Terry Deacon: University of California, BerkeleyAbstract: The concept of human nature has been challenged by social scientists because of its inability to clearly delineate the distinction between the biologically inherited and experientially acquired attributes of being human. Yet the very fact of being susceptible to acquired cultural influences irrelevant to other species makes clear that […]
Tao Gao: University of California, Los AngelesTheory of mind (ToM) refers to the attribution of an agent’s motion to its mental states, including belief, desire and intention. Modeling ToM is built upon two principles. First, the “rationality principle” (utility theory), assuming that an agent takes actions to maximize its utility. Second, the Bayes’ theorem, solving […]
Johanna Eckert: University of California, Los AngelesIntuitive statistics is the capacity to draw intuitive probabilistic inferences based on an understanding of the relations between populations, sampling processes, and resulting samples. This capacity is fundamental to our daily lives and one of the hallmarks of human thinking. We constantly use sample observations to draw general conclusions […]
Caitlin O'Connell: University of Southern CaliforniaSocial relationships are an integral part of primate life for humans and non-humans alike, but the extent to which a primate devotes its time and energy to socializing can vary tremendously within and between species. With a semi-solitary social system, orangutans present a unique opportunity to examine both social and […]
Max Kleiman-Weiner: Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyHuman cooperation is distinctly powerful. We collaborate with others to accomplish together what none of us could do on our own; we share the benefits of collaboration fairly and trust others to do the same. I seek to understand these everyday feats of social intelligence in computational terms. I will […]
Rafael Nuñez: University of California San DiegoIs there a biologically endowed capacity specific for number and arithmetic? A widely accepted view in cognitive neuroscience, child psychology, and animal cognition gives an unproblematic ‘yes’ for an answer to this question, claiming that there is a biologically evolved capacity specific for number and arithmetic that humans share […]
Josh Armstrong: UCLAContemporary linguistic theory takes the generative features of language use as a central focus of study. Many linguists—most notably Noam Chomsky—have maintained that explaining these generative features of language requires an appeal to a human language faculty or a universal grammar: a biologically guided, species-typical, set of cognitive procedures for building linguistic meanings […]
Cailin O'Connor: University of California IrvineWhy do some groups get more and others less? And why is this sort of pattern so pervasive across human cultures? In this talk, I'll discuss cultural evolutionary modeling work that address these questions. In particular, I look at the dynamics of bargaining and coordination in cultural evolution when groups […]
Robert Seyfarth: University of PennsylvaniaDespite their differences, human language and the vocal communication of nonhuman primates share many features. Both constitute a form of joint action, rely on similar neural mechanisms, and involve discrete, combinatorial cognition. These shared features suggest that during evolution the ancestors of modern primates faced similar social problems and responded by […]
Kensy Cooperrider: University of California San DiegoThe human pointing gesture may be viewed from many angles. On a neutral description, it is an intentional movement, often of the hand, by which one person tries to direct another’s attention—it is, in short, a bodily command to look. But this bland definition is only a start. Pointing […]
