Cultural activities may influence the way we think
"We believe that, over lengthy time scales, some aspects of the brain must have changed to better accommodate the learning parameters required by various cultural activities," said Prof. Arnon Lotem, of TAU's Department of Zoology, who led the research for the study. "The effect of culture on cognitive evolution is captured through small modifications of evolving learning and data acquisition mechanisms. Their coordinated action improves the brain network's ability to support learning processes involved in such cultural phenomena as language or tool-making." Prof. Lotem developed the new learning model in collaboration with Prof. Joseph Halpern and Prof. Shimon Edelman, both of Cornell University, and Dr. Oren Kolodny of Stanford University (formerly a PhD student at TAU). The research was recently published in PNAS . "Our new computational approach to studying human and animal cognition may explain how human culture shaped the evolution of human...