020 06:30 PM (IST)
Prof. Thomas Wynn and Prof. Fredrick Coolidge
Abstract: Cognitive archaeology studies human cognitive evolution by applying cognitive-science theories and concepts to archaeological remains of the prehistoric past. After reviewing the basic epistemological stance of cognitive archaeology, we will examine the archaeological evidence for the evolution of working memory capacity, beginning with the appearance of Homo erectus 1.79 million years ago and culminating with the advent of modern cognition about 70,000 years ago. An enhancement in working-memory capacity may have been responsible for the relative explosion of culture within the past 50,000 years, which included personal ornamentation, highly ritualized burials, bow-and-arrow technology, depictive cave art, and artistic figurines.
Thomas Wynn is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, where he has taught since 1977. His doctoral research in anthropology opened a hitherto unexplored direction in Palaeolithic studies – the explicit use of psychological theory to interpret archaeological remains. His 1979 article in the journal Man, “The intelligence of later Acheulean hominids”, continues to be cited 40 years after its appearance, and is considered to be one of the foundation documents of evolutionary cognitive archaeology. He has published extensively in Palaeolithic studies (150+ articles, books, and book chapters), with an emphasis on cognitive evolution. His authored books include The Evolution of Spatial Competence(1989), The Rise of Homo sapiens: The evolution of modern thinking (with F. Coolidge 2009; 2018), How to think like a Neandertal (with F. Coolidge 2012), and First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone (with T. Berlant 2018).
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Frederick Coolidge is a Professor and co-Director of undergraduate education at the University of Colorado, Colorado springs. He is a three-time Fulbright Fellowship Award recipient (India, 1987, 1992, 2005). He has received three teaching awards including the lifetime designation, University of Colorado Presidential Teaching Scholar, and the UCCS Letters, Arts, and Sciences Annual Outstanding Research and Creative Works Award, in 2004, and the UCCS Annual Faculty Award for Excellence in Research in 2006. He teaches introductory and advanced undergraduate statistics, cognitive evolution, evolutionary neuropsychology, abnormal psychology, and sleep and dreams.
An interactive session with Prof Thomas Wynn and Prof Frederick L. Coolidge
July 13, 2020 08:30 PM (IST)