OF THE APES ...
By: Antonio Chávez
hnc.correo @ gmail.com
frontopolar region and scope of the Theory of Mind A recent study compares 4 brain regions (primary visual, frontopolar, primary somatosensory and primary motor) between hominid species living, focusing on certain details at the cellular level in these regions of cortex, sheds more light on the genuine differences between humans and other apes . Outstanding human frontopolar cortex is to have the highest rate of spatial organization of neurons. These results are outlined in detail the developmental pattern of human brain, and in what follows we explore the impact of these characteristics and microscopic and ontogeny in human social cognition, while inseparable from it, through several specific points (Agency Theory of Mind and Mental Time Travel
), and seeing how they can extend human cognition beyond the direct interaction between real people. Thus, the sophistication of human social cognition and cultural issues arising from the neural and cognitive complexity, as the already outstanding cytoarchitecture, also are prominently different in respect to any cognitive and behavioral aspects observed in other apes.
What to see in this picture (click to enlarge) is a cladogram of inter-neuronal distance in the cortex of great apes (including human beings obviously). The bar graphs represent the polar frontal cortical regions and frontopolar (Brodmann area 10, or BA10), primary motor (BA4 ), primary somatosensory (BA3 ) and primary visual (BA17 ). " This evolutionary reconstruction includes proposed changes in the common ancestor shared with apes. Most of the evolutionary history of apes and humans include narrow minicolumns packed cell growing in the primary visual cortex (BA17), closely followed by the frontal pole (BA10) and the primary somatosensory cortex (BA3), with the primary motor cortex (BA4) have the highest neuronal space. It is only after the separation of the last common ancestor with chimpanzees in the neuronal BA10 separation became the largest compared with other areas of the human brain and the other apes "( Semendeferi et al. 2010 p. 10 Fig 7). "
frontal lobe, a common site of comparative neuroanatomical research due to their involvement in higher-order cognitive processes such as language and executive function, is three times larger in absolute size in humans that great apes, but it is disproportionately larger in humans when scaled to the size of the brain (...)
When white matter is considered separately from the gray matter, the human frontal lobe also remains indistinguishable from apes in terms of overall relative volume (...)» (
ibid. p. 1). Still, the rate of frontal gyrus is 25% larger in humans than in apes, and well, however, was human BA10're disproportionately large compared to other apes BA10. Beyond the volumetric aspects studied in the frontal lobe, were discovered at the cellular level new differences that are significant. This has been analyzed in greater depth in previous articles (eg here
and here) and now adds the interesting fact that one of these differences at the cellular level is that '
in humans and chimpanzees, BA9 and BA32 , which are involved in working memory and Theory of Mind , respectively, have a high number of dopamine input (...) and higher density of axons conveying- serotonin immunoreactive "(ibid
. p. 1). This is relevant in the context of the hypothesis
dopaminergic of human cognition Previc (
2006 ;
2009 :
see Third Culture a good review of his book The dopaminergic Mind
In Human Evolution And History ).
Well, BA10 plays an interesting role in social cognition (theory of mind - ToM): the medial region is involved in attention to one's own feelings and thoughts, the adoption of the first-person perspective vs. third person, the memory encoding in terms of personal relevance, and also attention to the mental states of others (
Raposo et al . 2010). In fact, there was evidence that the BA10 (medial prefrontal cortex) structures the meaning of "I" (Moran
et al. 2006 ). Meanwhile, its lateral processes involved in attentional bias to internally generated information, the implementation of goals hierarchically structured, and the comparison and integration of abstract relations (Raposo et al
. 2010). Thus, the inference of intentions and emotions of others (ie a foreign agent), especially in third-person perspective, requires the processing and integration of multiple relations: it is therefore a process of abstraction in social cognition, in fact, the ToM would be an achievement of human cognition "highly abstract
" (p. 12
Saxe 2009).
Although it has found evidence suggestive of a possible ToM in infants, specifically, that at 7 months old "
the mere presence of a strong shooting automatic computer processes that may be part of a" social sense "crucial to human societies "(
Kovács et al . 2010) that at 18 months appear to represent the goals and intentions of adults (Meltzoff
in Hertzig et al. 1996), or that the 2-3 year old infants can differentiate intentional conduct of an accidental (interestingly took the same test chimpanzees and orangutans, with human children "
featuring the most robust results 'Call & Tomasello 1998
), it is accepted that ToM certainly appears between 3-4 years in the infant, that based on that from that age are able to pass the test
false belief (cf
.
Tirapu-Ustárroz et al. 2007 p. 481 ), ie, when they state "know" that another person does not know of a deception made without the knowledge of it-before that age,
wrongly children intuit a person know where to find an object without even seeing the wrong child without the presence of the person the object was moved (see video).
4 years before a human is perfectly capable of recognizing people as different from inanimate objects and interact well with them. As we know, the infants before and after that age well are able to interact with imaginary friends as part of its development (
Taylor 2001 ;
Trionfi & Elaine 2009). However, they have to turn this serious constraint inference about what a foreign agent may or may not know about their environment over another agent, ie the first-order meta-representation of the agency
(
cf.
Valdez 2001) . In contrast, children of 6-7 years, who are already capable of a second or third order ("
he thinks she thinks he wants "), are also capable of "arbitrary
consider the events as symbolic and declarative mental state of a supernatural agent "(p. 19
Pyysiäinen 2009 ), Which is a noticeable jump metarrepresentacional complexity. Obviously, Tom is a development, so that the kids after 7 years of age are similarly unable to understand the work
Tunnel or philosophical constructs as
the problem of evil (both based on the fact range of ToM). What makes this development that looks like a cognitive leap
? Why are infants younger than 4 can have imaginary friends, but not beyond the first order of agency? Neurocognitive these issues will attend, and that responses are certainly there in both cellular and functional characteristics and advanced to the BA10, and neuroanatomical aspects of connecting this region with others that help build the ToM and other cognitive aspects, which we will only determine how human cognition can be compared to other primates.
Theory of Mind and neurodevelopmental The complexity of the ToM is associated with neural maturation: the child timeline certainly correlates with the myelination process
and expansion of gray matter (the cortex
and its layers) and white (the
connectomics ) in regions that see are crucial here, and that according to can expand their ToM development. Eg "
as a rule, [...] myelination in the parietal hemispheres is seen first, then occipital, frontal and temporal " (
of Neonatal Brain MRI ). In fact, one of the brain regions to mature later, speaking of a period of decades is the dorsolateral cortex and even the last region to do so is because the BA10 (
Gogtay et al. 2004). In this study I draw the following graph of brain maturation between 5 and 20 years of age, where blue indicates regions mature later and to the red and showed that greater maturity:
As can be seen in the chart above (click on image to enlarge, see also the animated picture at left), the state growth of the gray matter or cortex at 5 years of age shows that in fact the BA10 is still not developed laterally, but their medial regions, penetrating into the pit interhermisférica, already show some development. In fact, the authors note that the expansion of cortical regions in the medial temporal and frontal cortex "seems to have started early
(Ontogenetically) already by the age of 4 years "(ibid
. P. 8177). The web
of Neonatal Brain MRI very interesting and offers a wealth of data and images of brain development during the first 2 years of life. Eg in Table 4.4
see that immediately after birth, having already made great strides migration and neural growth prenatally, the development of white matter shows a pattern of the marrow into the cerebellum and then the brain (Barkovich 1988 p.
180), and back towards the front of the brain. Within this pattern has been observed that in the first 5 months of life develop fast motor regions (postcentral sulcus), hippocampal and interhemispheric connection (the corpus callosum, which incidentally is myelinates starting with the posterior region and subsequently the above:
Barkovich 1988 p. 178), at 6 months'
the myelination is almost mature in the center of the parietal lobes [...]
is present in the anterior and posterior parietal lobes and begin to appear in the frontal lobes "(
of Neonatal Brain MRI , Fig
. 4.11 ). Between 6-10 months, plant trees occipital links the visual system and motor (para), between 11-12 months arborization proliferation of parietal cortex to the front, and at 15 months started wiring temporal cortex. Thus, at the end of 2 years'
the adult brain looks "(ibid
.
Fig. 4.15).
All these developments and patterns are indeed a true recapitulation of hominid brain evolution. Hill
et al. (2010) showed that, comparing the brains of babies and adults, the cortical volumetric expansion is twice the lateral temporal, parietal and frontal than in occipital, insular and medial, and comparing the brains of human and macaque , human evolutionary pattern is quite similar to postnatal neurodevelopment. Interestingly, the authors found that the fastest growing areas on the other hand show a slow cell growth, metabolic and functional. Eg, while at the end of gestation, as stated above, virtually all neural migration to certain regions of the brain is future complete, low-expansion regions such as visual and auditory cortices (see for certain that no association between STS and auditory cortex / visual:
Ghazanfar et al . 2008 ;
Liebenthal et al . 2010 ;
Nath & Beauchamp 2011 - and junction tempororoparietal / Hearing: Knight
et al. 1989;
Matsuhashi et al . 2004;
Plaze et al. 2010 ) instead have 50-100% greater synaptic density that a region of strong expansion and middle frontal gyrus. Consistently, infants show a strong metabolism (glucose) in regions of low growth as the visual cortex compared with the expansive dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. "
Therefore, cortical circuits in high growth regions may be more sensitive to postnatal experience '(ibid
. P. 3).
Following Hill et al
. (2010), adult brains exhibit comparatively high cellular complexity in the more expansive, as temporolateral and prefrontolateral cortex (BA10), which subsequently mature more slowly. After birth, the maturation of synaptic density and cortical thickness limits are reached earlier in low growth regions (eg visual cortex / occipital and auditory / supratemporal), then the intermediate expansion (BA10 and parietodorsal), and finally in the high growth (prefrontodorsolateral). Thus, in the brains of infants 2 months of age can be detected by neuroimaging responses to sound (supratemporal cortex) and facial recognition (temporomedial cortex) or 3 months of age they can register the increase of activations in the primary visual cortex, while no noticeable is recorded in the cortex or in the expansive frontodorsolateral system motor up to 2 years of age (Hill et al
. 2010 pp. 3-4).
Meanwhile, regarding the proliferation of synapses
Huttenlocher & Dabholkar (1997) showed , also initiated prenatally, it is increasing more rapidly in the supratemporal cortex (hearing), where the maximum is reached at 3 months birth, whereas the middle frontal gyrus I reached after 15 months. Synaptic proliferation, which occurs concurrently with dendritic arborization and myelination, is followed by a pruning begins first in the auditory cortex (this study compared only two regions supratemporal / prefrontal) and ends at 12 years of age, while prefrontal cortex in this process extends through adolescence. Other interesting facts have to do it with
synaptic pruning, which is an important part of the neurodevelopmental and fulfills a regulatory function of it. Eg if the maximum synaptic density is reached before one year of age in the auditory and visual cortices, at 3.5 years it is in the middle frontal gyrus (
Blakemore 2008 p. 272). She suggests that "
a possible consequence of the relatively late elimination of excess synapses in the human prefrontal cortex and other cortical regions is less efficient processing of information in relevant brain regions ', while'
the excessive synaptic growth during childhood can result in increased levels of activity in relevant brain region "(ibid
. p. 274). These two charts will be of great interest:
Table the left (click to enlarge) shows the synaptic density in the primary auditory cortex (red), primary visual (green) and middle frontal gyrus (crosses) in post-mortem brains of different ages. The x-axis shows the conceptual age in days (1500 ~ 4 years, 10000 ~ 27 years). The picture at right shows the difference in synaptic density between the auditory cortex and middle frontal gyrus (purple circles). Excerpted from Blakemore (2008 p. 273, Figure 4a).
Clearly cortical development at the cellular / metabolic must be attached to progress in the order meta-representation of the agency (actually "evolving
synapses can sharpen our vision of the diversity of species and brain organization "Emes
et al. 2008). What is therefore of interest is that, as expected, both proliferation and synaptic pruning match infant cognition. On the one hand, the first explains the power of so-called "core
Agency" innate and earlier, which could certainly support the ability of children to have imaginary friends yet sophisticated ToM. In fact, this "
may emerge later, perhaps built on a more primitive core agency system that is shared with many other species "(Horst 2010
). As we see in the pictures above developed by Gogtay
et al. (2004) and then in Blakemore (2008), the neural correlate of this nucleus in the posterior supratemporal region (which includes the immediate subregions each posterior superior temporal sulcus, the superior temporal gyrus and auditory cortex) not only is operating very early, but given the high synaptic density, functionality must be considered hyperactive. On the other hand, synaptic pruning, we can see in the left frame of Blakemore (2008), shows a marked depression of 2-4 years of age, which is strongly consistent with that at that old infants can not exceed the first-order meta-representation of agency. Agency
abstract without ToM, ToM and scope of the agency to supernatural religious Using data from the maturation of the cortex and having pointed out the correlation with the development of social cognition, we approach Neurocognitive aspects to the other components I have already said that allowing the complexity of the ToM. This is the very "core
Agency", and "Mental Time Travel
."
While agency, ToM and "
folk psychology 'are interchangeable concepts (
Griffin & Baron-Cohen Dennett 2002), there is indeed a sensory process, the' detection of biological motion recognition ~ '(MB), which clearly appears as the core neurocognitive all it (see our article about
) in the back of
superior temporal sulcus (STS), a multisensory processing region in both its direct association with the processes visual / auditory which saw its early development. One way of illustrating what the MB is that we can easily distinguish this image from the right, a human form moving. As
Frith & Frith (2010) argue, is from STS-MB that ToM is built, and later extended to more complex and sophisticated levels of meta-representation through various cognitive, and from start to recognize the agent (
MB per se), inferring that has a mind, to anticipate their behavior and infer that follows what we know, until the formation of social ties
higher and purely abstract eg reciprocity, mutuality, cooperation, altruism, identification group through ostensive sign and moral constructs.
Indeed, the agency's intent is extracted ~ MB (
Mar et al. 2007 ), while another very important issue: the emotional information as well (
Dittrich et al . 1996;
Clarke et al . 2005). Moreover, the moral view is suggested as "
the exercise of the agency's ability to " (
Gerrans & Kennett 2009) and is therefore no evidence of neurocognitive fundamental relationship between the agency and moral (Young
et al. 2010). And while it confirms the nuclear nature of MB on the agency, ToM, also moral, and even the attribution of emotional states, certainly these five references dealing with infants. However, consistent with the neurodevelopmental seen, has shown that despite how small it may be information available to detect a human form, the MB is enough for a 3 year old child a human accurately recognize a non- human, and yet, children 5 years exhibit a ceiling level of recognition (
Pavlova et al . 2001). The MB-agency looks undeniably easy elucidating innate and adaptive nature, given its phylogenetic eg, detect predators, prey, family, peers, all that tells us that "form" human ", though it may seem in fact a complex concept seems clearly a concept
preprogrammed in the STS (the same way that other species also recognize a familiar form
with minimal sensory information), ie a default (apparently neurogenetics) configuration of a specific network of synapses active specific to sensory stimuli.
to all this because, MB-agency also involves the temporoparietal junction
(
Mar et al. 2007 ). Supratemporal region of STS, the inferoparietal immediate and occipital cortex in an area where 3-lobe limit, ie a primary focus of multisensory processing, part of a "nuclear
system" (immediate identification of 'what is a face') and 'Extended
"(aspects of cognitive and affective information memoranda and other ID that triggers facial) recognition
of detection ~ facial (Todorov et al
.
2011 p. 41, Fig. 3-1). Logically then, and as indeed shown by several studies including neuroimaging, may be a number of computational processes whose neural substrates are still variables involving the STS, as seen in this chart.
Of course we know that the ToM encompasses a broader number of regions, as shown in the diagram above. Brown: temporoparietal junction (biological motion, agency, distinction self / other), Green: ventromedial prefrontal cortex (regulation Emotional), blue: medial frontal gyrus (including BA10), yellow, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (also includes BA10), pink: anterior cingulate ("error detector" integration emotion / cognition), and orange: posterior cingulate (integration memory / imagination / emotion). As noted, this huge network also supports the inferences and moral judgments. Eg Saxe et al. (2003 ; 2006th ; 2006b; 2010 ) has virtually isolated two nuclear regions, the medial prefrontal and temporoparietal junction, and distinguished the mentality of the ToM inferences or morals, which is precisely what I mean when he said that several networks with different certainly cognitive outputs are drawn up involving the supratemporal region (STS / temporoparietal junction). Saxe et al. borderland differ inferoparietal / supratemporal as holding specific the attribution of mental content to a subject, the medial prefrontal cortex and more generally involved in the representation of social or emotionally relevant information of a subject. With all the evidence we have obtained, it seems that the representation of the presence of a person is something different from the representation of the contents of mind (ToM itself). Additionally, empathy and reorientation of care also depend on the temporoparietal junction ( Decety & Moriguchi 2007; Hooker et al . 2009 ). Note because the agency is certainly a pan-cognitive function and structure of human social behavior in all its dimensions, scope and higher levels of abstraction. Moreover, unlike any other human trait exclusive
consabidamente as articulated language or science, is that our ability metarrepresentacional agents of social cognition in reality not only serves this, but rather seems to be the cognitive foundation ago possible, eg, the accumulation of knowledge that we are able to manipulate and share with others: namely, language and science look like "derivative applications" of this capacity. The neural substrate of language, in crusts contiguous and overlapping with the agency system and the motor system, and thus directly associated to them (eg
Pulvermüller 2005), can be deemed an extension of the agent to the motor system. As a comparison attempt, as an animal that identifies a congener (MB-agency) runs some motor action that serves as communication tool, humans in the same situation is able to speak and make complex internal manipulations of social interaction in development. Meanwhile, in a side view of the overlapping
agency numeracy (and empathy and causation), and
how the parietal cortex handles information On the other hand, is how explain our ability to "manage spatiotemporally" not just to rotate the numbers or imaginary objects, but enable them to build elaborate ideas that also handle "spatiotemporally."
However, while it may be less difficult to trace the origins of language, calculation and management tools in our hominid relatives living (eg
Donald 1991), this is not the case with religious beliefs. Then we will see that chimpanzees may show some remarkable behavior at the death of a fellow, yet this really is not even remotely similar to at least the explicit religious beliefs about death and eternal life. Of course, all this is based on a kind of instinctive notion that the mind is independent of any substrate material (eg Guthrie
and in my opinion correct identification of animism with the agency, "meaning
allocation agency to objects that do not have ", which neurocognitive 'animism = MB-agency') and we can in fact roll back towards animals animism which phylogenetic cognitive trait, but even this apparent rationale fails to explain many other developed beliefs religious. Indeed, even bearing in mind that religion as we see today is a recent cultural product, the Cognitive Science of Religion and other research has shown that there are indeed specific mental bases without being religious, however we can justifiably qualify as' dualistic ',' magic 'or'
supersense '. The ToM as an extension of the agency's structure
supernatural agency strict religious significance, while entities such as ancestors, angels, gods and demons alike act as an intentional agent, a person who 'runs', 'protected' or 'punish' the life of one who thinks so. The role of BA10 is here implicit, and eg Kapogiannis
et al. (2009 pp. 2-3) recorded by observing the brain of religious believers in such thoughts about God, while
Schjoedt et al. (2009) did during the prayer, and Epley
et al. (2009) self-referentiality as compared with the belief in 'God' (medial prefrontal cortex). Supernatural agency, which also may seem complicated to develop dramatically because it is associated with metaphysics, anomalous experiences of conscience, to religious doctrine and many other purely cultural construct, is only a higher order of agency, not a phenomenon "stranger" in the cortex nor something that can not be explained precisely by ToM. Definitely, the scope of the ToM is totally different from any sign of social cognition, yet sophisticated, in other primates.
In fact,
Bering (2001) extensively analyzed the empirical evidence available regarding chimpanzee social cognition and tentatively concluded "that
humans, unlike the great apes, may represent the distinction between animate and inanimate objects increasingly sophisticated levels of consciousness, with attribution of agency is not only directed to living things but also the intentions, desires and beliefs higher order "(ibid
. p. 129). The author identifies three cognitive vectors that make possible the emergence of theistic concept: agency-ToM, pretend play and cognition death. We have already seen on ToM, humans now add that 34 months of age (2.8 years) may base their imaginary play in a "
as " (perceptual representation) differently from a "
like ['
stand for "] (representing secreted), however convincing evidence imaginary play in the great apes indicates that this is perceptual similarity limited to the object and its representation (ibid
. p. 130). That is, the imaginary play of human infants is truly symbolic, and apparently unique. On the other hand, the author concludes, "given what we know
[other species]
on their apparent inability to attribute mental states, which understanding [of death]
is limited to biological death " (
ibid.). The author and other research suggests final entries at different ages infant cognition of death, which in effect then performed: it showed that children under 4 years are psychological states (Mental) and the desire and feelings, but not the biological assets after death (Bering & Bjorklund 2004
). Even some children, indeed the very young, immediately denied that the character of the experiment were dead and
as I noticed, this has some relation to the empathic link established between the individual and the agent who suddenly dies.
While there have recently observed chimpanzee behavior regarding the death of someone close (son, mother), which are truly amazing (eg it has been suggested that they would experience death as we do), an analysis thorough argues that, since the human ToM becomes unique neurobiological reasons, a cognitive system restricted to the convergence of the agency and empathy alone could sustain the (apparent) agency death in chimpanzees, similar to human infants 4 years of age. As we see the emotions and intentions are "learned" just recognition of the familiarity of an object, yet this object is indeed a close empathic individual, then it is entirely possible that the "Core Agency" (with its relationship with empathy) support such behavior seen in chimpanzees, because without a ToM. And additionally this means that chimpanzees do not experience the death as humans: increased occurrence of perceptual processes, narrative and executives provided by the functional contribution of a huge BA10, is what it says it definitely can not experience the same death, at least from our fourth year of life, growing this difference as this region continues to mature and to become adult humans capable of firing both spontaneously as culturally absorb the insights and explicit beliefs (respectively) on the terms' soul ',' reincarnation 'or' eternal life '.
That brings us to another aspect as indicated cognitive necessary for a truly sophisticated ToM: the
Mental Time Travel (MTT). This is a very useful concept that means many researchers agree with our ability to "mentally
travel" in time, making it possible that we are constantly 'projecting' into the future (eg
Berntsen & Jacobsen 2008, note that the authors say that the most distant in time would be associated more to the culture). In fact, when I say 'always' I mean exactly that: the MTT is part of a network is always active,
default, even if are at rest (is partly this fact which allows you to see other human faculties associated neuroanatomical as possible "related applications" that commented before). As shown in the aforementioned article of ours on the MTT, it overlaps extensively with the agency, empathy and ToM and in fact, more abstract prospective aspects are closely linked to the functionality of BA10, the more so to
the future will travel less detailed than imagined (more abstract) . With this ability, combined with ToM, the agency and empathy, or mutually using them as tools, social cognition becomes Transcendental
(eg as suggested by King
).
"
While implicit memory (eg, conditioning, priming ) appears to be functional very early in childhood, most studies indicate that memory for past episodes takes place between 3-4 years [ ...]
After 2 ½ years old [infants]
can invoke remote fragments of past events, but only at the age of 3-4 years children seem to begin to mentally travel into his past, p . ie. to mentally reconstruct past episodes organized as narratives. For the same age, children gradually acquire skills to mentally reconstruct past episodes and attribute mental states to others and themselves "(Suddendorf 1994
). "
Later still, between 4-8 years, children acquire explicit knowledge about the culturally dependent temporal patterns (eg weeks, months, years) that support the structuring of self experiences" (ibid
.).
Meanwhile, as the monkeys show a capacity for imitation really is limited by its inability to impute motives to others differently than their ego, or even a lack of awareness of self, chimpanzees engaged an imitation true performer's behavior can yet simulate other games (although there is some skepticism about this,
ibid. p. 10, and looking back it is not a true simulation.) Chimpanzees seem then, at least, able to attribute a mental state to another, however, show unable to represent their own past mental states as opposed to the present time, and here remind us of human infants to 3 years age (
ibid. p. 14). The author developed a table (p. 15, Table 1) which compares the stages of human mental development with other phylogenetic relatives: in a state of second order of representation, have self-awareness and an ability to imagine other worlds, human children under 2 years are probably matched by the great apes adults, then they are perhaps similar to our children from 3 years in terms of agency, but with our own present state interference, and reconstruction of past events, but this state interference in the simulation itself, the human children of 4 years, showing no interference agency and MTT, as the author would be matched by
Homo erectus and, finally, from 5 years later humans, Homo sapiens
, we are alone in terms of abstraction and abstract conception ToM on past.
In a broader perspective on animals, one can see the sophistication of behavior to the environment: the anticipation of the behavior of others such as' instinctive
"context-dependent, to advance"
intelligent "context-free while handling the memory to develop future scenarios. As noted in adult chimpanzees compared to human infants, and between humans themselves comparing children with adults, it is clear that even this second type of agency has its own developmental stages of complexity, where human mental development appears to recapitulate evolution hominid, eg also by comparing the material achievements of other direct ancestors (Homo erectus
: tools, shelter, control of fire) and themselves (Homo sapiens
: technology, cities, religion) (
ibid. p . 30). So
Bloch (2008) suggests that eg "
phenomena we call 'religion' in general are an inseparable part of a single key adaptation of modern man. This is the ability to imagine other worlds ', which, although the author does not explicitly stated, it is the MTT course, while this has already been proposed directly related to religion (
cf.
Atran 2002;
Bulbulia 2009) and even allowing their origin (Suddendorf & Corballis 1997
).
Concluding Observations Of
neuroanatomical connections of BA10, studying connections in the macaque prefrontal (Petrides & Pandya 2007
), a major circuit, the end cap
, connects with STS-MB-core agency. This shows the neural support of executive control (BA10) on multisensory processing in this region, and means that have as it matures this region, we know that subsequent to STS, in humans, mature ToM and MTT. It also means taking in hand the functions of the STS and adjacent areas BA10, how the brain can metarepresentation abstractive processes, given the connectivity in two ways: reprocessing the relevant information and segregating the self-referential. A direct consequence of this is that outputs
metarepresentational resulting from the combination of MB-MTT agency to my knowledge are implicitly '
Supernaturalists ': abstracted-minded intentionality attributed to inanimate objects or mere events in the environment. It's certainly a conceptual matter, whether as Boyer defines it:
invisible agency, or as Pyysiäinen:
disembodied human mind (or even as has been discussed in our forum
:
immaterial mind), intuition or spontaneous ideation that there are intentions and desires in environment are not supported by brains or skulls are inside, you can (and should, saving conceptual bias) rightfully regarded as supernatural intuition
(or you could call it magic
course).
There are also add, in case of neuroconexiones of BA10, which, significantly, it is not the parietal cortex (or the occipital and inferotemporal, according to Petrides & Pandya 2007). This results in the abstract nature of the agency (and face recognition) is implicit and independent of the processes assumed to be strictly abstract BA10 (
ibid. P. 11 584). Remember since the early neurodevelopmental supratemporal-visual/auditivo and parietal regions, both of which, respectively, detect and locate agency in the space around us, just on the basis of multisensory
receive input directly from the environment. The distinction I / others involved besides the temporoparietal junction to the cortex frontomedial (Eg Yoshida
et al. 2011) and also remember that this region (BA10) is central to the self-referentiality: while this region matures late, this means that human infants are representing themselves in precariously at least before the ToM / MTT, while simultaneously manifest a powerful pan-agent: hyper-attribution of intent - pretend play / imaginary friends. This especially may account for a series of data interpreted as, for example, that "
children under 5 years attribute omniscience to all persons in their immediate environment " and that "
think teleologically "(
Voland & Voland in 2009 Schiefenhovel p. 12), that infants are" animists
"according to Piaget (
cf.
Sugarman 1990), or being" born dualists
'( also because, as Bloom intends to support his claim
indeed encouraged vs processes are segregated. inanimate evidently innate, Mahon
et al. 2009 ).
Finally, this mentalism implicitly abstract is resized to ripen the BA10 and the emergence of MTT (onset of the reprocessing of the agency): "
children are no unexpected events environment as being symbols of communicative intentions until they are about 7 years old [...] [...] meanwhile the 5 years of age were also able to detect intentional agency behind these unexpected events. But these kids a little younger failed to diagnose the communicative intent of those signals. Therefore, it is not the agency's ability to detect unexpected events behind it is late in development, but the ability to see the communicative sense unexpected events "(Bering & Parker
2006 p. 259). As expected, children aged 3-4 years old did not see any sense agentive-communicative unexpected events. The authors assume that the difference between children aged 5 and 7 years is due to hold a second-order ToM, the inference that "
epistemic states of another agent and I are recursively represented (" Because she can see in my behavior, Princess Alice knows [I do not know] where the ball is really hidden, so in this event she informs me that I have a false belief "). Before reaching a second-order understanding of mental states, children seem to see the events as being intentionally caused by an agent but do not grasp abstract declarative referential nature event '(ibid
. pp. 260-261). Note therefore that this second order meta-representation is actually associated with MTT on an agent: the "projects" the mentality of an agent to a possible future scenario / past-without this would not be possible to infer that an agent knows of a past event or possibly provide information, as in this experiment Bering & Parker (2006), yet whether this is expressed verbally in the present tense.
Conclusion: pan-agentividad/MTT As argued before, the evolution of the human brain shows two most important aspects giving visibility to the human cognition of primates and other animals: the temporoparietal volumetric expansion and sophistication at the cellular level of BA10 (and the anterior cingulate cortex
). This results in an extraordinary social cognition (read
counterintuitive ) abstraction. In fact, primate brain evolution and especially humans, is the paradigm of social brain evolution (Dunbar & Shultz 2007
). Meanwhile, the emergence of language, mathematics, technology tools, the moral, all correlated to a greater or lesser degree
perisylvian tracts that have been an increasing development in recent evolutionary times. Ontogenetically, it seems that extreme synaptic proliferation in the temporoparietal region during the first 2 years of life, marked hyper-agents, to the point that infants are capable of imaginary friends and pretend play even without a ToM, at least accepted as this (passing the test of false belief after 3-4 years of age). The agency is already an abstractive capacity resulting from the direct processing of incoming visual information.
And as I suggest, tentatively, that other human traits markedly different from other hominids living, it is precisely because one way or another serve as the functional convergence of agency, ToM and MTT, the BA10 plays a central role here. I find it very plausible that the MTT to illuminate cognitively so-called "extended mind
" (eg
De Cruz & De Smedt 2007 on the archaeological record, which proceeds from this): while humans are a permanent state of exploration and have a unique sense "spatial" to handle information, its interaction with the outside world is truly "smart
" as saying Suddendorf (1994). Yet as noted by Saxe (2010, see video below - you can activate English subtitles), the essence of this remarkable intelligence is the ability "
to go beyond the visible environmental statistics to infer the underlying causes that explain what we see ."
Bear in mind, meanwhile, that the same "extended mind", and seeing it in parallel to the MTT (or better yet, as synonyms) is also dependent on cultural learning, as above noticed by Suddendorf (1994) and Berntsen & Jacobsen (2008). This feedback
not have done but for the emergence of MTT in humanization and reaching to the present, gradually extending our cognition, also more properly understood as cognition pan-agent (the social brain.) Without these aspects agency / ToM / MTT mutually overlapping and immanent principle (remember that virtually make up the default network
, especially MTT:
Buckner et al . 2008 pp. 20-24), nothing would have an opposable thumb and other motor tuning: it needs to represent a stone house as a possible (future) cutting tool. Neither would have much numerical ability: without overlapping with the agency and the MTT could not build the concept 'law natural 'in the environment or conceive of any' temporal directionality '(in fact, violate virtually
any claim naturalist, we can draw inferences about the "before" the Big Bang, even incorporating attitudes themselves as' God'). No one would not have appeared pan-agentividad/MTT moral precept or concept 'nation' or 'homeland'. Human culture in general, intangible and virtual
notably because it is so extensible because it is not only a 'default pan-agentividad/MTT' that has made it possible.
More than neuroarquitectura
itself of this default network , while in principle is the same in other primates (
ibid. pp. 8-11) than the BA10, is the enormous complexity of their outputs
which is an achievement uniquely human, precisely because of the complexity of this region citoarquitectónica. In what at least we now consider a spectrum of neurocognitive typical, healthy and normal, the higher order of this expansion is because intellectual-religious supernatural agency, strange or inexplicable only layman's eyes all over this growing knowledge here explored . Certainly, it is quite natural to represent 'God' in the brain: the neural correlates it, while supported by the ToM (recall the results of Kapogiannis
et al. 2009; Schjoedt
et al. 2009; Epley
et al. 2009), are largely integrated as the default network
. What is truly extraordinary here and we cut off from other apes, is that the 'default pan-agentividad/MTT' is itself doubly extraordinary: first, according to the laws of nature, time is irreversible, yet "
The singular exception is provided by the human ability to remember past events "(Tulving 2002
), and second,"
when see something complicated or strange invisible cause that most often follows is another person or at least another mind "(Saxe 2010, in the video). Valga
irony, the nature of human cognition is (virtually) naturalistic.
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