» Articles » PMID: 33400565

Understanding Human Cognitive Uniqueness

Overview
Publisher Annual Reviews
Specialty Psychology
Date 2021 Jan 5
PMID 33400565
Citations 23
Authors
Affiliations
Soon will be listed here.
Abstract

Humanity has regarded itself as intellectually superior to other species for millennia, yet human cognitive uniqueness remains poorly understood. Here, we evaluate candidate traits plausibly underlying our distinctive cognition (including mental time travel, tool use, problem solving, social cognition, and communication) as well as domain generality, and we consider how human cognitive uniqueness may have evolved. We conclude that there are no traits present in humans and absent in other animals that in isolation explain our species' superior cognitive performance; rather, there are many cognitive domains in which humans possess unusually potent capabilities compared to those found in other species. Humans are flexible cognitive all-rounders, whose proficiency arises through interactions and reinforcement between cognitive domains at multiple scales.

Citing Articles

Human culture is uniquely open-ended rather than uniquely cumulative.

Morgan T, Feldman M Nat Hum Behav. 2024; 9(1):28-42.

PMID: 39511345 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-02035-y.


Artificial cognition vs. artificial intelligence for next-generation autonomous robotic agents.

Sandini G, Sciutti A, Morasso P Front Comput Neurosci. 2024; 18:1349408.

PMID: 38585280 PMC: 10995397. DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2024.1349408.


Bees and chimpanzees learn from others what they cannot learn alone.

Thornton A Nature. 2024; 627(8004):491-492.

PMID: 38448527 DOI: 10.1038/d41586-024-00427-8.


A test of memory for stimulus sequences in great apes.

Lind J, Vinken V, Jonsson M, Ghirlanda S, Enquist M PLoS One. 2023; 18(9):e0290546.

PMID: 37672549 PMC: 10482264. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290546.


Evolution and dysfunction of human cognitive and social traits: A transcriptional regulation perspective.

Zug R, Uller T Evol Hum Sci. 2023; 4:e43.

PMID: 37588924 PMC: 10426018. DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2022.42.