It's a Jungle in There: How Competition and Cooperation in the Brain Shape the Mind (37 page)

Even though the upper left corner of theory space is only a theoretical possibility, it’s a useful anchor point for considering the quality of alternative theoretical accounts. All the points that are equally far from the upper left corner are equally good, at least in terms of their distance from the best locale.

Buying into this way of conceptualizing theory quality doesn’t let you say which point equidistant from the upper left corner is best. A theory that accounts for a lot of variance and has many parameters is no better than a theory that accounts for less variance and has fewer parameters, at least if the two theories are equally far from the holy grail point and that distance is your metric of theory quality.

So which kind of theory should you prefer—a simple theory that accounts for less variance, or a more complex theory that accounts for more? One answer is “It’s all a matter of taste.” A better answer is “Be guided by experience.” By the second quote I mean that it’s better to favor a theory that has developed a good track record than one that’s ad hoc.

No theory has gotten so consistently close to the upper left corner of theory space as Darwin’s. This is what has made it so attractive to scholars in such
a wide range of disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and economics.
⁶⁷
,
⁶⁸

Given the wide appeal and proven track record of Darwin’s theory, it’s a theory that’s preferable to others whose locations in theory space may be just as far from the best point but whose track records are less secure. In that sense, Darwin’s theory can be viewed as one that’s as complete as you’re likely to find if you hope to find an intellectually satisfying general theory.
⁶⁹

Has Darwin’s theory measured up to its promise in cognitive psychology? I think so, especially because it accounts so naturally for so many cognitive phenomena. In addition, it has led to many useful lines of inquiry.
⁷⁰

Let me sum up with what I regard as the single most important statement of this entire book. It is that so many chapters ended with the observation that the most all-embracing theory for the material covered there was, in essence, Darwin’s.

At the end of
Chapter 3
, on the brain, I concluded that the functional organization of the brain, and its dynamic reorganization based on experience, fit with the theory of natural selection, applied to the brain’s constituents.
⁷¹

At the end of
Chapter 4
, on attention, I observed that the most comprehensive theory of attention is, in effect, another statement of Darwin’s theory, applied to a smaller scale of time and space than Darwin envisioned.

At the end of
Chapter 5
, on reaction time, I noted that the most promising general theory of the time to make elementary decisions is one that again basically claims there are internal elements cooperating or competing with one another. This model and others like it do a good job of capturing the essential features of reaction-time results. Such models are consistent with the selectionist framework I have advocated.

At the end of
Chapter 6
, on perception, I concluded that the jungle principle applies to perception and perceptual learning. I indicated there that the range of phenomena covered in the perception chapter, which mainly concerned the physiology and psychology of vision, all accord with the notion that neural ensembles tuned to particular features get selectively weakened or strengthened. Through the interactions of these elements, many aspects of perception, including some of its most curious manifestations, can be explained. The power of this explanation extends to other sensory modalities as well and to inter-sensory communication.

Chapter 7
, on action, ended with a quote from a leading scientist in this field: “Coordination = Competition + Cooperation.” The statement implies that the two forces at play in the nervous system, competition and cooperation, underlie the coordination of physical actions. Action, then, like perception, attention, and elementary decision-making, can be understood in terms of the same processes that provide the pushes and pulls that affect the chances of survival.

Chapter 8
, on learning and memory, likewise ended with an homage to Darwin. I indicated in the close of that chapter that memories get strengthened or weakened based on their usefulness. From this simple idea, I could summarize a wide range of findings concerning learning and memory in Darwinian terms. At the end of
Chapter 8
, I provided a quote from a recent book on learning and memory that reflected the authors’ belief that Darwin’s scheme is the best one for understanding the data from this field.

Chapter 9
, the chapter before this one, was concerned with problem-solving and creativity. That chapter ended with my observation that others before have noticed the usefulness of the analogy between Darwin’s evolving species and individuals’ evolving ideas. In both cases, evolution may lead to better fits. In the case of the fits of ideas to problems, aspects of the past and present may help or hinder steps that could prove useful for solving a problem, including recognizing that a problem exists and needs to be solved (as in the invention of Velcro). Darwin himself appreciated the connection between his theory of natural selection, as applied to the origin of species, and his theory as applied to the origin of ideas.

With all this support for Darwin’s theory in cognitive psychology, I am led to declare, “How fortunate we are to be in receipt of Darwin’s concept!” By applying Darwin’s idea to cognitive psychology, we may be in a position to believe more seriously than we could before that a general theory of cognitive psychology is in reach. Such a theory has in fact been available to us in broad strokes for a long time—ever since Darwin conceived his idea. It’s high time, I think, to pursue his insight in cognitive psychology, doing so more deliberately than we have before. It is that belief that impelled me to write this book.

Finally, if a Darwinian perspective will be adopted in cognitive psychology, we must accept the ruthlessness of the scrutiny to which it should be subjected, for that is the Darwinian way. The next challenge will be to hone the theory to see which variants of it should survive. It is in the nature of science to take this hard-headed, winnowing approach. I look forward to seeing how this process plays out, and I especially look forward to the possibility that you, whether you are a student or a seasoned professional, will feel inspired by what you have read here (or possibly irked by what you have read here!) to draw on the material to help advance the field of cognitive psychology and the other fields to which it’s tied.

1
Daniel Kahneman (2011), the Nobel-prize winning cognitive psychologist (Nobel Prize in Economics, 2002), took a similar gambit in his recent book,
Thinking, Fast and Slow
. There he wrote, “…I describe mental life by the metaphor of two agents, called System 1 and System 2, which respectively produce fast and slow thinking. I speak of the features of intuitive and deliberate thought as if they were traits and dispositions of two creatures in your mind” [p. 13].

2
Lindsay and Norman (1977).

3
Selfridge (1959).

4
The article in which the Pandemonium model was introduced refers to demons, but it does not have cartoons. In the article itself, the author wrote that he “…was not going to apologize for a frequent use of anthropomorphic or biomorphic terminology.” This quote appeared on p. 465 of the book where the Pandemonium paper was reprinted (Dodwell, 1970; see Selfridge, 1959).

5
Findings like those reviewed in this paragraph are typically reported by, and studied by, neuropsychologists (e.g., Banich, 2004).

6
Quiroga, Fried, and Koch (2013).

7
Mayr and Provine (1980).

8
For a recent discussion of the advantages of the population approach, see Nowak, Tarnita, and Wilson (2010). The Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman applied natural selection to neural organization in his book,
Neural Darwinism
(Edelman, 1987). The analysis to be presented here is inspired by Edelman’s work, though the emphasis here is on psychology rather than neurophysiology.

9
James (1890).

10
I am replaying Thorndike’s (1927) Law of Effect here, saying that the Law applies to neural ensembles even if it may not apply to entire organisms (cf. Chomsky, 1959). For a more current statement of the Law of Effect, see Blumberg and Wasserman (1995) and Wasserman and Blumberg (2010).

11
Miller (1956).

12
Recent studies suggest that preparing for physical actions interferes with working memory, which has been equated with consciousness (Spiegel et al., 2012; Weigelt et al.,
2009). It is possible that working memory is primarily or even exclusively an action launch pad or staging area. This exciting hypothesis was expressed to me by a young German researcher, Dr. Sabrina Trapp, in a series of emails. I want to give her credit for this provocative idea. Previously, it had been noted that action preparation is supported by working memory (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974; Logan, 1983; Rosenbaum, 1987), but Trapp’s suggestion, which is not yet published as far as I know, is the strongest statement of the hypothesis that working memory is
for
acting.

13
Santamaria and Rosenbaum (2011).

14
Wegner (2002).

15
The popular science writer Malcolm Gladwell (2000) devoted a book to the emergence of fads, fashions, and trends.

16
A book about unconscious processes (Eagleman, 2011) also refers to
E pluribus unum
in this context.

1
The proposal that minds are actually made up of many neural agents has been made before. A notable example is from a founder of artificial intelligence, Marvin Minsky (1988).

2
Erasmus Darwin was such a respected figure that he was invited to become Physician to King George III. He wrote a book called
Zoönomia
(1794) in which he anticipated the main idea of his grandson. Here is a relevant quote from a Wikipedia article about Erasmus Darwin, which I consulted on December 4, 2011:
Erasmus Darwin also anticipated natural selection in Zoönomia mainly when writing about the “three great objects of desire” for every organism: lust, hunger, and security
.

3
Moorehead (1969); Taylor (2008).

4
I have resisted referring to God as “He” or, for that matter, “She.”

5
Darwin (1859). The other most influential book in the history of science was Isaac Newton’s
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
, which is Latin for
Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
. That book was published in 1687.

6
Darwin, it turns out, wasn’t the first to think of natural selection, as already indicated in connection with his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. For a review of the intellectual forebears of Darwin’s thinking, see Dennett (1995) and Richards (1987). The term “survival of the fittest” did not come from Darwin but from Herbert Spencer, as Darwin himself noted.

7
The phenomenon of hindsight bias was brought to the fore by Tversky and Kahneman (1974), two cognitive psychologists whose work will be discussed later in this book.

8
Sex requires cooperation as well as competition, of course, notwithstanding the despicable fact of rape. Cooperation, in general, is vital for survival, just as competition is (Nowak, 2012).

9
Hodges-Simeon, Gaulin, and Puts (2010).

10
To the best of my knowledge this hypothesis about human breasts has not been addressed in the scholarly literature, though the non-scholarly literature, both textual and photographic, provides ample proof of the sexual allure of breasts to members of our species.

11
My own research has focused on the planning of physical actions (Rosenbaum, 2010), building on landmark work by others—notably Lashley (1951); Miller, Galanter, and Pribram (1960); Norman (1981); Sternberg, Monsell, Knoll, and Wright (1978); and Turvey (1977).

12
Mathematical models of evolution are of particular interest here because they provide formal expressions that are abstract and therefore removed from particular physical or biological instantiations. If a mathematical model does a good job of explaining data concerning the origin of species, it may do a good job of explaining data concerning the origin of ideas. Influential mathematical-modeling work related to evolution has been done by Price (1970, 1971) and Maynard Smith (1982), among others. Price’s contributions were summarized by Frank (1995).

13
For an extended and entertaining discussion of this topic, see Angier (2007). Other treatments are provided by Coyne (2009) and Pigliucci (2009).

14
See, for example, Futuyma (1998).

15
Ellis and van Creveld (1940).

16
Although Lorenz described this effect (e.g., Lorenz, 1981), I learned the following from a website,
http://animalbehaviour.net/Imprinting.htm
, which I consulted on December 5, 2011: “Although Lorenz was the first to record his observations in a scientific manner, the essence of imprinting had long been recognised. Indeed, Chinese peasants have for centuries capitalised on the tendency to imprint in making ducks more effective in the control of snails that otherwise damage rice crops. By imprinting ducklings onto a special stick, the peasants can not only take their brood out to the paddy fields as required but, by planting the stick sequentially in different parts of the plantation, they can ensure that molluscs in all areas can be subjected to predation.” For more information about imprinting, click on
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/12/imprinting.aspx
or read the sources cited in this article, which are by Bateson (2003) and Hess (1958, 1973, 1985).