In what sense are dogs special? Canine cognition in comparative context

The great increase in the study of dog cognition in the current century has yielded insights into canine cognition in a variety of domains. In this review, we seek to place our enhanced understanding of canine cognition into context. We argue that in order to assess dog cognition, we need toregard dogs from three different perspectives: phylogenetically, as carnivoran and specifically a canid; ecologically, as social, cursorial hunters; and anthropogenically, as a domestic animal. A principled understanding of canine cognition should therefore involve comparing dogs’ cognition with that of other carnivorans, other social hunters, and other domestic animals. This paper contrasts dog cognition with what is known about cognition in species that fit into these three categories, with a particular emphasis on wolves, cats, spotted hyenas, chimpanzees, dolphins, horses, and pigeons. We cover sensory cognition, physical cognition, spatial cognition, social cognition, and self-awareness. Although the comparisons are in-complete, because of the limited range of studies of some of the other relevant species, we conclude that dog cognition is influenced by the membership of all three of these groups, and taking all three groups into account, dog cognition does not look exceptional

In what sense are dogs special? Canine cognition in comparative context

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this recordThe great increase in the study of dog cognition in the current century has yielded insights into canine cognition in a variety of domains. In this review we seek to place our enhanced understanding of canine cognition into context. We argue that in order to assess dog cognition, we need to regard dogs from three different perspectives: phylogenetically, as carnivoran and specifically a canid; ecologically, as social, cursorial hunters; and anthropogenically, as a domestic animal. A principled understanding of canine cognition should therefore involve comparing dogs’ cognition with that of other carnivorans, other social hunters, and other domestic animals. This paper contrasts dog cognition with what is known about cognition in species that fit into these three categories, with a particular emphasis on wolves, cats, spotted hyenas, chimpanzees, dolphins, horses and pigeons. We cover sensory cognition, physical cognition, spatial cognition, social cognition, and self-awareness. Although the comparisons are incomplete, because of the limited range of studies of some of the other relevant species, we conclude that dog cognition is influenced by the membership of all three of these groups, and taking all three groups into account, dog cognition does not look exceptional

Classroom of the apes: is teaching monkey business?

Between 1973 and 2000, social scientists conducted one of the most significant, innovative and challenging programmes in the history of linguistic and educational research. ‘Project Nim’ investigated both the interaction between nature and nurture and attempted to bring human level gestural communication to a chimpanzee called ‘Nim’. The study offered some of the most important insights into our understanding of language and cognition and what it means to be human, and represents a landmark in our thinking about teaching and learning, and education itself. Here, the authors contend that essential lessons from the experiment have been overlooked and risk being forgotten. This article revisits the study, exploring some of the issues it raises, and attempts to site what we learnt from Nim in the context of modern teaching practice. Through this re‐examination we intend to provoke thinking not only about ‘Project Nim’, but perhaps also about other lost lessons in education. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of remembering the lessons we learnt when trying to teach Nim, and how they can enhance our practice as teachers for all learners

Explaining Creativity

Creativity has often been declared, especially by philosophers, as the last frontier of science. The assumption is that it will defy explanation forever. I will defend two claims in order to oppose this assumption and to demystify creativity: (1) the perspective that creativity cannot be explained wrongly identifies creativity with what I shall call metaphysical freedom; (2) the Darwinian approach to creativity, a prominent naturalistic account of creativity, fails to give an explanation of creativity, because it confuses conceptual issues with explanation. I will close with some remarks on the status and differences in some explanations available in contemporary cognitive science

The skills and methods of calendrical savants

Calendrical savants are people with considerable intellectual difficulties that have the unusual ability to name the weekdays for dates in the past and sometimes the future. Three criteria are proposed to distinguish savants whose skill depends on memorization from those who calculate: range of years, consistent deviation from the Gregorian calendar, and variation in latency with remoteness from the present. A study of 10 calendrical savants showed 5 met one or both of the criteria concerning range and deviation and 9 met the third criterion. The second study assessed their arithmetical abilities using tests of mental and written arithmetic. This broadly validated the attribution of calculation as the basis for some savants? skills. The results are discussed in relation to views that calendrical savants imply the existence of a modular mathematical intelligence or unconscious integer arithmetic

Innate talents: reality or myth?

Talents that selectively facilitate the acquisition of high levels of skill are said to be present in some children but not others. The evidence for this includes biological correlates of specific abilities, certain rare abilities in autistic savants, and the seemingly spontaneous emergence of exceptional abilities in young children, but there is also contrary evidence indicating an absence of early precursors of high skill levels. An analysis of positive and negative evidence and arguments suggests that differences in early experiences, preferences, opportunities, habits, training, and practice are the real determinants of excellence

NIA Long Life Family Study: Objectives, design, and heritability of cross-sectional and longitudinal phenotypes

The NIA Long Life Family Study (LLFS) is a longitudinal, multicenter, multinational, population-based multigenerational family study of the genetic and nongenetic determinants of exceptional longevity and healthy aging. The Visit 1 in-person evaluation (2006-2009) recruited 4 953 individuals from 539 two-generation families, selected from the upper 1% tail of the Family Longevity Selection Score (FLoSS, which quantifies the degree of familial clustering of longevity). Demographic, anthropometric, cognitive, activities of daily living, ankle-brachial index, blood pressure, physical performance, and pulmonary function, along with serum, plasma, lymphocytes, red cells, and DNA, were collected. A Genome Wide Association Scan (GWAS) (Ilumina Omni 2.5M chip) followed by imputation was conducted. Visit 2 (2014-2017) repeated all Visit 1 protocols and added carotid ultrasonography of atherosclerotic plaque and wall thickness, additional cognitive testing, and perceived fatigability. On average, LLFS families show healthier aging profiles than reference populations, such as the Framingham Heart Study, at all age/sex groups, for many critical healthy aging phenotypes. However, participants are not uniformly protected. There is considerable heterogeneity among the pedigrees, with some showing exceptional cognition, others showing exceptional grip strength, others exceptional pulmonary function, etc. with little overlap in these families. There is strong heritability for key healthy aging phenotypes, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, suggesting that at least some of this protection may be genetic. Little of the variance in these heritable phenotypes is explained by the common genome (GWAS + Imputation), which may indicate that rare protective variants for specific phenotypes may be running in selected families

Classical Logical versus Quantum Conceptual Thought: Examples in Economics, Decision theory and Concept Theory

Inspired by a quantum mechanical formalism to model concepts and their disjunctions and conjunctions, we put forward in this paper a specific hypothesis. Namely that within human thought two superposed layers can be distinguished: (i) a layer given form by an underlying classical deterministic process, incorporating essentially logical thought and its indeterministic version modeled by classical probability theory; (ii) a layer given form under influence of the totality of the surrounding conceptual landscape, where the different concepts figure as individual entities rather than (logical) combinations of others, with measurable quantities such as 'typicality', 'membership', 'representativeness', 'similarity', 'applicability', 'preference' or 'utility' carrying the influences. We call the process in this second layer 'quantum conceptual thought', which is indeterministic in essence, and contains holistic aspects, but is equally well, although very differently, organized than logical thought. A substantial part of the 'quantum conceptual thought process' can be modeled by quantum mechanical probabilistic and mathematical structures. We consider examples of three specific domains of research where the effects of the presence of quantum conceptual thought and its deviations from classical logical thought have been noticed and studied, i.e. economics, decision theory, and concept theories and which provide experimental evidence for our hypothesis.Comment: 14 page

The Learning of Ancient Languages as\ud (super)Human Effort

Problems around teaching ancient languages are discussed. It is suggested to assume that\ud learning and teaching of languages require some superhuman effort. Author’s experience of\ud teaching ancient languages and producing electronic educational tools both for text version\ud and for Internet in Faculty of Theology in University of Latvia is described. Problems around\ud cognitive models of reasoning and place of languages there are discussed