![](https://image.librarything.com/pics/fugue21/magnifier-left.png)
![](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/P/0674980158.01._SX180_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Klik på en miniature for at gå til Google Books
Indlæser... Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinkingaf Cecilia Heyes
![]() Ingen Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. One of the most compelling books of cognitive science I've read in a long time. Heyes covers a huge amount of ground in a relatively short book: her core argument involves a novel view of the evolutionary basis of human behavior based on a comprehensive theory of metacognitive capacities (the "gadgets" of the title) and how they're passed on, but in demonstrating her idea of "cultural evolutionary psychology" she also gives compelling reinterpretations of how humans learn to pay attention, to imitate, to "mindread," and to use language. She even manages to sneak in a short personal definition of "human nature." The notion that the standard patterns of associational learning present in all animals are the basis for humans' unique, domain-specific methods of learning is counterintuitive at first, but by the end of the book I was convinced that Heyes has bridged a vital gap and put the uniquely "cultural" aspects of human life on a far firmer genetic/mechanical ground without giving fodder to crass biological determinism. ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
How did human minds become so different from those of other animals? What accounts for our capacity to understand the way the physical world works, to think ourselves into the minds of others, to gossip, read, tell stories about the past, and imagine the future? These questions are not new: they have been debated by philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, evolutionists, and neurobiologists over the course of centuries. One explanation widely accepted today is that humans have special cognitive instincts. Unlike other living animal species, we are born with complicated mechanisms for reasoning about causation, reading the minds of others, copying behaviors, and using language. Cecilia Heyes agrees that adult humans have impressive pieces of cognitive equipment. In her framing, however, these cognitive gadgets are not instincts programmed in the genes but are constructed in the course of childhood through social interaction. Cognitive gadgets are products of cultural evolution, rather than genetic evolution. At birth, the minds of human babies are only subtly different from the minds of newborn chimpanzees. We are friendlier, our attention is drawn to different things, and we have a capacity to learn and remember that outstrips the abilities of newborn chimpanzees. Yet when these subtle differences are exposed to culture-soaked human environments, they have enormous effects. They enable us to upload distinctively human ways of thinking from the social world around us. As Cognitive Gadgets makes clear, from birth our malleable human minds can learn through culture not only what to think but how to think it.-- Ingen biblioteksbeskrivelser fundet. |
Aktuelle diskussionerIngen
![]() GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)155.7Philosophy and Psychology Psychology Developmental And Differential Psychology Evolutionary PsychologyLC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:![]()
Er det dig?Bliv LibraryThing-forfatter. |
Interesting bits -- maybe language doesn't have critical period or specialize neural hardware. (