In the past few decades, sources of inspiration in the multidisciplinary field of cognitive science have widened. In addition to ongoing vital work in cognitive and affective neuroscience, important new work is being conducted at the intersection of psychology and the biological sciences in general. Cognitive Biology offers an overview of the cross-disciplinary integration of evolutionary and developmental approaches to cognition in light of these exciting new contributions from the life sciences.
This research has explored many cognitive abilities in a wide range of organisms and developmental stages, and results have revealed the nature and origin of many instances of the cognitive life of organisms. Each section of Cognitive Biology deals with a key domain of cognition: spatial cognition; the relationships among attention, perception, and learning; representations of numbers and economic values; and social cognition. Contributors discuss each topic from the perspectives of psychology and neuroscience, brain theory and modeling, evolutionary theory, ecology, genetics, and developmental science.
Series Foreword vii
Preface ix
I INTRODUCTION 1
1 Cognitive Biology: The New Cognitive Sciences 3
II SPACE 15
2 The Role of Social Selection in the Evolution of Hippocampal Specialization
3 Spatial Cognition, Memory Capacity, and the Evolution of Mammalian Hippocampal Networks
4 Space for the Brain in Cognitive Science
5 Animals as Natural Geometers
6 Is Cognitive Modularity Necessary in an Evolutionary Account of Development?
III QUALITIES AND OBJECTS 127
7 Color Generalization by Birds
8 Evolutionary Biology of Limited Attention
9 Learning to See and Conceive
IV NUMBERS AND PROBABILITY 189
10 A Comparative Perspective on the Origin of Numerical Thinking
11 Numerical and Spatial Intuitions: A Role for Posterior Parietal Cortex?
12 Learning in Core and Noncore Domains
13 Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economic Behavior: The Emerging Field of Neuroeconomics
V SOCIAL ENTITIES 279
14 Neuroethology of Attention in Primates
15 The Human Social Brain: An "Evo-Devo" Perspective
16 Ontogenetic Development Matters
Contributors 335
Index 337
Luca Tommasi is Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Science at the University of Chieti and a Fellow of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research.
Mary A. Peterson is Professor in the Cognition and Neural Systems Program in the Department of Psychology and Research Social Scientist in the Cognitive Science Program at the University of Arizona.
Lynn Nadel is Regents' Professor in the Cognition and Neural Systems Program, Department of Psychology, at the University of Arizona.
"Modern progress in science depends critically on interdisciplinary endeavor, and psychology has had its share of alliances. We've had psycholinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, cognitive archeology, evolutionary psychology, not to mention the offspring spawned by the incursion of neuroimaging: neuroaesthetics, neuroeconomics, neuroethics, neuroethology, neuropolitics, neurotheology, even neuromarketing. None quite captures the breadth of inquiry needed to fathom the mind. This excellent volume brings together a diverse range of expertise, neatly captured by the volume's title. The phrase 'cognitive biology' stands to become the byword for a fully integrative science of the mind."
- Michael Corballis, Professor of Psychology, University of Auckland