Highlights

• Evolution targets peripheral, not central, aspects of cognition.
• Many peripheral mechanisms have evolved via the Baldwin effect.
• ‘Garcia effects’ on taste-aversion learning have not withstood the test of time.
• Fear learning is ‘prepared’ by attentional rather than by learning mechanisms.
• Specialization for language processing has focussed on perceptuomotor aspects of speech rather than on innate principles of universal grammar.
• There is no innate module for imitation but enhanced social motivation consequently leads to greater attention to the behaviour of other agents.

Details: Trends in Congitive Sciences - available online from 24 September 2020

Authors:   Cecilia Heyes, Nick Chater, Dominic Michael Dwyer