The evolution of self-control
Open Access
- 21 April 2014
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 111 (20), E2140-E2148
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1323533111
Abstract
Cognition presents evolutionary research with one of its greatest challenges. Cognitive evolution has been explained at the proximate level by shifts in absolute and relative brain volume and at the ultimate level by differences in social and dietary complexity. However, no study has integrated the experimental and phylogenetic approach at the scale required to rigorously test these explanations. Instead, previous research has largely relied on various measures of brain size as proxies for cognitive abilities. We experimentally evaluated these major evolutionary explanations by quantitatively comparing the cognitive performance of 567 individuals representing 36 species on two problem-solving tasks measuring self-control. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that absolute brain volume best predicted performance across species and accounted for considerably more variance than brain volume controlling for body mass. This result corroborates recent advances in evolutionary neurobiology and illustrates the cognitive consequences of cortical reorganization through increases in brain volume. Within primates, dietary breadth but not social group size was a strong predictor of species differences in self-control. Our results implicate robust evolutionary relationships between dietary breadth, absolute brain volume, and self-control. These findings provide a significant first step toward quantifying the primate cognitive phenome and explaining the process of cognitive evolution.This publication has 190 references indexed in Scilit:
- Embracing covariation in brain evolutionPublished by Elsevier BV ,2012
- Genetic and environmental influences on impulsivity: A meta-analysis of twin, family and adoption studiesClinical Psychology Review, 2011
- A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safetyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011
- Encephalization is not a universal macroevolutionary phenomenon in mammals but is associated with socialityProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010
- What can developmental and comparative cognitive neuroscience tell us about the adult human brain?Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2009
- Social complexity predicts transitive reasoning in prosimian primatesAnimal Behaviour, 2008
- Cellular scaling rules for primate brainsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2007
- Cognitive cladistics and cultural override in Hominid spatial cognitionProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006
- Self-recognition in an Asian elephantProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006
- Evolution of increased glia–neuron ratios in the human frontal cortexProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006