ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2021
Evolutionary transitions in learning and cognition.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 95 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Transitions in cognitive evolution.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Review
- Darwin's agential materials: evolutionary implications of multiscale competency in developmental biology.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2023Review
- Minding the gut: extending embodied cognition and perception to the gut complex.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Neuroecology beyond the brain: learning in Echinodermata.Learning & behavior · 2022Review
- Where Actions Meet Outcomes: Medial Prefrontal Cortex, Central Thalamus, and the Basal Ganglia.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2022Review
- Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2022Article
- Uncovering cognitive similarities and differences, conservation and innovation.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Reframing cognition: getting down to biological basics.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Five Breakthroughs: A First Approximation of Brain Evolution From Early Bilaterians to Humans.Frontiers in neuroanatomy · 2021Article
- What Behavioral Abilities Emerged at Key Milestones in Human Brain Evolution? 13 Hypotheses on the 600-Million-Year Phylogenetic History of Human Intelligence.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We define a cognitive system as a system that can learn, and adopt an evolutionary-transition-oriented framework for analysing different types of neural cognition. This enables us to classify types of cognition and point to the continuities and discontinuities among them. The framework we use for studying evolutionary transitions in learning capacities focuses on qualitative changes in the integration, storage and use of neurally processed information. Although there are always grey areas around evolutionary transitions, we recognize five major neural transitions, the first two of which involve animals at the base of the phylogenetic tree: (i) the evolutionary transition from learning in non-neural animals to learning in the first neural animals; (ii) the transition to animals showing limited, elemental associative learning, entailing neural centralization and primary brain differentiation; (iii) the transition to animals capable of unlimited associative learning, which, on our account, constitutes sentience and entails hierarchical brain organization and dedicated memory and value networks; (iv) the transition to imaginative animals that can plan and learn through selection among virtual events; and (v) the transition to human symbol-based cognition and cultural learning. The focus on learning provides a unifying framework for experimental and theoretical studies of cognition in the living world. This article is part of the theme issue 'Basal cognition: multicellularity, neurons and the cognitive lens'.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.