Cognition for Culture

This chapter provides evidence for the view of the evolution of the unique features of human cognition and culture. After a brief evolutionary introduction, it looks closely at the process of human cognitive development, especially in its early social and cultural aspects, and by comparing human social-cognitive skills to those of one's nearest primate relatives, the great apes, who share some but not all of their skills for navigating through a complex social world. The development of human cognitive skills thus depends both on a species-typical cultural environment and on biologically evolved skills for participating meaningfully in such an environment. Comparing the cognitive skills of human children and chimpanzees is instructive because it helps to identify those aspects of human cognition that were already present in the common evolutionary ancestor of the two species from those aspects that developed only in the human lineage