Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9JU, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2012 Aug 5;367(1599):2119-29. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0114.
Hominin evolution took a remarkable pathway, as the foraging strategy extended to large mammalian prey already hunted by a guild of specialist carnivores. How was this possible for a moderately sized ape lacking the formidable anatomical adaptations of these competing 'professional hunters'? The long-standing answer that this was achieved through the elaboration of a new 'cognitive niche' reliant on intelligence and technology is compelling, yet insufficient. Here we present evidence from a diversity of sources supporting the hypothesis that a fuller answer lies in the evolution of a new socio-cognitive niche, the principal components of which include forms of cooperation, egalitarianism, mindreading (also known as 'theory of mind'), language and cultural transmission, that go far beyond the most comparable phenomena in other primates. This cognitive and behavioural complex allows a human hunter-gatherer band to function as a unique and highly competitive predatory organism. Each of these core components of the socio-cognitive niche is distinctive to humans, but primate research has increasingly identified related capacities that permit inferences about significant ancestral cognitive foundations to the five pillars of the human social cognitive niche listed earlier. The principal focus of the present study was to review and integrate this range of recent comparative discoveries.
人类进化走了一条非凡的道路，因为觅食策略已经扩展到了已经被一群专业肉食动物捕猎的大型哺乳动物猎物上。对于一个中等体型的、缺乏这些竞争“专业猎手”的强大解剖适应性的猿类来说，这怎么可能呢？长期以来，人们的回答是，这是通过一个依赖于智力和技术的新“认知生态位”的精心设计实现的，这一答案令人信服，但并不充分。在这里，我们从各种来源提供证据，支持这样一种假设，即更完整的答案在于一个新的社会认知生态位的进化，其主要组成部分包括合作、平等主义、心理解读（也称为“心理理论”）、语言和文化传播等形式，远远超出了其他灵长类动物中最可比的现象。这种认知和行为的复杂性使人类狩猎采集群体能够作为一种独特的、极具竞争力的捕食生物发挥作用。社会认知生态位的这些核心组成部分中的每一个都是人类所特有的，但灵长类动物研究越来越多地发现了相关的能力，这些能力使得可以根据人类社会认知生态位的五个支柱中列出的认知基础进行推断。本研究的主要重点是回顾和整合这一系列最近的比较发现。
