#209 Cecilia Heyes: Cultural Evolutionary Psychology, Imitation, And Mindreading
Dr. Cecilia Heyes is a Professor of Psychology and Senior Research Fellow in Theoretical Life Science at All Souls College, University of Oxford. She was trained as an experimental psychologist at University College London (UCL, 1978-84). As a Harkness Fellow in the United States (1984-6), she studied evolutionary epistemology with Donald T. Campbell and philosophy of mind with Daniel Dennett. She’s done experimental work, initially in animal cognition and later in cognitive neuroscience, and more recently her group developed and tested an associative account of the origins of imitation and the mirror neuron system. She’s the author of Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking.
In this episode, we talk about the approach developed by Dr. Cecilia Heyes and collaborators, as exposed in her book, Cognitive Gadgets – cultural evolutionary psychology. First, we discuss what it borrows from Evolutionary Psychology and Cultural Evolutionary Theory, and what assumptions from both of those fields it rejects. We talk about modularity of mind, and then get into two of the cognitive mechanisms that Dr. Heyes explores in the book, namely imitation and mindreading (or theory of mind). We get a bit into how language might influence our thinking. And toward the end we address issues regarding human nature, and evolutionary mismatch.
Time Links:
The strengths and weaknesses of Evolutionary Psychology and Cultural Evolutionary Theory, and the new field of cultural evolutionary psychology (cognitive gadgets theory)
On modularity of mind
To what extent would culture be deterministic?
The development of imitation
Criteria to classify a mental mechanism as innate
Is mindreading universal?
Does language influence the way we think?
Can culture influence how we experience and think about emotions?
Gene-culture coevolution
A novel view on human nature
About evolutionary mismatch
Would cultural evolutionary psychology apply to all sorts of mental mechanisms?
Follow Dr. Heyes’ work!
Follow Dr. Heyes’ work:
Faculty page/website: https://bit.ly/2H1BZVZ
Researchgate profile: https://bit.ly/2XiI4Xj
Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking: https://amzn.to/2Jem1cI
Twitter handle: @CeliaHeyes