Authors: Richard Byrne
ISBN-13: 9780198522652, ISBN-10: 0198522657
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: March 1995
Edition: 1st Edition
University of St Andrews
This text describes how human ancestors reached the point in cognitive evolution from which the evolution of modern humans was possible. Rather than speculating about the mental abilities of fossil hominids, on the basis of modern human psychology, the author explores earlier phases of evolution, with the more solid and testable evidence of human ancestry that is still alive: modern primates and other animals.
1 | Introduction: the limits of fossil evidence | 3 |
2 | How to reconstruct evolutionary history | 9 |
3 | What is intelligence and what is it for? | 31 |
4 | How animals learn | 45 |
5 | Why animals learn better in social groups | 54 |
6 | Imitative behaviour of animals | 64 |
7 | Understanding how things work | 83 |
8 | Understanding minds: doing and seeing, knowing and thinking | 100 |
9 | What use is a theory of mind? | 119 |
10 | Planning and thinking ahead | 146 |
11 | Apes and language | 162 |
12 | Food for thought | 177 |
13 | Machiavellian intelligence | 195 |
14 | Testing the theories | 210 |
15 | Taking stock | 222 |
References | 235 | |
Index | 247 |