Evolution and the mechanisms of decision making / edited by Peter Hammerstein and Jeffrey R. Stevens.

Format:

Book

Conference/Event

Author/Creator:

Ernst Strüngmann Forum, Corporate Author.

Contributor:

Hammerstein, Peter, 1949-

Stevens, Jeffrey R., 1974-

Conference Name:

Ernst Strüngmann Forum (11th : 2011 : Frankfurt am Main, Germany)

Ernst Strèungmann Forum (

Series:

Strüngmann Forum Reports

Strüngmann forum reports

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Decision making--Congresses.

Decision making.

Cognition--Congresses.

Cognition.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (447 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, ©2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How do we make decisions? Conventional decision theory tells us only which behavioral choices we ought to make if we follow certain axioms. In real life, however, our choices are governed by cognitive mechanisms shaped over evolutionary time through the process of natural selection. Evolution has created strong biases in how and when we process information, and it is these evolved cognitive building blocks--from signal detection and memory to individual and social learning--that provide the foundation for our choices. An evolutionary perspective thus sheds necessary light on the nature of how we and other animals make decisions. This volume--with contributors from a broad range of disciplines, including evolutionary biology, psychology, economics, anthropology, neuroscience, and computer science--offers a multidisciplinary examination of what evolution can tell us about our and other animals' mechanisms of decision making. Human children, for example, differ from chimpanzees in their tendency to over-imitate others and copy obviously useless actions; this divergence from our primate relatives sets up imitation as one of the important mechanisms underlying human decision making. The volume also considers why and when decision mechanisms are robust, why they vary across individuals and situations, and how social life affects our decisions.

Contents:

""11 Modularity and Decision Making""""12 Robustness in a Variable Environment""; ""Variation in Decision Making""; ""13 Biological Analogs of Personality""; ""14 Sources of Variation within the Individual""; ""15 Variation in Decision Making""; ""Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Cognition""; ""16 The Cognitive Underpinnings of Social Behavior""; ""17 Early Social Cognition: How Psychological Mechanisms Can Inform Models of Decision Making""; ""18 Who Cares? Other-Regarding Concerns� Decisions with Feeling""; ""19 Learning, Cognitive Limitations, and the Modeling of Social Behavior""

""20 Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Cognition""""Bibliography""; ""Subject Index""

Notes:

"Eleventh Ernst Strüngmann Forum held June 19-24, 2011, Frankfurt am Main."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

OCLC-licensed vendor bibliographic record.

ISBN:

1-283-87014-2

0-262-30602-6

OCLC:

822018649