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Evolution and
the Social Mind
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Issues in the debate over
evolved functional specializations
versus general-purpose capacities
in human and non-human cognitive
architectures
An Open Discussion
Department of Anthropology, UCSB
April 10, 1998 from 12:30pm to 2pm
Humanities and Social Sciences Building
2001A
Discussion Theme
The first meeting this quarter of the Evolutionary Behavioral &
Social Science (EBSS) seminar series will be a general discussion of a
topic that many regular participants had asked be explored in an open forum.
This topic is given particular impetus by the recent talk at UCSB by Randy
Gallistel of UCLA, who outlined why connectionist and associationist models
cannot predict or be a correct empirical account for all of the phenomena
in learning that have been empirically well-documented.
The discussion will take up questions such as: What does it mean
to say that a cognitive mechanism is functionally specialized? What
would evidence of functional specialization be? What would evidence
for general-purpose mechanisms be? How could one correctly identify
the proper function of a mechanism, generalized or specialized? Which
criteria derive from evolutionary biology, and which from cognitive science?
What is meant by domain-specificity vs. domain-generality in human cognition?
How can humans engage in a multitude of evolutionarily novel activities
if many cognitive competences are specialized? What are likely human domains?
What is the relationship between functional specializations and modularity?
What is human culture, and is human cultural variation evidence for a tabula
rasa mind? Are general-purpose mechanisms required for behavioral
flexibility? Why, historically, have social scientists, behavioral
scientists, and neuroscientists strongly preferred associationist or other
general-purpose accounts?
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Evolution and
the Social Mind
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