Transcript Ontogenetic Tricks - University College London

Four Routes of Cognitive Evolution
Cecilia Heyes
ELSE / UCL
Joint ELSE / ABC Workshop “Exploring the Boundaries of Rationality”,
London, 19-20 June 2003
Extension
Natural selection changes rules and representations
Source
Locus
or
or
Developmental selection
Input processes
Labels
LOCUS
Rules & reps
Input process
Natural
selection
Phylogenetic
construction
Phylogenetic
inflection
Developmental
selection
Ontogenetic
construction
Ontogenetic
inflection
SOURCE
Heyes (in press) Four routes of cognitive evolution. Psychological Review.
Stomach example
Foods
= input process
Enzymes
= rules & reps
Natural selection
New jaw > higher fitness
Natural selection
New enzymes > higher fitness
(Phylogenetic inflection)
(Phylogenetic construction)
Developmental selection
Ingestion > strength
> more & better food
Developmental selection
Proliferation with use,
loss with disuse
(Ontogenetic inflection)
(Ontogenetic construction)
Types of Evidence
Natural selection
Developmental selection
• Poverty of the stimulus
• Wealth of the stimulus
• Genetically heritable
• Not genetically heritable
Adaptive character

Neural localisation 
Examples of ‘other’ routes
• Face processing
• Theory of mind
• Imitation
Face processing
Distinctive rules / reps
- configural processing
Neonatal face preference
Farah et al (1998)
Psych Rev, 105, 482-498
BUT
Neonatal effect subcortical
Configural processing of
other stimuli
Ontogenetic construction
Gautier et al (2000)
Nat. Neuro., 2, 568-573
Theory of mind
Distinctive rules / representations
- reps of mental reps
Invariant development
BUT
• Hearing-impaired / siblings
• Nonhuman primates
Autism is heritable
BUT
• Problems more general
• Earliest in joint attention



Karin-D’Arcy & Povinelli (2002) IJCP, 15, 21-54
Phylogenetic or Ontogenetic Construction
Imitation
Innate mechanism with distinctive rules / reps ?
• Neonatal evidence in question
• Learning models now available
Ontogenetic inflection



Anisfeld (1996) Dev. Rev, 16, 149-161
Can learning counteract automatic imitation ?
Heyes, Bird & Haggard (in prep)
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TEST
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TRAINING
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TEST
24 hrs
432 trials (6 x 72)
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Conclusion
• There are at least two sources and two loci of
evolutionary change affecting cognitive processes
• It is possible that few adaptive characteristics of
cognition are ‘adaptations’
Why describe developmental selection
as ‘evolutionary’ ?
• Optional
• Historical accident that VSR first identified at genetic level
• Doesn’t make all cognitive change evolutionary
Information acquisition without systematic change
to input or mechanisms (e.g. fact learning)
Changes to input and/or mechanism that are neutral
or delecterious wrt fitness
Why not ascribe all adaptive effects of
LD&C to natural selection ?
• Some not ‘foreseen’ by natural selection when LDC
mechanism phylogenetically constructed
e.g. serrated finger nails
• In these cases ascription to natural selection nondiscriminative / non-explanatory, like appeal to ‘laws
of physics’