BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://bec.ucla.edu X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Los_Angeles BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20130310T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20131103T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20140309T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20141102T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20150308T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20151101T090000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 TZNAME:PDT DTSTART:20160313T100000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 TZNAME:PST DTSTART:20161106T090000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150504T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150504T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220119Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005128Z UID:4308-1430697600-1430697600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Lera Boroditsky - How the Languages We Speak Shape the Ways We Think DESCRIPTION:Lera Boroditsky: UCSDHow do the languages we speak shape the ways we think? Do speakers of different languages think differently? Does learning new languages change the way you think? Do bilinguals think differently when speaking different languages? Does language shape our thinking only when we’re speaking or does it shape our attentional and cognitive patterns more broadly? In this talk\, I will describe several lines of research looking at cross-linguistic differences in thought. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/lera-boroditsky-how-the-languages-we-speak-shape-the-ways-we-think/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150427T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150427T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220119Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005129Z UID:4307-1430092800-1430092800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Emma Cohen - Social Bonding in Movement and Exercise DESCRIPTION:Emma Cohen: University of OxfordIn this talk\, I’ll present some ideas and preliminary data on the links between exercise and social bonding. Exercise\, broadly construed\, is a cultural universal – from ceremonial rituals to team sports\, people everywhere get together to move together. Our research investigates whether and how such activities serve a social bonding function\, as has been long claimed in the social scientific literature. Specifically\, we explore the social bonding effects of behavioural coordination and exercise ‘highs’. We are also interested in the effects of social bonding on exercise ability and performance\, particularly on pain perception and fatigue thresholds. The research attempts to reveal mechanisms underlying the links between coordinated movement\, pleasure and pain\, and bonding and wellbeing and thereby to contribute new data on a pervasive feature of everyday life that cross-cuts cultural domains as varied as religion\, sport and play. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/emma-cohen-social-bonding-in-movement-and-exercise/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150420T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150420T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220124Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005129Z UID:4312-1429488000-1429488000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Rick Dale - Adaptiveness of Language: From Real-Time Processes to Linguistic Typology DESCRIPTION:Rick Dale: UC MercedHuman language is a flexible behavioral repertoire that may be finely tuned to our cognitive processes and social circumstances. I present evidence from three timescales that language may be shaped by a number of social and cognitive variables. These timescales include (i) how language is used in real-time human interaction\, (ii) how language use may relate to the structure of social groups\, and (iii) how slower-changing aspects of language\, such as grammatical structure\, may relate to large-scale demographic variables. I will then examine whether these relationships at different timescales provide hints of selection processes operating over language\, and end with a new study demonstrating that\, indeed\, we can detect “echoes of selection” in large-scale vocabulary data. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/rick-dale-adaptiveness-of-language-from-real-time-processes-to-linguistic-typology/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150413T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150413T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220117Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005129Z UID:4305-1428883200-1428883200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Meg Crofoot - Collective Decision-Making in Complex Societies: Lessons From Tracking Wild Baboons DESCRIPTION:Meg Crofoot: UC DavisAnimals living in stable social groups may often disagree about where to go\, but must reconcile their\ndifferences to maintain cohesion and thus the benefits of group living. Although theory predicts that\nshared (democratic) decision-making should be widespread in nature\, in species that form long-term\nsocial bonds\, considerable asymmetries in dominance and social power often exist\, and some have\nproposed that these differences give high-ranking individuals increased influence over group decisions.\nDetermining how consensus is achieved in stratified societies remains a core challenge for\nunderstanding the evolution of social complexity. To investigate how differentiated social relationships\nshape the collective decision-making process\, we captured simultaneous high-resolution GPS tracks\nfrom 26 members of a wild olive baboon troop (Papio anubis; ~ 80% of adult and subadult members\,\nsampled at 1hz). We then used these data to explore the relative importance of individual relationships\nvs. majority rule in driving group movement decisions in this highly structured society. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/meg-crofoot-collective-decision-making-in-complex-societies-lessons-from-tracking-wild-baboons/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150406T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150406T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220055Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005129Z UID:4302-1428278400-1428278400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:No BEC This Week - DESCRIPTION:No BEC This Week: URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/no-bec-this-week/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150330T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150330T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220056Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005129Z UID:4303-1427673600-1427673600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Robert Provine - From Laughter to Speech Evolution: A Bipedal Perspective DESCRIPTION:Robert Provine: University of MarylandAfter an introduction to the nature and use of laughter in daily life\, discussion turns to the \nevolution of laughter and its implications for the emergence of speech. \nContrasts between human and chimpanzee laughter reveal that laughter is the ritualized \nsignal of labored breathing of rough-and-tumble\, with the vocalization representing \nthe playful context of its origin. Laughter is primate onomatopoeia that signals\, “this \nis play\, I’m not attacking you.” The ancestral primate laugh as performed by extant \nchimpanzees is a noisy\, unvoiced “pant-pant” in which one vocalization is uttered per \ninward and outward breath. Naïve human observers do not recognize this utterance as \nlaughter\, volunteering that it sounds like panting\, perhaps of a dog\, or even sawing or \nsanding. In contrast\, humans laugh as they speak\, by modulating (parsing) an exhalation \ninto voiced bursts of “ha-ha.” Chimpanzee laughter suggests why they cannot speak– \nthey are confined to one utterance per inward and outward breath. The breakthrough in \nhuman respiratory control necessary for speech came with evolution of bipedal running. \nChimpanzees and other quadrupeds have a 1:1 ratio between stride and respiratory cycle\, \na necessary adaptation for forelimb impacts during running. (Without inflated lungs\, \nthe thorax is a floppy\, air-filled bag.) An unappreciated consequence of the evolution \nof bipedal human locomotion is the freeing the thorax of its support function during \nrunning\, and the associated uncoupling of respiration and locomotion. Unlike the 1:1 \nstrides per breath ratio of quadrupeds\, humans runners have highly variable ratios of \n4:1\, 3:1\, 5:2\, 2:1\, 3:2\, or 1:1\, with 2:1 being most common. With the uncoupling of \nrespiration and locomotion during bipedal running\, there is more voluntary control of \nbreathing and greater opportunity for the natural selection for longer and more complex \nvocalizations\, including human laughter and speech. This is the bipedal theory of speech \nevolution. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/robert-provine-from-laughter-to-speech-evolution-a-bipedal-perspective/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150309T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150309T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220117Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005129Z UID:4304-1425859200-1425859200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:John Tooby - Political Epidemiology\, History\, and the Evolutionary Psychology of Outrage. DESCRIPTION:John Tooby: UCSBDon’t shoot! Rodney King. Remember the Maine. The Reichstag Fire. Guernica. The War of Jenkins Ear. The murder of Emmet Till. Events in which one or more members of one group injure the welfare of one or more members of another group (“outrages”) typically provoke extraordinarily strong and frequently violent responses directed more or less indiscriminately at members of the group from which the offender or offenders came. Such events are treated entirely differently than parallel harms performed by individuals within groups. They unleash cultural processes in which accounts of harms rapidly spread through the group the victims came from. Generally\, as news of the (sometimes fabricated) harm is transmitted from person to person\, details are added to representations of the event so that the actions depicted seem harsher\, more intentional\, and more group-targeted. Many group members treat inflammatory portrayals of interactions and the rage they generate as a kind of precious group resource\, becoming very resistant to contrary evidence\, and passing these stylized narratives down generations. News of outrages strongly motivate the desire to join with others to act in a coordinated and aggressive fashion “against” the other group. A review of the historical and ethnographic record suggests that outrages play a central role in starting wars\, provoking ethnic violence\, and in mobilizing social movements and revolutions. The cross-culturally and cross-historically recurrent structure of these cultural and social phenomena can be understood by seeing how they naturally emerge from interactions between the evolved psychology of welfare tradeoffs\, groups\, adaptations for group coordination\, and common knowledge. The key is that cross-group harms\, if uncontested\, are implicitly seen as proposing a common knowledge precedent for the degree of social domination or subordination. The psychology of outrages can be seen as a parallel and complementary adaptation to leadership—one way of solving the coordination problem of mobilizing group members to effectively act or bargain in conflicts with outgroups. Because it is normally difficult to get individuals to set aside competing agendas within groups\, yet group power increases with coordination\, outrages (real or fabricated) become a resource ingroup individuals strategically deploy to mobilize joint action they (as individuals) expect to benefit from. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/john-tooby-political-epidemiology-history-and-the-evolutionary-psychology-of-outrage/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150304T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150304T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220054Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005130Z UID:4301-1425427200-1425427200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Eduardo Fernandez-Duque - The Importance of Food\, Jealousy\, and Paternal Care in the Evolution of Owl Monkey Monogamy DESCRIPTION:Eduardo Fernandez-Duque: Yale UniversityI will discuss published and new data from a population of monogamous owl monkeys in the Argentinean Chaco that we have been studying for almost 20 years to examine the hypothesis that social monogamy is a default social system imposed upon males because the spatial and/or temporal distribution of resources and females makes it difficult for a single male to defend access to more than one mate. Over the years we have tested predictions on ranging patterns\, use of space\, population density and the abundance and distribution of food. We have also examined the extent to which the ranging and ecological data allow us to predict demographic and life-history parameters as proxies for reproductive success. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/eduardo-fernandez-duque-the-importance-of-food-jealousy-and-paternal-care-in-the-evolution-of-owl-monkey-monogamy/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150302T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150302T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220054Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005130Z UID:4300-1425254400-1425254400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Ben Trumble - Surviving the Flood: Risk Management\, Resilience\, and the Endocrine and Health Impacts of Natural Disaster in a Subsistence Population DESCRIPTION:Ben Trumble: UCSBIn February 2014\, catastrophic flooding impacted the Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of lowland Bolivia. Flooding decimated the subsistence lifestyle and more than two-thirds of villages were flooded (completely destroying crops and washing away most possessions); thousands fled to the nearby market town of San Borja. Widespread food insecurity and disease followed. This project examines the immediate impacts of catastrophic flooding on a subsistence population with limited support from formal institutions (e.g. government\, NGO’s\, insurance firms) characteristic of Industrial populations. In a sample of more than 400 families this study examines acute effects of disaster and crop/material losses on behavior\, psychosocial stress\, endocrine physiology\, and health. We find a 2.6 fold increase in anemia and 2.4 fold increase in high white blood cell counts following the flood\, as well as a nearly a one unit decrease in body mass index (BMI). Individuals with higher levels of crop loss were more present oriented in a time discounting task\, and family illness predicted whether individuals moved the locations of their homes and fields homes following the flood. Natural disasters impact all populations\, yet rural\, indigenous populations are particularly vulnerable. Understanding factors promoting resilience in a population with limited schooling\, material wealth\, or access to modern healthcare is an important goal\, as much of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/ben-trumble-surviving-the-flood-risk-management-resilience-and-the-endocrine-and-health-impacts-of-natural-disaster-in-a-subsistence-population/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150223T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150223T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220053Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005130Z UID:4299-1424649600-1424649600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Corina Logan - How New Caledonian Crows Learn About and Solve Foraging Problems DESCRIPTION:Corina Logan: UCSBNew Caledonian crows are one of the few species that make and use tools in the wild. Tool types differ across their range in an overlapping pattern\, suggesting that tool designs are copied with a high fidelity and may be transmitted across generations\, thus allowing for cumulative changes to occur to the lineage of each tool type over time (cumulative technological culture hypothesis). However\, little is known about how these crows learn to make such tools\, how this information is transmitted to others\, or what they know about the problems they solve. I present results from two experiments on wild-caught New Caledonian crows examining what information observers attend to\, how social information is transmitted among juveniles and adults\, and whether they attend to causal information when solving foraging problems. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/corina-logan-how-new-caledonian-crows-learn-about-and-solve-foraging-problems/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150209T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150209T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220044Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005130Z UID:4294-1423440000-1423440000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Federico Rossano - The Emergence of Property Concerns in Ontogeny and Phylogeny DESCRIPTION:Federico Rossano: Max Plank InstituteSocial theorists as diverse as Locke\, Hume\, Rousseau\, and Marx have suggested that without the institution of property modern civil society would not exist. All human societies care about ownership of at least some kinds of things (Brown\, 1991; Hann\, 1998)\, yet young children struggle to understand property and come only gradually to an understanding of ownership and how it may be legitimately transferred. Little is known about non-human primates understanding of property\, in that they appear to have a sense of possession and will fight to protect the food that is in their physical control (Kummer & Cords\, 1991; Sigg & Falett\, 1985)\, but there is currently no evidence that they have any sense of ownership (i.e.\, they would respect others’ property even when they are absent) (Brosnan\, 2011). In this talk I present a series of studies on preschoolers investigating their understanding of (i) under which conditions who owns what (call them ‘‘conditions of ownership’’ rules)\, and (ii) what implications (rights\, commitments\, entitlements\, etc.) owning which objects carries under which conditions (call them ‘‘implications of ownership’’ rules). I will then present some additional studies investigating the role played by communication and cooperation in the sustainability of property as a social institution. I will finally compare the behavior of preschoolers and non-human primates in situations testing their tendency to respect other individuals’ properties and to protest when their property is violated. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/federico-rossano-the-emergence-of-property-concerns-in-ontogeny-and-phylogeny/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150202T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150202T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220046Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005130Z UID:4297-1422835200-1422835200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:David Funder - The World at Seven: Comparing Situations Across 19 Countries with Riverside Situational Q-sort DESCRIPTION:David Funder: UC RiversideBehavior is a function of the person and the situation\, and understanding the “personality triad” of persons\, situations and behaviors requires assessment instruments for all three. However\, until recently tools for assessing situations were not available. The Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ) was developed to fill this gap\, and has been applied in the study of cross-situational consistency in behavior\, and also used to operationalize and test implications of situational types posited by evolutionary theory. Most recently\, The International Situations Project was begun as the first attempt to quantitatively compare everyday situational experience across cultures. Collaborators from 19 cultures directed college student participants (total N = 3\,287) to a website (www.internationalsituationsproject.com) where\, using the 89 items of the Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ)\, they described the situation they experienced the previous evening at 7 pm. The average situational Q-sort profile for each culture was compared with all others. The most similar cultures were USA/Canada\, and the least similar cultures were Korea/Denmark\, Korea/Estonia\, and Estonia/Australia. The culture with the most similar situational experience to the others\, overall\, was Canada; the most distinctive was South Korea. The RSQ item that varied the most across cultures was “People are disagreeing about something” (Czech Republic highest; Japan lowest); the second least varying item was “Members of the opposite sex are present.” In general\, the items that varied the most across cultures described negative aspects of situational experience; the least varying items were more positive. The RSQ is shown to be versatile tool for assessing situations in diverse research contexts. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/david-funder-the-world-at-seven-comparing-situations-across-19-countries-with-riverside-situational-q-sort/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150126T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150126T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220046Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005130Z UID:4298-1422230400-1422230400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Henrike Moll - Social Motivation and Cognition in Toddlers: Their Demands of Reciprocity and Affective Anticipations of Others’ Misguided Actions DESCRIPTION:Henrike Moll: USCHumans are an extraordinarily social species. Their unique way of relating to one another becomes evident very early in ontogeny. In this talk\, I will present two lines of experiments\, both of which exemplify toddlers’ attunement to other persons and their awareness of others’ perceptual and epistemic states. In one line of experiments\, we found that toddlers negate another person’s visibility when her eyes are occluded. Toddlers’ willingness to deny the other’s visibility was positively correlated with their knowledge of the pronoun ‘each other’—suggesting that children who reliably distinguish between reciprocal and individual acts are particularly demanding of reciprocity. In the second line of experiments\, we approached the problem of false belief understanding in a novel way by assessing children’s facial expressions. We found that by the age of 2.5 years\, toddlers affectively express suspense when observing how an agent acts on misguided assumptions. Both lines of experiments demonstrate impressive social motivational and social cognitive facts: Toddlers demand reciprocal perception in face-to-face encounters\, and they are touched and moved when others actions are misguided. The results will be interpreted with a theoretical framework that is inspired by Vygotsky. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/henrike-moll-social-motivation-and-cognition-in-toddlers-their-demands-of-reciprocity-and-affective-anticipations-of-others-misguided-actions/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150112T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150112T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220045Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005130Z UID:4296-1421020800-1421020800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Gregory Clark - Nature versus Nurture in the Inheritance of Social Status DESCRIPTION:Gregory Clark: UC DavisMost work studying the inheritance of aspects of social status across societies suggests two things. The first is that this inheritance is weak. Most social status for people is not determined by inheritance from parents. The second is that the strength of inheritance of status varies markedly across societies\, so that status inheritance must be largely socially determined. In recent work using surnames as a means of measuring status inheritance across as many as twenty generations we show that in practice status inheritance is very strong\, and that it varies surprisingly little across the societies and social systems. In this talk I propose that these surname results are compatible with genetics being the principle determinant of social status in most societies. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/gregory-clark-nature-versus-nurture-in-the-inheritance-of-social-status/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150105T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20150105T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220045Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005131Z UID:4295-1420416000-1420416000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Thom Scott-Phillips - The Evolution of Human Communication and Language DESCRIPTION:Thom Scott-Phillips: Durham UniversityLanguage is arguably humanity’s most distinctive characteristic. What\, exactly\, is language\, and why are we the only species that has it? In this talk\, based upon my recent book*\, I will argue that the differences between human communication and the communication systems of all other species is probably not a difference of degree\, but rather one of kind. Language is a system made possible by mechanisms of metapsychology\, and expressively powerful by mechanisms of association. Non-human primate communication is most likely the opposite: made possible by mechanisms of association\, and expressively powerful by mechanisms of metapsychology. This conclusion suggests that human communication\, and hence language\, evolved as a by-product of increased social intelligence. As such\, human communication may be best seen\, from an evolutionary perspective\, as a particularly sophisticated form of social cognition: mutually-assisted mindreading and mental manipulation. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/thom-scott-phillips-the-evolution-of-human-communication-and-language/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141208T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141208T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220032Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005131Z UID:4293-1417996800-1417996800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Simone Schnall - Social and Physiological Resources and the Perception of Space DESCRIPTION:Simone Schnall: University of CambridgeTraditional theories of perception have assumed that visual processing is not influenced by top-down cognitive processes and is thus driven entirely by physical properties of the environment (Pylyshyn\, 1984). For example\, how a person sees stimuli such as a cup of coffee or a steep hill was thought to be only determined by factors such as the roughness of their surface and the amount of light entering the eye. However\, recent research has shown that perception of space is also influenced by different bodily and experiential factors. I will review our recent work to suggest that perceptual processes take into account social and physiological resources\, and that therefore perception of the world is a reflection of the extent to which one can act in it. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/simone-schnall-social-and-physiological-resources-and-the-perception-of-space/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141201T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141201T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220032Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005131Z UID:4292-1417392000-1417392000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Larry Cahill - Title: Sex Influences on Brain and Memory: The Burden of Proof has Shifted DESCRIPTION:Larry Cahill: UC IrvineAbstract: Historically\, neuroscience paid little if any attention to sex\ninfluences outside a limited area of reproductive functions. But all that\nis changing\, and ever rapidly\, with a flurry of discoveries the past 10\nyears in particular about sex influences on brain function down to the\nmolecular level. My area of emotional memory is no exception. This talk\nwill examine these developments\, and detail how they are apparently\nirreversibly\, and fundamentally\, altering how the NIH funds not just\nneuroscience\, but all of biological science. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/larry-cahill-title-sex-influences-on-brain-and-memory-the-burden-of-proof-has-shifted/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141124T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141124T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220031Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005131Z UID:4291-1416787200-1416787200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Nancy Dess - A Pan-Mammalian Tongue-Microbiome-Gut-Brain Axis? Implications for Health and Culture DESCRIPTION:Nancy Dess: Occidental CollegeIn a 2002 BEC talk\, I described the working hypothesis that bittersweet taste is a marker for sensitivity to metabolic equanimity\, manifested in ways ranging from responsiveness to energy balance to emotional reactivity and stress vulnerability; data from rats selectively bred on a saccharin phenotype and\, to a lesser extent\, humans\, were presented in support of the hypothesis.  This talk provides an update on our research program\, including social behavior and evidence of an association between the taste phenotype and the gut microbiome.  I will draw on others’ recent research with nonhuman primates (taste polymorphisms and behavioral ecology) and humans (embodied cognition) to advocate for refinement and testing of multilevel integrative models that link individual-level taste to processes at lower (gut-brain axis) and higher (sociality\, culture) levels of organization. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/nancy-dess-a-pan-mammalian-tongue-microbiome-gut-brain-axis-implications-for-health-and-culture/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141117T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141117T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220030Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005131Z UID:4290-1416182400-1416182400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Hanna Kokko - Males exist. Does it matter? -- Special Time -- 9:00am DESCRIPTION:Hanna Kokko: Australian National UniversityA lot of evolutionary theory involves the concept of populations climbing towards peaks of higher fitness. Such theory has been written without taking into account that in most species there are two distinct classes of individuals — males and females — that influence the evolutionary process in a distinctly different way. I will talk about this\, and try to shed some light on two quite broad questions: why do males exist\, and what determines how they behave? URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/hanna-kokko-males-exist-does-it-matter-special-time-900am/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141110T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141110T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T220030Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005131Z UID:4289-1415577600-1415577600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Kiley Hamlin - Moral Babies: Preverbal Infants Know Who and What are Good and Bad DESCRIPTION:Kiley Hamlin: University of British ColumbiaHow do humans come to have a “moral sense”? Are adults’ conceptions of which actions are right and which are wrong\, of who is good and who is bad\, who deserves praise and who deserves blame wholly the result of experiences like observing and interacting with others in one’s cultural environment and explicit teaching from parents\, teachers\, and religious leaders? Do all of the complexities in adult’s moral judgments reflect hard-won developmental change coupled with the emergence of advanced reasoning skills? This talk will explore evidence that\, on the contrary\, preverbal infants’ social preferences map surprisingly well onto adult moral intuitions. Within the first year of life\, infants prefer those who help versus harm third parties\, those who reward prosocial individuals and punish wrongdoers\, and even privilege the intentions that drive actions over the outcomes they lead to. the second year of life\, toddlers direct their own helpful actions toward helpful individuals\, and harmful actions toward harmful individuals. These results suggest that our adult moral sense is supported\, at least in part\, by innate mechanisms for social evaluation. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/kiley-hamlin-moral-babies-preverbal-infants-know-who-and-what-are-good-and-bad/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141103T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141103T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215934Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005131Z UID:4288-1414972800-1414972800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Katarzyna (Kasia) Pisanski - The Sound of Size: Human Vocal Communication of Body Size DESCRIPTION:Katarzyna (Kasia) Pisanski: UCLABody size can have an immense impact on the biology\, ecology\, and social status of an animal\, but so too can ones ability to advertise or assess body size. Many species communicate their size vocally. Research investigating vocal communication of physical size in mammals\, including humans\, has focused on two salient and largely independent features of the voice: fundamental frequency and/or corresponding harmonics (perceived as voice pitch) and formant frequencies (resonance frequencies of the supralaryngeal vocal tract). In this talk\, I will discuss the degree to which fundamental and formant frequencies reliably predict variation in body size controlling for sex and age\, and their relative role in the perception or accurate estimation of body size in humans. The findings that I will present corroborate work on many other mammals whose mechanisms of vocal production\, including anatomical constraints on size exaggeration\, parallel those of humans. However\, my findings also highlight the impact of psychoacoustic\, sociocultural and perceptual biases on size communication in humans. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/katarzyna-kasia-pisanski-the-sound-of-size-human-vocal-communication-of-body-size/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141027T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141027T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215933Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005132Z UID:4287-1414368000-1414368000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Leda Cosmides - Erasing Race in California and Brazil: Racial Categorization Varies Systematically with Patterns of Alliance Across Seven Brazilian States DESCRIPTION:Leda Cosmides: UC Santa BarbaraAccording to the alliance detection hypothesis\, racial categorization is a (reversible) byproduct of cognitive mechanisms that evolved for detecting social alliances (Kurzban\, Tooby & Cosmides\, 2001; Pietraszewski\, Cosmides & Tooby\, 2014). In southern California\, showing subjects a single social interaction in which race is uncorrelated with alliance patterns produces a sharp decrease in racial categorization. But what happens in Brazil\, where the social history linking race with alliance patterns is different? We conducted tests in seven Brazilian states that differ radically in their racial composition. Social class is a major dimension along which alliances are formed\, and these states differ in the extent to which race predicts social class. Across states\, the extent to which categorization by race decreased in response to alliance cues was highly correlated (r = .97) with the cue validity of race for predicting that targets were of the same social class as the subjects. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/leda-cosmides-erasing-race-in-california-and-brazil-racial-categorization-varies-systematically-with-patterns-of-alliance-across-seven-brazilian-states/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141020T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141020T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215932Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005132Z UID:4286-1413763200-1413763200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Scott Wiltermuth - I’d Only Let You Down: Guilt Proneness and the Avoidance of Harmful Interdependence DESCRIPTION:Scott Wiltermuth: USCFive studies demonstrated that highly guilt-prone people may avoid forming interdependent partnerships with others whom they perceive to be more competent than themselves\, as benefitting a partner less than the partner benefits one’s self could trigger feelings of guilt.  Highly guilt-prone people who lacked expertise in a domain were less willing than were those low in guilt proneness who lacked expertise in that domain to create outcome-interdependent relationships with people who possessed domain-specific expertise.  Guilt proneness therefore predicts whether\, and with whom\, people develop interdependent relationships. The findings also demonstrate that highly-guilt prone people sacrifice financial gain out of concern about how their actions would influence others’ welfare.  As such\, the findings demonstrate a novel way in which guilt proneness limits free-riding and therefore reduces the incidence of potentially unethical behavior. Lastly\, the findings demonstrate that people who lack competence may not always seek out competence in others when choosing partners.  URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/scott-wiltermuth-id-only-let-you-down-guilt-proneness-and-the-avoidance-of-harmful-interdependence/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141013T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141013T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215932Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005132Z UID:4285-1413158400-1413158400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Carl T. Bergstrom - Dealing With Deception in Biology DESCRIPTION:Carl T. Bergstrom: Washington UniversityOver the past 3.5 billion years\, living organisms have evolved to acquire\, store\, analyze\, and transmit information. This information processing capacity has allowed organisms to build up increasingly complex social organizations predicated on the effective coordination and cooperation. Coordination and cooperation in turn require honest communication among the participants in a social group. To function effectively\, however\, social systems need to overcome various strategic issues surrounding the threat of deception: Why do agents share information even when their interests conflict? Why don’t cheaters exploit and undermine communication by sending deceptive signals? How do communicating parties avoid eavesdropping and signal tampering? Such problems arise among the individuals within complex animal societies such as baboon troops\, cooperatively nesting birds\, and social insects\, and also among the cells within any single multicellular organism. I argue that the threat of deception can be broken down into at least two categories: 1) cases in which the legitimate members of the social institution have some overlap in interests\, but they also have individual incentives for deception\, and 2) cases in which non-members of the social organization attempt to parasitize and exploit the system by subversion and other forms of trickery. We see the former category in the evolution of mate-choice signals; we see the latter in the evolution of immune strategies to deal with pathogens. I will discuss the problem of deception in biological systems\, describe how these problems can be formalized using mathematical game theory\, and outline some of the strategies that organisms use to overcome these problems. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/carl-t-bergstrom-dealing-with-deception-in-biology/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141008T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141008T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215931Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005132Z UID:4284-1412726400-1412726400@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Joshua Greene - Moral Tribes: Emotion\, Reason & the Gap Between Us and Them DESCRIPTION:Joshua Greene: Harvard UniversityIn this talk I’ll present some of the main themes in my book of the same title. First\, there are two general kinds of moral problems: The original moral problem is the problem of cooperation\, the “Tragedy of the Commons”—Me vs. Us. Distinctively modern moral problems are different. They involve what I call the “Tragedy of Commonsense Morality\,” which is about conflicting values and interests across social groups—Us vs. Them.  Second\, there two general kinds of moral thinking: “fast” intuitive thinking that is efficient but inflexible\, and “slow” moral reasoning that is flexible but inefficient. I’ll present evidence that “fast” thinking is good for solving more basic moral problems (Me vs. Us)\, but that we need “slow” moral thinking to handle modern moral problems (Us vs. Them). URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/joshua-greene-moral-tribes-emotion-reason-the-gap-between-us-and-them/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141006T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20141006T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215918Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005132Z UID:4283-1412553600-1412553600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Trent Smith - Evolution\, Economic Insecurity\, and the Modern Obesity Epidemic DESCRIPTION:Trent Smith: University of OtagoWhy have obesity rates risen sharply around the world since 1980? In biological perspective\, humans and other animals are thought to have evolved the ability—and the propensity—to store energy as body fat in order to survive periods of starvation. While food may be more abundant than ever today\, it is becoming increasingly clear that neoliberal economic policies have been progressively shifting more and more risk onto households over the period in which body weights have risen most dramatically\, and that obesity rates have risen most in countries that have pursued such policies most aggressively. A growing body of research now supports the “economic insecurity hypothesis\,” which posits that uncertainty with respect to one’s material well-being may be an important root cause of the modern obesity epidemic. This lecture will review evidence supporting this hypothesis\, from both the natural sciences and from econometric studies performed at the level of individuals\, of demographic groups\, and of countries. Implications for public policy will be discussed.http://www.business.otago.ac.nz/econ/Personal/ts_files/thumbprint.pdfhttp://www.business.otago.ac.nz/econ/Personal/ts_files/insecurity.pdfhttp://www.business.otago.ac.nz/econ/Personal/ts_files/stressdiet.pdfhttp://econpapers.repec.org/paper/agsaaea13/151419.htm URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/trent-smith-evolution-economic-insecurity-and-the-modern-obesity-epidemic/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20140602T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20140602T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215903Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005132Z UID:4277-1401667200-1401667200@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Greg Bryant - The structure and functions of human laughter DESCRIPTION:Greg Bryant: UCLA Department of Communication Studies\, Center for Behavior\, Evolution and Culture Laughter is a universal vocal signal ubiquitous in human social interaction and homologous to play vocalizations across several primate species. In this talk I will describe two different lines of research on the production and perception of laughter. One series of experiments examined the perception of spontaneous versus volitional laughter. Specifically\, we explored relationships between particular acoustic features of laughs and judgments of how “real” they sounded\, as well as a study examining the connection between spontaneous human laughter and nonhuman animal vocalizations. In another series of studies\, participants across 24 societies reliably identified affiliative partners from extremely brief\, decontextualized clips of recorded conversational co-laughter. Several acoustic dimensions contributed to people’s judgments of affiliation\, and these results did not vary substantially across population samples. Overall\, laughter is an important social vocalization with deep evolutionary roots\, unique acoustic features\, and a variety of possible communicative functions\, both within and between groups. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/greg-bryant-the-structure-and-functions-of-human-laughter/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20140519T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20140519T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215903Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005133Z UID:4276-1400457600-1400457600@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Stacy Rosenbaum - The development of male social partner preference in maturing mountain gorillas DESCRIPTION:Stacy Rosenbaum: UCLA Department of Anthropology\, Center for Behavior\, Evolution and Culture Social relationships between adult male mountain gorillas and the infants in their groups are quite remarkable\, characterized by extreme tolerance\, grooming\, playing\, and many hours of male “babysitting.” This is true even in the 40% of groups that contain multiple adult males\, where paternity certainty is low. My previous work demonstrated that 1) low-cost parenting is the most likely function of these relationships\, and 2) preferences for individual male social partners persist across considerable time spans\, even after social upheaval. This talk will examine the beginnings of such relationships\, specifically the role maternal facilitation plays. Mothers increase their time near adult males in the first year after infants are born\, and there is some evidence that they narrow their male social circle\, spending more time near one preferred male than they do when infants get older. For a subsample of the population\, male rank is a much better predictor of females’ choice of male social partner than either paternity or mating history. I will discuss the implications these findings have for understanding paternal kin discrimination and the evolution of intra-species variability in social structure. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/stacy-rosenbaum-the-development-of-male-social-partner-preference-in-maturing-mountain-gorillas/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20140512T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20140512T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215902Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005133Z UID:4275-1399852800-1399852800@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Kelly Gildersleeve - Meta-analytic and Experimental Investigations of Shifts in Women's Mate Preferences and Attractiveness across the Ovulatory Cycle DESCRIPTION:Kelly Gildersleeve: UCLA Department of Psychology\, Center for Behavior\, Evolution and Culture For nearly all mammals\, the high-fertility period of the ovulatory cycle is the only time when sex can lead to conception. In nonhuman species\, this period is often marked by dramatic changes in females’ social interactions. I’ll present two meta-analyses and several lab experiments examining similar effects in humans. Results revealed robust support for differences between high and low fertility in women’s sexual attraction to certain characteristics in men\, in some aspects of women’s social behavior (e.g.\, their flirtatiousness)\, and in their attractiveness. These findings suggest that women’s mating motivations and the responses they elicit from others are sensitive to their current fertility within the cycle\, with potentially important implications for their romantic relationships and social behavior more broadly. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/kelly-gildersleeve-meta-analytic-and-experimental-investigations-of-shifts-in-womens-mate-preferences-and-attractiveness-across-the-ovulatory-cycle/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20140505T000000 DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20140505T000000 DTSTAMP:20260501T030951 CREATED:20200922T215901Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201013T005133Z UID:4274-1399248000-1399248000@bec.ucla.edu SUMMARY:Sam Diaz-Munoz - Tiny tamarins challenge traditional perspectives on sex roles\, mating systems\, and the evolution of cooperation DESCRIPTION:Sam Diaz-Munoz: UC Berkeley Department of Plant and Microbial Biology and Integrative Biology Tamarins (Saguinus sp) are small Neotropical monkeys that\, with other callitrichines\, exhibit the most extensive cooperative breeding system of any non-human primate. In this presentation\, I will draw on recent studies of tamarins and other callitrichines to underscore the importance of cooperative infant care to their complex social system. I review how callitrichines were originally classified as monogamous\, but instead have one of the most flexible social organizations among mammals and birds. I highlight how social organization responds to different ecological conditions and how this flexibility represents a challenge to the concept of the mating system. I suggest that the cost of infant care is a main driver of atypical sexual roles\, with intense female reproductive competition and extensive cooperation among males in reproductive contexts. I discuss other species that share elements of social organization with Saguinus tamarins\, including humans. Given that increasing evidence points to a cooperatively breeding past for early humans\, I advocate for an increasing focus on callitrichines as study systems for understanding the evolution of cooperative behavior in humans and all animal societies. URL:https://bec.ucla.edu/event/sam-diaz-munoz-tiny-tamarins-challenge-traditional-perspectives-on-sex-roles-mating-systems-and-the-evolution-of-cooperation/ CATEGORIES:Past Presentation,Presentation END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR