Evolution and Social Cognition

Most sophisticated technologies (e.g. the bicycle) have been developed through a cumulative culture. Indeed, complex technologies result from the accumulation of many, mostly small improvements made across generations. Even more striking: causal understanding of their mechanisms are not required to improve their performance across time, cultural transmission alone is sufficient to explain the increase in performance of technology. These are the latest results from Maxime Derex who presented his latest paper in Journal Club this week.
His paper: https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/36386/Derex_etal_preprint.pdf?sequence=1

IT. IS. OUT. 🎉 The Evolution and Social Cognition Team is very proud of Hugo's latest book "Not born yesterday" 👏
https://sites.google.com/site/hugomercier/not-born-yesterday

Among all the human life-history traits, 2 are particularly puzzling:
1) Unlike many animals, human lifespan is very long; but relatively to other primates 2) female fertility window begins particularly early and end quite rapidly with menopause.

Yesterday, the biodemographer Samuel Pavard of the MNHN presented us very interesting insights provided by his work:
- As childhood is particularly long in humans, increased longevity is likely to be due to the importance of adults care for offspring survival.
- As being the child of young parents is advantageous due to the long timespan they can provide care to you and to your future offspring, this favor early puberty.

Besides this, he showed us how taking into account these specificities can help us understand puzzling results in medicine, for example, the fact that late-onset diseases are still under selection pressure (among others, because of the importance of grandparental care).

More about his work can be found here :

PAVARD Samuel L’UMR 7206 "Éco-Anthropologie" est une unité mixte de recherche (UMR) du Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), du Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN) et de l’Université de Paris. 

Very proud of our beautiful wall, which is now complete. Come to meet us !

[Epigenetic & Poverty]
Tomorrow, at 1pm, Mélusine will present "Genome-wide analysis of DNA methylation in relation to
socioeconomic status during development and early adulthood" by McDade et al.
So as you can understand, we are going to dive deep into the biological level and see what is the epigenetic signature of poverty.
Come in the Pavillon Jardin to hear that!
Link to the article: https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23800

[Comming soon - 𝜓cology, individualism & religion]

This Friday, on November 29 in the Pavillon Jardin, Nicolas will be presenting a very recent paper by Schulz et al. Their claim is that the ubiquity of Western Church during the Middle Age and kin-based institutions have deeply contributed to the emergence of contemporary psychological patterns such as individualism and analytical thinking.
You are very welcome!
Here is the link to the paper: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aau5141

Today, Astrid Hopfensitz of the Toulouse School of Economics presented her current work on facial display of emotions (i.e. facial expressions).
The paper she presented showed that people do know how to adjust their facial expressions on selfies depending on the effect they want to have on the receiver (delegation game, see picture).
Link to the paper here:https://pure.uvt.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/29815156/2019_014.pdf

If you want to know more about the topic of facial stimuli - which have a very special place in human cognition-, scientists in our team are also working on that:
https://psyarxiv.com/jtqu8/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28514-7

Excellent piece by Hugo Mercier

The smart move: we learn more by trusting than by not trusting – Hugo Mercier | Aeon Ideas People who trust more get better at knowing whom to trust, and so reap the benefits of more friends and more knowledge

Dog domestication has shaped their facial anatomy and made them more infant-like! (Kaminski et al., 2019)
In labmeeting, we discussed how domestication involved artificial selective pressures on dog anatomy for a more peadomorphic face. This changes can be linked directly to enhanced social interaction with humans.
Link to the paper:https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/29/14677.full.pdf

[Journal Club - Friday 8th, 1pm- Pavillon Jardin ]

This Friday, we will be receiving Michel Raymond, from Montpellier's Evolutionary Science Institute. He will tell us about the consequences of the industrialization process on handedness, one of the very interesting works he contributed to publishing https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02337619/document . Come to hear, you're welcome!

[DEC Colloquium tomorrow]

Tamar Makin, UCL: "Homo Cyberneticus: Neurocognitive considerations for the embodiment of artificial limbs"

Tomorrow 11:30am-1pm, exceptionally in the room Dussane, 45 rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris

(When) should we all get artificial limbs? Technology is progressing at a remarkable pace, providing us with wearable robotic technologies to substitute, and even supplement, our own limbs, freeing humans from the biological constraints of their own bodies. But can the human brain embody these exciting technologies as new body parts? Come to hear about artificial limb embodiment and so much more!

The lunch will take place in La Rotonde (behind room Dussane).