Robert Provine: University of MarylandAfter an introduction to the nature and use of laughter in daily life, discussion turns to the evolution of laughter and its implications for the emergence of speech. Contrasts between human and chimpanzee laughter reveal that laughter is the ritualized signal of labored breathing of rough-and-tumble, with the vocalization representing the […]
No BEC This Week:
Meg Crofoot: UC DavisAnimals living in stable social groups may often disagree about where to go, but must reconcile their differences to maintain cohesion and thus the benefits of group living. Although theory predicts that shared (democratic) decision-making should be widespread in nature, in species that form long-term social bonds, considerable asymmetries in dominance and […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Laurie Santos: Yale UniversityI will explore the evolutionary roots of some of our species' irrational decisions. I will start by reviewing some classic biases in the field of judgment and decision-making and will then turn to the question of how these biases came about in the first place by exploring some recent experiments in exploring […]
Jacob Foster: UCLAScience is an incredibly successful instance of social learning. Its practices produce and subtly organize the attention, effort, and creativity of millions of scientists, leading to rapid and cumulative cultural evolution. In this talk, I outline the striking convergence between this view of science and the one developed in science studies. Using data […]
A.J. Figueredo and Michael Anthony Woodley: University of Arizona, Free University of BrusselsA sequential canonical cascade model, detailing the hypothesized biogeography of human life history (LH) and intelligence (IQ), derives elevated levels of IQ through a series of causal steps, starting with the evolution of slower LH strategies based on both the physical ecology (climatological […]
Kristin Snopkowski: Boise State UniversityOver the past two hundred years, most societies around the world have experienced fertility transitions, defined as a dramatic decline in reproductive rates through time. The conscious decision to reduce fertility to very low levels appears maladaptive and poses a theoretical challenge to human behavioral ecologists who expect humans to maximize […]
