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Ariadne’s thread and the extension of cognition: A common but overlooked phenomenon in nature?1.07 MB
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open
Journal article
Ariadne’s thread and the extension of cognition: A common but overlooked phenomenon in nature?
Frontiers in ecology and evolution, Vol.10
09/01/2023
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Abstract
Over recent decades, our philosophical and scientific understanding of cognition has changed dramatically. We went from conceiving humans as the sole truly cognitive species on the planet to endowing several organisms with cognitive capacities, from considering brains as the exclusive seat of cognition to extending cognitive faculties to the entire physical body and beyond. That cognition could extend beyond the organism’s body is no doubt one of the most controversial of the recent hypotheses. Extended cognition (ExC) has been discussed not only to explain aspects of the human cognitive process, but also of other species such as spiders and more recently, plants. It has been suggested that ExC could offer insights for the grounding of environmentally extended cognitive traits in evolved ecological functions. Here, we reviewed the ecological literature for possible ExC examples that satisfy the mutual manipulability criterion, which can be used to establish experimentally the boundaries of cognitive systems. Our conclusion is that ExC might be far more common than previously thought, and present in organisms as diverse as plants, fungi, termites, spiders, mammals, and slime moulds. Experimental investigation is needed to clarify this idea which, if proven correct, could illuminate a new path into understanding the origins and evolution of cognition.
Details
- Title
- Ariadne’s thread and the extension of cognition: A common but overlooked phenomenon in nature?
- Creators
- André Geremia Parise - University of ReadingGabriela Farias Gubert - Federal University of Santa CatarinaSteve Whalan - Southern Cross UniversityMonica Gagliano - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- Frontiers in ecology and evolution, Vol.10
- Publisher
- Frontiers Research Foundation
- Identifiers
- 991013077410802368
- Copyright
- © 2023 Parise, Gubert, Whalan and Gagliano. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering; Science
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article