Cultural evolution of categorization

Cultural Influences on Categorization Processes

Chiu (1972) reported that in a categorization task, Chinese children were more likely to categorize objects based on shared relationships, whereas American children were more likely to categorize objects based on similarity. This research examines whether such findings generalize to adults and whether cultural differences would also be observed in the activation of semantic concepts. In Experim...

The Evolution of Cultural Evolution

In 1860, aiming to be the first Europeans to travel south to north across Australia, Robert Burke led an extremely well-equipped expedition of three men (King, Wills and Gray) from their base camp in Cooper’s Creek in central Australia with five fully loaded camels (specially imported) and one horse. Figuring a maximum round trip travel time of three months, they carried twelve weeks of food an...

Evolution, Categorization and Values

The aim of this paper is to present an evolutionary framework for categorization. Evolution needs an evaluation mechanism to work, and it is argued that primary values that the organism needs for its survival – such as food, mates for reproduction, and shelter – can drive the evolution of categories. Sensory stimulation is needed to build up the cognitive apparatus, but cannot in itself provide...

Cultural commons and cultural evolution

Culture evolves following a process that is akin to biological evolution, although with some significant differences. At the same time culture has often a collective good value for human groups. This paper studies culture in an evolutionary perspective, with a focus on the implications of group definition for the coexistence of different cultures. A model of cultural evolution is presented wher...

Cultural Evolution