In the previous post I summarised Merlin Donald’s model of the evolution of the human mind described in his Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition. In this post, I look at David Geary’s model set out in his book The Origin of Mind: Evolution of Brain, Cognition, and General Intelligence. As I said previously, the two books not only have almost identical titles, they also deal with very similar material. But the similarities are superficial. Donald concludes that there have been three major transitions in human cognition, deriving his conclusions from artifacts indicating cultural shifts. Geary bases his model of knowledge on a set of constructs, each of which is the subject of intense debate; motivation to control, intelligence, and brain modularity.
Motivation to control
The first construct Geary introduces is motivation to control (p.3) – a feature he sees as fundamental to all species in their struggle for survival. Although he provides examples of what he means by the term (e.g. pp.72-80), I couldn’t find an explanation of which brain functions facilitate it, and the components of the construct remain rather fuzzy. ‘Control’ could apply only to the immediate environment (e.g. food, water, shelter, social support), or extend to wanting world domination. And I recall being required to write an essay on ‘motivation’ for an academic assignment – because it’s a great example of a term that’s used by different people to refer to very different things. Ironically, motivation could be seen as a folk construct (of which more later); we all know roughly what the term refers to, but it’s so broad that to be used for research purposes it needs to be deconstructed.
Intelligence
Like Donald, Geary reviews the archaeological evidence showing the increase in relative brain size as the genus Homo evolved from its primate ancestors. For Geary, the significant increase in EQ meant that H sapiens had superior general intelligence. This enabled it to outcompete other species of the genus Homo for mates, food and other resources – which is how H sapiens achieved ecological dominance.
Like motivation, intelligence is a term used to refer to different things by different people. It’s been controversial since Charles Spearman came up with the idea of general intelligence (g) in 1904. But that hasn’t stopped elaborations such as Raymond Cattell’s proposal that fluid intelligence (gF) is biologically determined, and crystallised intelligence (gC) is the outcome of an interaction between gF and sociocultural factors such as education. Intelligence is, I’d suggest, another folk construct.
Spearman defined intelligence in terms of particular academic skills (I’ve blogged about his model here). Donald (wisely) avoids using the term except in relation to Darwin’s views on animal intelligence. Geary discusses intelligence and related brain function at length, but I struggled to pin down exactly what it was about the brain of H sapiens Geary believes resulted in their ecological dominance; I think it’s the development of the prefrontal cortex. Geary draws attention to three levels of function in this brain area (p.211);
- Monitoring and integrating information from posterior areas of the brain
- Attentional control and inhibition of irrelevant information
- Episodic memory and self-awareness.
The last of these three functions, Geary claims, gives humans what Endel Tulving called autonoetic awareness – enabling us to imagine ourselves in the past, present and future. For Geary, this enables us to imagine a ‘perfect world’ and use problem-solving and motivation to control to try to achieve it (p.16). He summarises (pp.304-5) his chapter on the evolution of intelligence in terms of Spearman’s g and Cattell’s gF and gC – again resorting to contested constructs.
Modularity
Geary’s model leans heavily on the concept of modules – areas of the brain that have evolved to process a specific type of information. Modules process information automatically and pre-consciously, in ways that during evolution increased the chances of an individual’s survival. The automatic and pre-conscious processing has also resulted in inherent cognitive errors and biases. The upshot is that we tend to configure our knowledge about the world in ways that aren’t always logical or rational; we default to folk biology (the natural world), folk physics (the way the natural world functions) and folk psychology (human behaviour and interactions).
The fact that some areas of the brain process some information automatically and pre-consciously (ie in modular fashion) isn’t in dispute – but the extent of the modularity is. Geary points out that the modules would have evolved due to environmental factors that were – at the macro level – invariant – but human beings also have to cope with a variant microenvironment. He suggests the modules, although evolved for a particular purpose, are soft, (pp.11-122) ie they have some plasticity. That’s very likely, but that characteristic by definition blurs the boundary between his categories of biologically primary and biologically secondary knowledge.
In addition to the motivation to control, intelligence, and evolved modules on which Geary’s model is founded, some other examples of him taking a construct for granted caught my attention; notably competition, the central executive, and folk biology.
Competition
For Geary, evolution revolves around competition – initially social competition for mates, but in modern societies for occupational status (p.336). Competition is certainly an important factor in the process of evolution, but the central feature of Darwin’s model was advantageous adaptation to the environment rather than competition as such; as Donald points out, competition usually arises only when resources are scarce. And competition doesn’t explain the co-operation and altruism found in many human societies – a notoriously knotty problem for evolutionary psychologists.
Central executive
Another knotty problem is that of consciousness. I mentioned in the previous post that Donald concludes connectionist models of information processing indicate the central executive function (and therefore consciousness) isn’t modular – in a dedicated brain area – but is an emergent feature of a distributed network.
Geary agrees with Donald – to an extent; “… that novelty and conflict result in automatic attentional shifts and activation of the executive function is important because it addresses the homunculus question. The central executive does not activate itself, but rather is automatically activated when heuristic-based processes are not sufficient for dealing with current information patterns or tasks…” (p.215). But I couldn’t find any reference in Geary’s book to connectionist models despite their importance in cognitive neurology, and he appears to still see the central executive as modular.
Folk biology
Geary makes frequent references to Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace – 19th century contemporaries who each developed a theory of evolution. I’ve referred above to Geary’s assumptions about the role of competition in Darwin’s model.
Another assumption Geary makes in relation to Darwin and Wallace (and Carl Linnaeus the taxonomist), was that their ideas must have been based on folk biology “driven by an interest in the natural world” (pp.188, 311). Not only is this a somewhat tautological claim – if Geary’s model is right, all knowledge is ultimately built on folk knowledge – but he also overlooks the backgrounds of these eminent scientists. Both of Darwin’s grandfathers (Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgewood) were founder members of The Lunar Men, a discussion group whose members were leading scientists and industrialists, Darwin’s father was a respected doctor, Wallace’s father trained as a lawyer, Linnaeus’ father was a clergyman and amateur botanist, and Darwin, Wallace and Linnaeus attended grammar schools. So from an early age, all three would have been exposed to far more than folk knowledge.
What’s the difference between Donald’s and Geary’s models?
Key differences I noted were:
- Donald sets out to create a coherent explanation of the evolution of human cognition. Geary explores evidence that supports his model of human knowledge.
- Donald’s framework emerges from the archaeological, neurological and psychological evidence; the details of the changes are debatable, but the major shifts must have happened for the artifacts to exist. In contrast, Geary tries to fit the evidence into a framework composed of broad – often contentious – constructs.
- Donald dissects the heated debates associated with several constructs (e.g. modularity, laterality, speech and language, the central executive function, consciousness – but interestingly sidesteps intelligence). Geary appears to take the constructs for granted.
Conclusion
Neither of these books is an easy read. And both necessarily involve some speculation because there are gaps in the archaeological evidence and in our knowledge about cognition. But Donald sets out his reasoning step-by-step so the diligent reader should end up with a good grasp of the evidence for the evolution of human cognition and the brain – even if his model is a little outdated because archaeology and cognitive neurology have moved on in the past 30 years. Geary, in contrast, repeatedly tries to link up his constructs, which results in a fair bit of repetition, and left me struggling to see the forest through the trees.
When I first read Geary’s The Origin of Mind my focus was inevitably on the factual information – which appeared pretty reliable. But I noticed he sidelined the debates about the implications of the factual information, and made assumptions about the constructs on which his model is based. My concern about Geary’s book is that teachers unfamiliar with cognitive neurology will be blinded by science (Donald has around 300 references, Geary cites well over 1000), but be unaware that Geary glosses over the reasons his key constructs are contentious, and that his model rests on assumptions.
Also, I couldn’t see the point of Geary’s model. He assumes that by default students think in terms of folk biology, folk physics and folk psychology (biologically primary knowledge), so knowledge that’s not folk biology, physics or psychology (biologically secondary knowledge) needs to be actively taught. It’s helpful for teachers to know that logical rational thought requires some effort because it’s swimming against the tide of the way human cognition works, but even Geary struggles to find a clear boundary between biologically primary and biologically secondary knowledge. And teachers usually know what their students have learned with no apparent effort and what they’re having difficulty with. So how does it help them to draw a somewhat questionable line between two types of knowledge?
Lastly, despite Donald being an academic at a reputable university (Case Western), his book having a similar title, dealing with similar content, drawing conclusions about education, and being published by a reputable publisher (Harvard University Press) only a decade earlier, Geary doesn’t mention him. I couldn’t help wondering why.