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Levy, J. (1977). The mammalian brain and the adaptive advantage of cerebral asymmetry. Ann N Y Acad Sci, 299, 264–272.
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Bouchard, T. J. J., & Loehlin, J. C. (2001). Genes, evolution, and personality. Behav Genet, 31(3), 243–273.
Abstract: There is abundant evidence, some of it reviewed in this paper, that personality traits are substantially influenced by the genes. Much remains to be understood about how and why this is the case. We argue that placing the behavior genetics of personality in the context of epidemiology, evolutionary psychology, and neighboring psychological domains such as interests and attitudes should help lead to new insights. We suggest that important methodological advances, such as measuring traits from multiple viewpoints, using large samples, and analyzing data by modern multivariate techniques, have already led to major changes in our view of such perennial puzzles as the role of “unshared environment” in personality. In the long run, but not yet, approaches via molecular genetics and brain physiology may also make decisive contributions to understanding the heritability of personality traits. We conclude that the behavior genetics of personality is alive and flourishing but that there remains ample scope for new growth and that much social science research is seriously compromised if it does not incorporate genetic variation in its explanatory models.
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Rogers, L. J. (2000). Evolution of hemispheric specialization: advantages and disadvantages. Brain Lang, 73(2), 236–253.
Abstract: Lateralization of the brain appeared early in evolution and many of its features appear to have been retained, possibly even in humans. We now have a considerable amount of information on the different forms of lateralization in a number of species, and the commonalities of these are discussed, but there has been relatively little investigation of the advantages of being lateralized. This article reports new findings on the differences between lateralized and nonlateralized chicks. The lateralized chicks were exposed to light for 24 h on day 19 of incubation, a treatment known to lead to lateralization of a number of visually guided responses, and the nonlateralized chicks were incubated in the dark. When they were feeding, the lateralized chicks were found to detect a stimulus resembling a raptor with shorter latency than nonlateralized chicks. This difference was not a nonspecific effect caused by the light-exposed chicks being more distressed by the stimulus. Instead, it appears to be a genuine advantage conferred by having a lateralized brain. It is suggested that having a lateralized brain allows dual attention to the tasks of feeding (right eye and left hemisphere) and vigilance for predators (left eye and right hemisphere). Nonlateralized chicks appear to perform these dual tasks less efficiently than lateralized ones. Reference is made to other species in discussing these results.
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Hare, B., Plyusnina, I., Ignacio, N., Schepina, O., Stepika, A., Wrangham, R., et al. (2005). Social cognitive evolution in captive foxes is a correlated by-product of experimental domestication. Curr Biol, 15(3), 226–230.
Abstract: Dogs have an unusual ability for reading human communicative gestures (e.g., pointing) in comparison to either nonhuman primates (including chimpanzees) or wolves . Although this unusual communicative ability seems to have evolved during domestication , it is unclear whether this evolution occurred as a result of direct selection for this ability, as previously hypothesized , or as a correlated by-product of selection against fear and aggression toward humans--as is the case with a number of morphological and physiological changes associated with domestication . We show here that fox kits from an experimental population selectively bred over 45 years to approach humans fearlessly and nonaggressively (i.e., experimentally domesticated) are not only as skillful as dog puppies in using human gestures but are also more skilled than fox kits from a second, control population not bred for tame behavior (critically, neither population of foxes was ever bred or tested for their ability to use human gestures) . These results suggest that sociocognitive evolution has occurred in the experimental foxes, and possibly domestic dogs, as a correlated by-product of selection on systems mediating fear and aggression, and it is likely the observed social cognitive evolution did not require direct selection for improved social cognitive ability.
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Suzuki, Y., & Toquenaga, Y. (2005). Effects of information and group structure on evolution of altruism: analysis of two-score model by covariance and contextual analyses. J. Theor. Biol., 232(2), 191–201.
Abstract: An altruistic individual has to gamble on cooperation to a stranger because it does not know whether the stranger is trustworthy before direct interaction. Nowak and Sigmund (Nature 393 (1998a) 573; J. Theor. Biol. 194 (1998b) 561) presented a new theoretical framework of indirect reciprocal altruism by image scoring game where all individuals are informed about a partner's behavior from its image score without direct interaction. Interestingly, in a simplified version of the image scoring game, the evolutionarily stability condition for altruism became a similar form of Hamilton's rule, i.e. inequality that the probability of getting correct information is more than the ratio of cost to benefit. Since the Hamilton's rule was derived by evolutionarily stable analysis, the evolutionary meaning of the probability of getting correct information has not been clearly examined in terms of kin and group selection. In this study, we applied covariance analysis to the two-score model for deriving the Hamilton's rule. We confirmed that the probability of getting correct information was proportional to the bias of altruistic interactions caused by using information about a partner's image score. The Hamilton's rule was dependent on the number of game bouts even though the information reduced the risk of cooperation to selfish one at the first encounter. In addition, we incorporated group structure to the two-score model to examine whether the probability of getting correct information affect selection for altruism by group selection. We calculated a Hamilton's rule of group selection by contextual analysis. Group selection is very effective when either the probability of getting correct information or that of future interaction, or both are low. The two Hamilton's rules derived by covariance and contextual analyses demonstrated the effects of information and group structure on the evolution of altruism. We inferred that information about a partner's behavior and group structure can produce flexible pathways for the evolution of altruism.
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Seyfarth, R. M., & Cheney, D. L. (2001). Cognitive strategies and the representation of social relations by monkeys. Nebr Symp Motiv, 47, 145–177.
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Tebbich, S., Bshary, R., & Grutter, A. S. (2002). Cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus recognise familiar clients. Anim. Cogn., 5(3), 139–145.
Abstract: Individual recognition has been attributed a crucial role in the evolution of complex social systems such as helping behaviour and cooperation. A classical example for interspecific cooperation is the mutualism between the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus and its client reef fish species. For stable cooperation to evolve, it is generally assumed that partners interact repeatedly and remember each other's past behaviour. Repeated interactions may be achieved by site fidelity or individual recognition. However, as some cleaner fish have more than 2,300 interactions per day with various individuals per species and various species of clients, basic assumptions of cooperation theory might be violated in this mutualism. We tested the cleaner L. dimidiatus and its herbivorous client, the surgeon fish Ctenochaetus striatus, for their ability to distinguish between a familiar and an unfamiliar partner in a choice experiment. Under natural conditions, cleaners and clients have to build up their relationship, which is probably costly for both. We therefore predicted that both clients and cleaners should prefer the familiar partner in our choice experiment. We found that cleaners spent significantly more time near the familiar than the unfamiliar clients in the first 2 minutes of the experiment. This indicates the ability for individual recognition in cleaners. In contrast, the client C. striatus showed no significant preference. This could be due to a sampling artefact, possibly due to a lack of sufficient motivation. Alternatively, clients may not need to recognise their cleaners but instead remember the defined territories of L. dimidiatus to achieve repeated interactions with the same individual.
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Shoshani, J., Kupsky, W. J., & Marchant, G. H. (2006). Elephant brain. Part I: gross morphology, functions, comparative anatomy, and evolution. Brain Res Bull, 70(2), 124–157.
Abstract: We report morphological data on brains of four African, Loxodonta africana, and three Asian elephants, Elephas maximus, and compare findings to literature. Brains exhibit a gyral pattern more complex and with more numerous gyri than in primates, humans included, and in carnivores, but less complex than in cetaceans. Cerebral frontal, parietal, temporal, limbic, and insular lobes are well developed, whereas the occipital lobe is relatively small. The insula is not as opercularized as in man. The temporal lobe is disproportionately large and expands laterally. Humans and elephants have three parallel temporal gyri: superior, middle, and inferior. Hippocampal sizes in elephants and humans are comparable, but proportionally smaller in elephant. A possible carotid rete was observed at the base of the brain. Brain size appears to be related to body size, ecology, sociality, and longevity. Elephant adult brain averages 4783 g, the largest among living and extinct terrestrial mammals; elephant neonate brain averages 50% of its adult brain weight (25% in humans). Cerebellar weight averages 18.6% of brain (1.8 times larger than in humans). During evolution, encephalization quotient has increased by 10-fold (0.2 for extinct Moeritherium, approximately 2.0 for extant elephants). We present 20 figures of the elephant brain, 16 of which contain new material. Similarities between human and elephant brains could be due to convergent evolution; both display mosaic characters and are highly derived mammals. Humans and elephants use and make tools and show a range of complex learning skills and behaviors. In elephants, the large amount of cerebral cortex, especially in the temporal lobe, and the well-developed olfactory system, structures associated with complex learning and behavioral functions in humans, may provide the substrate for such complex skills and behavior.
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Parish, A. R., & De Waal, F. B. (2000). The other “closest living relative”. How bonobos (Pan paniscus) challenge traditional assumptions about females, dominance, intra- and intersexual interactions, and hominid evolution. Ann N Y Acad Sci, 907, 97–113.
Abstract: Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) societies are typically characterized as physically aggressive, male-bonded and male-dominated. Their close relatives, the bonobos (Pan paniscus), differ in startling and significant ways. For instance, female bonobos bond with one another, form coalitions, and dominate males. A pattern of reluctance to consider, let alone acknowledge, female dominance in bonobos exists, however. Because both species are equally “man's” closest relative, the bonobo social system complicates models of human evolution that have historically been based upon referents that are male and chimpanzee-like. The bonobo evidence suggests that models of human evolution must be reformulated such that they also accommodate: real and meaningful female bonds; the possibility of systematic female dominance over males; female mating strategies which encompass extra-group paternities; hunting and meat distribution by females; the importance of the sharing of plant foods; affinitive inter-community interactions; males that do not stalk and attack and are not territorial; and flexible social relationships in which philopatry does not necessarily predict bonding pattern.
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Amdam, G. V., Csondes, A., Fondrk, M. K., & Page, R. E. J. (2006). Complex social behaviour derived from maternal reproductive traits. Nature, 439(7072), 76–78.
Abstract: A fundamental goal of sociobiology is to explain how complex social behaviour evolves, especially in social insects, the exemplars of social living. Although still the subject of much controversy, recent theoretical explanations have focused on the evolutionary origins of worker behaviour (assistance from daughters that remain in the nest and help their mother to reproduce) through expression of maternal care behaviour towards siblings. A key prediction of this evolutionary model is that traits involved in maternal care have been co-opted through heterochronous expression of maternal genes to result in sib-care, the hallmark of highly evolved social life in insects. A coupling of maternal behaviour to reproductive status evolved in solitary insects, and was a ready substrate for the evolution of worker-containing societies. Here we show that division of foraging labour among worker honey bees (Apis mellifera) is linked to the reproductive status of facultatively sterile females. We thereby identify the evolutionary origin of a widely expressed social-insect behavioural syndrome, and provide a direct demonstration of how variation in maternal reproductive traits gives rise to complex social behaviour in non-reproductive helpers.
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