Cosmides L
Cognition. 1989 Apr;31(3):187-276. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(89)90023-1.
In order to successfully engage in social exchange--cooperation between two or more individuals for mutual benefit--humans must be able to solve a number of complex computational problems, and do so with special efficiency. Following Marr (1982), Cosmides (1985) and Cosmides and Tooby (1989) used evolutionary principles to develop a computational theory of these adaptive problems. Specific hypotheses concerning the structure of the algorithms that govern how humans reason about social exchange were derived from this computational theory. This article presents a series of experiments designed to test these hypotheses, using the Wason selection task, a test of logical reasoning. Part I reports experiments testing social exchange theory against the availability theories of reasoning; Part II reports experiments testing it against Cheng and Holyoak's (1985) permission schema theory. The experimental design included eight critical tests designed to choose between social exchange theory and these other two families of theories; the results of all eight tests support social exchange theory. The hypothesis that the human mind includes cognitive processes specialized for reasoning about social exchange predicts the content effects found in these experiments, and parsimoniously explains those that have already been reported in the literature. The implications of this line of research for a modular view of human reasoning are discussed, as well as the utility of evolutionary biology in the development of computational theories.
为了成功地进行社会交换——两个或更多个体为了互利而展开合作——人类必须能够解决一些复杂的计算问题，而且要以特殊的效率来解决。继马尔（1982）之后，科斯米德斯（1985）以及科斯米德斯和图比（1989）运用进化原理来发展关于这些适应性问题的计算理论。关于支配人类如何对社会交换进行推理的算法结构的具体假设就是从这个计算理论推导出来的。本文呈现了一系列旨在检验这些假设的实验，采用了逻辑推理测试——沃森选择任务。第一部分报告了针对推理的可得性理论来检验社会交换理论的实验；第二部分报告了针对程和霍利约克（1985）的许可图式理论来检验社会交换理论的实验。实验设计包括八项关键测试，旨在在社会交换理论与其他这两类理论之间做出选择；所有八项测试的结果都支持社会交换理论。人类思维包含专门用于对社会交换进行推理的认知过程这一假设预测了这些实验中发现的内容效应，并且简洁地解释了文献中已经报道过的那些效应。本文讨论了这一系列研究对于人类推理的模块观的意义，以及进化生物学在计算理论发展中的作用。
