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The evolution of cognition as the evolution of high order control
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Christensen, Wayne (2016) The evolution of cognition as the evolution of high order control. In: Workshop on approaches to variation and stability in contemporary biology, Sydney University, Australia, 26-27 May 2015.
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Abstract
The evolution of cognition is often conceptualised in terms of the evolutionary appearance of key cognitive abilities, which are thought of as unitary traits. Most attention has been focused on advanced cognitive abilities such as imitation, theory of mind, episodiclike memory, tool use and language. As an alternative I advocate a systems approach that focuses on the evolution of sensorimotor architectures and which emphasises deep continuity in the evolution of cognition. This approach has similarities to, and connections with, evodevo. I present a theory of the evolution of cognition based on this approach, which proposes that the evolution of cognition is fundamentally the evolution of a particular kind of architecture characterised by high order control. I outline a model of this architecture, characterise the evolutionary processes by which it is elaborated, and show how its elaboration gives rise to increasingly complex cognitive properties. I then argue that the model is consistent with key features of the evolution of metazoan neural architectures. Finally, I compare the account to two more specific proposals: the hypothesis that the evolutionary roots of cognitive control lie in the control of spatial foraging, and the hypothesis that the evolution of advanced cognitive abilities in great apes is based on extractive foraging. I argue that both these accounts can be subsumed within the high order control theory.
| Item Type: | Conference Item (UNSPECIFIED) | ||||
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy | ||||
| Official Date: | May 2016 | ||||
| Dates: |
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| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||
| Title of Event: | Workshop on approaches to variation and stability in contemporary biology | ||||
| Type of Event: | Workshop | ||||
| Location of Event: | Sydney University, Australia | ||||
| Date(s) of Event: | 26-27 May 2015. |
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