Detector-Indicator Systems, Culture and Trans-Individual Modularity

printed: 1/19/05

Published as: Wagner, W. (2004). Detector-Indicator Co-Evolution and Trans-Individual Modularity—A Proposal. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology, 2, 283-294.

Detector-Indicator Systems, Culture and Trans-Individual Modularity—A Proposal

Wolfgang Wagner* Johannes Kepler Universität Linz

RUNNING HEAD: Trans-Individual Modularity WORD COUNT: 4,900

* Address for correspondence: Wolfgang Wagner, Institut für Pädagogik und

Psychologie, Johannes Kepler Universität, 4040-Linz, Austria/EU. E-mail: w.wagner@jku.at.

Trans-Individual Modularity

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ABSTRACT: Drawing on findings that many forms of animal learning are genetically programmed to exploit regularly occurring situational cues, that evolutionarily developed detector-indicator systems appear as cultural domains, and that social interaction and interdependence is more the rule than the exception as a vehicle in the evolution of social species, it is argued that it may be worth to extend the modularity concept to include transindividual phenomena. Such trans-individual modularity appears as cultural domains on the collective level where the cultural organisation of societies regularly provides opportunities for children and adolescents to tune their detector-indicator modules and mechanisms to the relatively rapidly changing fashions, traits and behaviours promising biological fitness. This would be an additional argument for assigning an evolutionary role to culturally organised domains.

KEY WORDS: Modularity, Coevolution, Learning, Culture, Cognition


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Detector-Indicator Systems, Culture and Trans-Individual Modularity— —A Proposal Mental modularity has been suggested as a necessary concept to account for the fact that the human species possesses a cognitive system that allows highly efficient judgments in its most vital domains of activity (e.g. Cosmides & Tooby, 1994; Sperber, 1994). The modules, according to the argument, should have evolved during the Pleistocene era as an answer to the threats and necessities early man faced in the environment. In fact, there exists strong plausibility and some evidence that cognition works well in specific domains but much less so in logically similar domains where the contents being processed are different from the supposed evolutionarily adapted domains. Even if it has been challenged recently (Fodor, 2000; Gigerenzer & Hug, 1992; Sperber, Cara & Girotto, 1995), an often cited example is still the social contract domain, where subjects are highly efficient in detecting the correct solution in social contract specific logical tests, but fail to a high degree when the same reasoning is to be applied in other contexts (Cosmides, 1989). A hotly debated issue is whether evidence for mental modularity equally implies modules to exist also at the cortical, sub-cortical and at the genetic level or whether cognitive modules describe merely functional features that can be accounted for by nonmodular neural and genetic structures, such as, for example, associative networks (e.g. Callebaut & Rasskin-Gutman 2002; Fodor, 1983; Panksepp & Panksepp, 2000; Wagner & Altenberg 1996; Wagner & Wagner 2003; Zuckerkandl, 1994). Even if it is not clear whether mental modularity presupposes neural and/or genetic modularity or not, the concept itself promises some heuristic value that does not depend on its particular instantiation. Drawing on findings of ethology, biology of cognition, evolutionary biology and social psychology I argue in this paper that at least some cultural complexes can be considered the result of the joint effects of detector-indicator coevolution and higher animals’ ability to opportunistically exploit ambient information in shaping their cognitive


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apparatus. Cultural features can appear as instantiations of trans-individual modules showing that there is no such thing as a merely individual, merely cultural or merely natural human cognition and behaviour. Genetically inspired learning A serious point that evolutionary psychologists seem to overlook is a mechanism, which ethologists have for decades already found to be highly relevant in determining behaviour—and cognition, for that matter—of higher animals: The genetically encoded learning mechanism that in many instances of animal behaviour determines what an animal considers relevant information in a given domain. In an earlier paper (Wagner & Wagner 2003) we argue at length that genetic determinism, even in domains that are highly fitness related, exists to varying degrees from highly determined and inherited (e.g. the babyschema) to less pre-determined and more sensitive to environmental cues during certain periods of individual life (e.g. a goose hatchling’s “mother”-schema or language attainment in H. sapiens sapiens). That is, opportunistic mechanisms – learning – play a crucial role in the unfolding of an animal’s behavioural and cognitive repertoire. There is no better argument in favour of learning being a necessary feature in the evolution of behaviour and cognition than Lorenz’ statement on imprinting (even if it could have been translated from German less complicated in tone): “It is an old rule of thumb that no phylogenetically adapted releasing mechanism is more selective than is necessary to prevent the response from being released by another than the biologically adequate object with greater frequency than is compatible with the survival of the species. In cases in which individual experience gets an opportunity to increase the selectivity of a releasing mechanism, the latter can ‘afford’ to rely on very simple and generalized innate information, particularly if the general biological situation guarantees that the right kind of experience sets in at the right moment. In such higher animals that are either social in habit or that perform parental care, responses to the conspecific are often dependent on simple, and therefore unselective, releasing mechanisms, while the social environment of the young animal dependably supplies the conditions for additional learning, and this learning rapidly


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builds up a high degree of selectiveness in the mechanisms releasing social responses” (Lorenz, 1965, p 55f). Opportunistic mechanisms that determine the operational content of domain specific cognition represent a structural coupling between organism and environment by degree and via “open programs”. They enable subsequent generations of organism a certain amount of adaptability in changing environments beyond the long reach of genetic change (cf. Huber, 2000; Mayr, 1974). They are most likely to be found in social domains, which are highly variant across species, and less so in general adaptations to the ecological environment, which varies less across species than social patterns. Additionally it is a way to keep information about stimuli and matching behaviours more flexible than would be the case otherwise. A host of learning mechanisms in social domains has been identified in a wide variety of animals ranging from bird song learning (e.g West & King, 1996) to imitation in Primates (e.g. Moore, 1996), which are built on the genetically encoded capacity to individually exploit regularities in the social environment. Some species exhibit a rapid decline of their learning ability in certain domains beyond the ontogentic window of opportunity, others, particularly Primates, retain their imitating abilities as adults. These innate school masters (Lorenz, 1978, p. 209) or the instinct to learn (Gould & Marler, 1987) are to warrant adapted behaviour in variable environments and social domains and to prevent the innate outfit from being overdetermined. Speaking examples are not only the well-known imprinting of the mother-image with goslings, but also female wolf spiders (Schizocosa uetzi) show a learned preference for mates with either black or brown forelegs (Hebets, 2003) and early experiments also showed that doles (Coleoeus monedula) may learn—under experimental conditions—to follow flocks of hooded crows (Corvus corone cornix) instead of their own folk as well as preferences for mating partners1 before the onset of sexual maturity (Lorenz, 1978, p.

1 Doles were shown to attempt mating with humans if so imprinted.


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222ff) as do Guppies (Poecilia reticulata) (Dugatkin, 1996). The point for evolutionary psychologists is that higher animals are genetically determined to learn, particularly in social domains. Detector-indicator systems and cultural domains Detector mechanisms are cognitive structures or processes that allow to efficiently identify fitness relevant cues in the social world. Their counterpart are attributes or behaviours of humans signalling or hiding what detectors are supposed to identify in the service of the respective individual’s fitness. Let us take two examples to highlight the working of detector-indicator systems: Mate detection and cheater detection. According to the good gene theory (which, by the way, is not yet supported beyond doubt, but neither are gene-drift and run-away evolution) a mate detection mechanisms is tuned to identify mating partners whose contribution to procreation is likely to deliver fit offspring. This mechanism can be explained by sexual evolution and has recently been heavily researched (cf. e.g. Buss, 1992; Grammer, 1995; Miller, 1998, 2000; etc). In this case the indicating individual has an interest to appear as fit as possible for the opposite sex in order to gain a mating opportunity, not withstanding the sexually dimorphic short and long term interests. The detecting individual, particularly the female as the choosier one, has an equally strong interest to separate the wheat from the chaff, that is not to fall victim to fake indicators. Cheater detection is slightly different in structure. In this case the detecting individual’s mechanism is tuned to discover whether a conspecific is likely or not to return a costly favour or helping behaviour in the future should the need arise, thereby increasing his or her fitness if the present costs do not outweigh the foreseeable gains. The indicating individual who receives a favour in a reciprocal system has the interest to appear as trustworthy as possible and to hide any cheating intention, thereby increasing his or her fitness in enjoying present gains without future costs (cf. Whiten & Byrne, 1997). The original author of this theory (Cosmides, 1989) does not specify which evolutionary process is likely to have shaped this cheater detection module, but there are reasons to


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expect that successful detection of a help-recipient who bears the altruism gene – thus being likely to reciprocate – by a help-provider, who him or herself also possesses this gene, would favour the gene’s promotion chances (Humphrey, 1997). The evolution process for this domain is neither sexual nor natural selection in the strict sense, but driven by the subtle forces at work in processes that promote inclusive fitness on the group level beyond the immediate kin. There are numerous domains in culture that comprise sets of behaviours, which are strongly coordinated and/or ritualised and which ultimately serve functions that can be traced to socially adaptive detector-indicator systems. Cultural domains are well-regulated in most cultures. They are a complex of functionally interrelated social behaviours that form a salient and conspicuous unit with a widely agreed social function and a hegemonic representation maintained by most “normal” members of a group. As truly “natural kinds” of behaviour patterns they make cultural phenomena intelligible to individuals. Psychologically they are collective representations in the Durkheimian sense (Durkheim, 1967). Even if their particular expression differs in form across cultures, they are homologous with regard to their function. Examples are courtship and marriage, behavioural rules regulating kinship systems, contracts and agreements, etc. As a rule these cultural domains have in common to be morally charged, transgressions are sanctioned and they are strongly invested with resources that a group allocates to their regulation. Learning the operational content in detector-indicator systems Societies are populations endowed with culture that have been shaped by history. It follows from this fact that social environments, available resources, the distribution of power and technology vary widely in the course of cultural development and societal history and confront individuals of different generations with choices of indicators that ever so slightly may have changed their meaning and relevance for fitness. Fashion, including all sorts of societal fads and preferences, is not a unique feature of modernity but is probably as old as symbolic culture far back in human pre-history.


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As powerful as evolution might have been in creating mate detection mechanisms, adult members of social groups are well-advised to consider contemporary mate indicators in their search for partners. Hrdy (2000) argues that, in their mate choice, women constantly adjust to changing historical conditions in a way that transcends their supposedly innate preferences. She asks why women should have developed a preference for wealthy providers, if wealth usually is only accumulated at older age and when these men then are likely to deliver a higher load of mutations with their sperm that represent a risk to procreation? The author explains such preferences by „patriarchal”2, that is, historical constraints. Historical constraints together with social and natural circumstances probably underlie many so-called „irregularities” in mating preferences, such as formal and informal polyandry, as indicated by the high incidence of misattributed paternity and its inverse correlation with socio-economic status (Baker 1999). Historical conditions are also likely to play a role in the high cross-society or cross-cultural variance of questionnaire data on male and female jealousy (e.g. Bohner and Wänke 2003). Under these conditions a genetically deterministic detector module is likely to fail in promoting valid fitness information about potential mates and the more flexible and adaptive opportunistic mechanism of learning is called for. As argued before, even spiders, doles and many other, not only higher animals are able to learn mate preferences to take changing conditions into account that a purely genetic evolution of deterministic detection modules would fail to embody. Coevolution and trans-individual modularity in culture The „social brain” hypothesis and its evidence attests that Primates evolved their brain’s size and higher cognitive mechanisms rather as a response to the challenge of complex social worlds than of physical environments, highlighting the importance of

2 The use of the term “patriarchal” in Hrdy’s argument is fine if used as a merely

descriptive term. It would be odd, however, if it were thought as an explanatory term, because then itself would be in need of explanation.


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sociality in biological evolution (e.g. Brothers 1990; Dunbar 1998; Humphrey, 1976). As mentioned before, this development entailed the evolution of a cultural system in the human species, which incorporates the rules necessary for maintaining group cohesion and keeping individual fitness maximisation at the cost of others at bay. Whatever cultural complex resulting from this process we pick out, we will see that its associated behaviours belongs either to the indicator or to the detection class of cognition/behaviours. The goal of indicator behaviour is to maximise the actor’s attractiveness, trustworthiness, etc. while detection needs to discriminate veridical indicators from fake, be it in the mating domain, in the social contract domain or in any other social domain with interdependent behaviours. In the long run, these interdependent adaptations are interlocked in a co-evolutionary process (c.f. Laland 1994). More generally, Voestermans and Baerveldt (2000) argue for conceiving human thinking and behaviour in an evolutionary perspective not as the product of single brains but as the outcome of the consensual coordination of interacting experiencers, which define consensual domains (cf. Singer, 1999). Research on detector systems in a culture, hence, depends on the matching indicator system and, vice versa, every study on indicators depends on a specifically tuned detector system. The indispensable interdependence among the systems affords the question whether the involved mechanisms can and should be treated as separate entities on the individual level or as a modular structure on the trans-individual, that is, population level. A trans-individual module would not be conceived as a functionally delimited neural structure located in a single mind. Instead it would be (a) a functionally engineered adaptive social mechanism (b) whose functional components are distributed across individuals, (c) who are linked by a signalling and communication system, (d) which covers a cultural domain of cognition and behaviour that is functionally relatively autonomous with regard to other cultural domains, and (e) which can be decomposed into at least two coevolved individual detector-indicator mechanisms. We suggest transindividual modules as being a necessary complement to individual modularity on the level of populations and in domains where individuals interact in the interest of their own fitness


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and where this fitness depends on the behaviour of other individuals in the population. For example, in the case of courtship and mating it is not the behaviour of one, but the coordinated interaction of two heterosexual partners, which figures as the behavioural unit of biological selection in the most fundamental sense, that is, to result or not to result in fit offspring. Likewise, intra-sex and cross-sex cooperation in Primates are transindividual patterns of behaviour that secure more gains than costs for most participants (Key & Aiello, 1999). For these results to occur, the entire cultural and symbolic „machine”—including moral control—of the mate selection complex counts as a focus of selection. The approximately 35,000 years of symbolic cultural expression with their 2,000 or more generations of mankind are probably enough to count as a time-span in which the culturally shaped complex of mate-selection can have played a role in human evolution. Even if the means available to stone-age people for enhancing mate-indicator traits were rather restricted compared to modern possibilities, certain strategic handicaps are likely to have been employed (such as cosmetic body ornament, adornment and mutilation, symbolic breast and penis enlargement, etc.) that have an impact on mate detection behaviour and whose veridical detection was a key to increased mutual fitness (cf. Laland 1994, 2002). In the same vein courtship may very well be the biological source of much of cultural production in the arts, music and literature where males during their young adulthood, that is in the age of high competition for females, produce overwhelmingly more than women of all ages. The arts, then, can be conceived as a cultural outlet for courtship displaying outstanding strategic handicaps as an indicator of the artist’s fitness (Miller, 1999).3 Another example is Hamilton’s (1963) argument of inclusive fitness, where altruism

3 Although, of course, for being taken as a valid indicator today, it would still be necessary

to show that productive artists are procreating more successfully than their less gifted conspecifics.


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towards a kin helps to promote part of the altruist’s genome. The altruist’s detection and the kin’s efforts to be detected as such must match in a veridical way to produce the adaptive outcome (e.g. Porter, 1987; Reeve, 1998). In the same vein, Humphrey’s (1997) extension of Hamilton’s theory makes it plausible that altruistic behaviour towards altruistically minded non-kin promotes the genes of a shared trait for „behaving altruistically to others who share this trait”. In co-operative domains natural selection is holistic in selecting those individuals whose interaction with others was adaptive not only for themselves, but also for others through a veridical match between detecting and indicating. In all examples the transindividual mechanism—or trans-individual social module—of indicator/detection match is the focus of a social domain and of a co-evolutionary link extending modular thinking to the population level. Conclusion: An evolutionary role for culturally organised domains So far we have argued that evolutionary processes are likely to have embodied learning mechanisms in mental functioning that exploit the fitness related information that is—under natural conditions—likely to be present during particular periods of ontogeny. We have further argued that culture embodies biologically relevant detector-indicator systems and regulates respective domains to a high degree. From this the question arises, whether it could be one of the evolutionary roles of culture to provide a ritual framework for some biologically relevant domains that is capable of securing conditions where the “innate school masters” can fulfil their task. If, as Miller (1999) argues, cultural production is sexually selected as a domain of primarily male fitness display and if cultural expression is highly variant cross-culturally and historically, then young humans even before puberty need institutionalised frames where to attain or update the operational content of their detector systems. As argued before, rapidly changing conditions presuppose opportunities to imprint or learn the contemporary target set of fitness indicators. Of these, on one hand, the same-sex version is to be taken as a model for one’s own display behaviour and, on the other hand, the


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opposite sex version to determine the operational content of one’s detector module. There the prime task is obviously to learn to avoid fake and inflated fitness display made possible by clothing fashion, cosmetics and other locally fashionable adornments as well as other culturally embedded strategic handicaps. The world over, child rearing practices provide ample opportunity for such learning. Narratives, story telling, gossiping and fairy tales—in modern times conveyed through television and other media—transport templates for social and procreational success and warn against free-riders and crooks. Games and playful imitation of adult behaviour are grounds to develop and practice future courtship. Family arrangements where children are raised in the presence of close kin and particularly parents, provide models of people who already proved their fitness. Places where children and adolescents meet, be it a Kinder garden, primary school, the village square, bars or dance halls are frequently institutionalised for the ritual encounter with the same and opposite sex. At a certain age, more or less secretive same-sex alliances and bands encourage the mutual exchange of experiences. All these cultural practices are institutional enactments of the contemporary social representations of what it is to lead a socially and biologically successful adult life. They furnish information that could never be genetically encoded in detector modules to fit highly variable domains. By doing this, cultural practices dependably mimic—in a more general sense—Lorenz’ (1965) “general biological situation [which] guarantees that the right kind of experience sets in at the right moment” by creating social situations that give a reliable opportunity to optimise the operational content of the modules that are fitness relevant for a species’ individuals. At the end it must be said that “the essential role of subtle social and cultural process in human evolution has been massively underestimated by those who merely focus on selfish gene concepts as opposed to individuals and dyads as the true vehicles of evolution” (Panksepp & Panksepp, 2001, p. 58). By extending the modularity concept to include trans-individual concertation in behaviour and cognition, by allowing biologically


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provided learning mechanisms to shape and/or modify individuals’ domain specific modular content and by identifying cultural domains as an extension of natural opportunities to maximise detector-environment fit could be a step toward a more thorough understanding of human functioning in a science that integrates biological and social science theorising beyond short-sighted disciplinary boundaries (cf. Caporael, 2001), even if its theories would not be easily verifyable (cf. Conway & Schaller, 2002).4 For both, the social sciences and a biologically inspired psychology this means to abandon the ultimately wrong conviction that learning is cultural and implies a blank slate and innateness biological implying strong genetic determinism. Learning is an indispensable part of innate mechanisms and itself genetically given. Culture is a continuation of natural development by means that evolution put at mankind’s disposal.

4 Note that cognitive science, which has been leading in discussing the issue of modularity

up to now, might be of little use in an approach that includes collective level and behavioural phenomena because of its exclusive interest in cognition.


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