The elephant in the room: What matters cognitively in cumulative technological culture

Cumulative technological culture (CTC) refers to the increase in the efficiency and complexity of tools and techniques in human populations over generations. A fascinating question is to understand the cognitive origins of this phenomenon. Because CTC is definitely a social phenomenon, most accounts...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Behavioral and brain sciences Vol. 43; p. e156
Main Authors: Osiurak, François, Reynaud, Emanuelle
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.01.2020
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subjects:
Archaeology
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition - physiology
Cognitive ability
Cognitive science
Creativity
Evolution
Humans
Hypotheses
Intelligence
Inventions - trends
Learning
Mental Status and Dementia Tests
Metacognition
Metacognition - physiology
Observational learning
Ontogeny
Problem Solving
Short term memory
Social Behavior
Social discrimination learning
Social factors
Social interactions
Target Article
Technology - trends
Theory of mind
Tool use
cumulative technological culture
social learning
technical reasoning
theory of mind
metacognition
ISSN:0140-525X, 1469-1825, 1469-1825
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Cumulative technological culture (CTC) refers to the increase in the efficiency and complexity of tools and techniques in human populations over generations. A fascinating question is to understand the cognitive origins of this phenomenon. Because CTC is definitely a social phenomenon, most accounts have suggested a series of cognitive mechanisms oriented toward the social dimension (e.g., teaching, imitation, theory of mind, and metacognition), thereby minimizing the technical dimension and the potential influence of non-social, cognitive skills. What if we have failed to see the elephant in the room? What if social cognitive mechanisms were only catalyzing factors and not the sufficient and necessary conditions for the emergence of CTC? In this article, we offer an alternative, unified cognitive approach to this phenomenon by assuming that CTC originates in non-social cognitive skills, namely technical-reasoning skills which enable humans to develop the technical potential necessary to constantly acquire and improve technical information. This leads us to discuss how theory of mind and metacognition, in concert with technical reasoning, can help boost CTC. The cognitive approach developed here opens up promising new avenues for reinterpreting classical issues (e.g., innovation, emulation vs. imitation, social vs. asocial learning, cooperation, teaching, and overimitation) in a field that has so far been largely dominated by other disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, mathematics, anthropology, archeology, economics, and philosophy.
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ISSN:0140-525X
1469-1825
1469-1825
DOI:10.1017/S0140525X19003236