Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-kp629 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T18:11:32.511Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Computational cognitive epigenetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2007

Aaron Sloman  and
Jackie Chappell
Aaron Sloman
Affiliation:
School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, West Midlands B15 2TT, United Kingdom; A.Sloman@cs.bham.ac.uk
Jackie Chappell
Affiliation:
School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, West Midlands B15 2TT, United Kingdom. http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/j.m.chappell@bham.ac.uk http://www.biosciences.bham.ac.uk/staff/staff.htm?ID=90
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Jablonka & Lamb (J&L) refer only implicitly to aspects of cognitive competence that preceded both evolution of human language and language learning in children. These aspects are important for evolution and development but need to be understood using the design-stance, which the book adopts only for molecular and genetic processes, not for behavioural and symbolic processes. Design-based analyses reveal more routes from genome to behaviour than J&L seem to have considered. This both points to gaps in our understanding of evolution and epigenetic processes and may lead to possible ways of filling the gaps.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , August 2007 , pp. 375 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Arbib, M. A. (2005) From monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(2):105–24. Available at: http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Arbib-05012002CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bridgeman, B. (2005) Action planning supplements mirror systems in language evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28(2):129–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chappell, J. M. & Sloman, A. (2007) Natural and artificial meta-configured altricial information-processing systems. International Journal of Unconventional Computing. 3(3):211–39. Available at: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cosy/papers/#tr0609.Google Scholar
Dennett, D. C. (1978) Brainstorms: Philosophical essays on mind and psychology. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. J. (1979) The ecological approach to visual perception. Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gilmore, J. H., Lin, W., Prastawa, M. W., Looney, C. B., Sampath, Y., Vetsa, K., Knickmeyer, R. C., Evans, D. D., Smith, J. K., Hamer, R. M., Lieberman, J. A. & Gerig, G. (2007) Regional gray matter growth, sexual dimorphism, and cerebral asymmetry in the neonatal brain. The Journal of Neuroscience 27:1255–60. DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3339-06.2007CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jablonka, E. & Lamb, M. J. (2005) Evolution in four dimensions: Genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic variation in the history of life. MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kacelnik, A., Chappell, J., Weir, A. A. S. & Kenward, B. (2006) Cognitive adaptations for tool-related behaviour in New Caledonian crows. In: Comparative cognition: Experimental explorations of animal intelligence, ed. Wasserman, E. A. & Zentall, T. R., pp. 515–28. Oxford University Press. Available at: http://www.cogsci.msu.edu/DSS/2004-2005/Kacelnik/Kacelnik_etal_Crows.pdfGoogle Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1994) Précis of Beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17(4):693–745. Available at: http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/05/33/index.htmlCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neisser, U. (1976) Cognition and reality. Freeman.Google Scholar
Pepperberg, I. M. (2004) Lessons from cognitive ethology: Animal models for ethological computing. In: Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Epigenetic Robotics: Modeling Cognitive Development in Robotic Systems, Lund, Sweden, September 2001. Lund University Cognitive Studies, 85, ed. Balkenius, C., Zlatev, J., Kozima, H., Dautenhahn, K. and Breazeal, C.. Lund: LUCS. Available at: http://www.lucs.lu.se/ftp/pub/LUCS_Studies/LUCS85/Pepperberg.pdfGoogle Scholar
Sloman, A. (1979) The primacy of non-communicative language. In: The analysis of meaning: Informatics 5 Proceedings ASLIB/BCS Conference, Oxford, March 1979, pp. 1–15, ed. MacCafferty, M. & Gray, K.. Available at: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/81-95.htmlGoogle Scholar
Trehub, A. (1991) The cognitive brain. MIT Press.Google Scholar