Exploring human cognition: the natural pedagogy hypothesis
March 22, 2022 09:40 Source: "Chinese Social Sciences Journal" March 22, 2022 Issue 2372 Author: Xu Huiyan Chen Wei

Generally believed,Human beings have a social learning system based on communication situations。2009,Gergely Csibra and Gy?Gergy Gergely) and others clearly proposed the Natural Pedagogy hypothesis based on teleology,Advocates that human beings have a unique set of characteristics、Innate cognitive adaptability,The transfer of knowledge can be achieved through purposeful teaching and learning。Demonstration、Communication and sharing constitute the mechanism of natural pedagogy,Human babies are the most obvious beneficiaries,They are sensitive to explicit signals,Will generate directional expectations,And tend to understand information as generalized general knowledge。As a beginner,They can effectively learn cognitively "opaque" knowledge in a single adult demonstration behavior,Because they are ready to recognize this behavior as a communicative demonstration,And there is a default expectation,That is, the content of the demonstration represents shared cultural knowledge,And can be generalized to other objects along some related dimensions、occasion or person。Whatever observable behavior,Still unobservable knowledge、Technology or culture,bet365 best casino games All can be passed down from generation to generation through the mechanism of natural pedagogy。

First,Natural education hypothesis,The cognitive adaptive mechanism is likely to be unique to the human germline。Human beings have specialized cognitive mechanisms from early in life,Enable yourself to accept this kind of cultural communication,Promote efficient cultural learning。Human beings transfer cultural knowledge to beginners through communication,But natural pedagogy is not necessarily suitable for explaining the social interactions of other animals。Although there are examples of teaching in other animals,But the behavioral or cognitive mechanism to complete social learning through communication has not yet been discovered。Sensitivity of human infants to explicit signals,Perhaps unique to humans,Other animals may not produce or utilize these communication signals。Rosemary Bettle and Alexandra G. Rosati) uses research on infants as a model,Testing these evolutionary predictions by studying the sensitivity of 206 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) to communication cues。Human actor making eye contact with monkey in front of him,Make a sound (social cue) or wave a piece of fruit and make a tapping sound (non-social cue),Then the actor either looks at an object,Or look away (an empty space without any objects)。Results found,Younger and older monkeys show similar response patterns throughout development。bet365 live casino games Unlike human babies in similar situations,Rhesus monkeys look at non-social cues longer,Regardless of the presenter’s subsequent viewing behavior。Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz and others pointed out,Human cognitive abilities surpass those of other primates,Because of social cognition、The multiplier advantage of the joint development of language and symbolic thinking,Can be observed from the first month of life。These results provide support for the natural pedagogy hypothesis,Also highlights evolutionary changes in human sensitivity to communication signals。However,Interesting thing,Research findings by József Topál et al.,Companion dogs behave very similarly to young children,Individuals exhibiting a strong preference for positions previously reinforced by explicit signals from the demonstrator,So when the final correct position searched is different from the previous reward position,Will make A non-B persistent search error。Péter Pongrácz and Dóra L. Onofer) studied the explicit and non-explicit ways in which humans communicate in a series of A-not-B error tests,And whether familiarity with the human demonstrator affects companion cats’ search error patterns。Their research findings,Cats display persistent errors almost completely different from those seen earlier in dogs and human infants。Cat in the owner’s explicit and non-explicit Bet365 lotto review prompts,Persistent errors in response to non-explicit prompting by the experimenter,It is possible that cats and dogs rely on humans for explicit signals for different purposes,Explicit signals can support dogs’ rapid rule learning,But it may only have an indirect attention-stimulating effect on cats。Persistent errors are caused by temporarily less intense attention,Cats can avoid persistent errors only when exposed to explicit signals from the experimenter,It may be due to the superposition of the dual factors of novelty and explicit signals from unfamiliar experimenters。This is consistent with what was discovered during a gaze-tracking mission conducted by Pengraz,Explicit verbal signals from the unknown experimenter lead to similar results as cats establishing eye contact more quickly。Cats and dogs are likely to be exposed to very different social experiences throughout their lives,Dogs are exposed to more differences than cats、Unfamiliar people,There are also more training and task-based interactions between owners and dogs than between owners and cats,Therefore compared to cats,The A-not-B test itself may be a less stressful and unfamiliar event for the dog subjects。

Secondly,Natural pedagogy is ubiquitous in different cultures。Although parenting practices vary widely across cultures,But almost all human cultures rely on communication to transfer cultural knowledge to beginners。From early in bet365 live casino games life,Human beings will give priority to communication signals from others,Able to accept cultural communication,Thereby promoting rapid cultural learning。To this,Mark Nielsen and Keyan Tomaselli think,Even children in some traditional cultures that do not emphasize the importance of teaching,When presented with novel actions in a communication context,Also exhibits similar learning biases to other children。This shows that the cognitive mechanism of natural pedagogy is prevalent among human groups of different cultures。

Finally,From an ontogenetic perspective,The mechanism of natural pedagogy,Probably preceded the development of full language skills,It is a relatively independent adaptive cognitive system,Rather than a by-product of some other uniquely human adaptive cognitive system (such as language)。The research of Brauch and Gerdey et al. shows that,Infants are sensitive to pedagogical situations before 14 months,Long before mindreading allowed children to consider the content of others’ false beliefs。Human infants before they begin to understand and express language,Already communicated and interacted with others,Even for complete beginners,You can also observe and understand adults’ demonstrations to you during interactions。Explicit communicative nature of the demonstrated action,Generic general knowledge indicating that the knowledge is likely bet365 best casino games to be of the kind of objects involved in the action。They can learn through communication,Imitate、Attention、Emotional expression、Gesture、Movements of the lips and tongue are all part of the initial communication。If language is not necessary,Then the general ability of human communication may be the key to the emergence of natural pedagogy,Extensive cooperation among humans inevitably occurs during the evolution process under certain circumstances,For example, natural pedagogy may have played a role in early ape culture。The unique long childhood of early great apes and the coevolution of cooperative breeding practices,Complemented by the emergence of a communication system,This communication system for children in metabolism、Provides "food for thought" on the brain's information reception。In other words,The cognitive mechanism of natural pedagogy may be related to technology、Evolved together with neurobiology and social factors,Make this adaptation necessary and possible。Later language can promote the acquisition and use of concepts,The intersubjective interaction between prelingual infants and adults can start the ability to acquire and use concepts earlier。

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(Author’s unit: Department of Education, Northeast Normal University;Shaoxing University of Arts and Sciences Brain、Mind and Education Research Center)

Editor: Zhang Jing
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