Behavior and the Brain: Mediation of Acquired Skills

Abstract

In this article, we employ a systems approach that crosses three levels of analysis—neurophysiology, psychology, and anthropology—to investigate the relationship between childhood experiences and adult skills. Our hypothesis is that early learning situations can result in neural entrainments, that have psychological consequences, some of which can later be reflected in a constellation of adult skills. This model can account for an association of adult behaviors that would otherwise resist explanation. In support of our model, we present both quantitative data resulting from treatments of ethnographic evidence contained in the Human Relations Area Files, and qualitative evidence abstracted from that source and from additional ethnographies.

Neuroanthropology and Its Applications: An Introduction

“…The central nervous system integrates the body and brain and sensory systems and the environment, and mediates our interactions with each other. It guides our reactions to and anticipations of social life (Rilling and Sanfey 2011), underwrites our comprehension of symbolic systems (Deacon 1997), and allows the acquisition of skills and habit formation (Downey 2010; Raybeck and Ngo 2011; Roepstorff et al 2010). The nervous system brings together consciousness with a host of non‐ and semiconscious activity that controls the autonomic systems, including cardiovascular functioning, management of hormones, and growth and sexual development, and through development, comes to differently embody social position, gender, race, and other crucial dimensions of experience (Chiao 2010; Gravlee 2009; Hertzman and Boyce 2010; Worthman et al 2010).…”

“…Similarly, a view of the mind as a set of encapsulated modules pieced together over our species’ evolution—a model used in some strains of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science—increasingly does not match up with data from a wide range of domains, including such diverse research areas as skill acquisition (Downey 2010; Raybeck and Ngo 2011), recovery from brain injury (Doidge 2007), language (Christiansen and Chater 2008; Evans and Levinson 2009), mental calculation (Cantlon and Brannon 2006; Hanakawa et al 2003; Tang et al 2006), sensory substitution in the blind and deaf (Downey 2012; Thaler et al 2011), and even parenting by women and men (Hrdy 2000; Gettler et al 2011). This research shows that developmental dynamics lead brains to “modularize” as they mature, and may even produce—in most cases—reliable patterns of particular functions localizing in one region of the brain.…”

“…The articles in this issue demonstrate the combination of theory and application at the core of this emerging area of scholarship, focusing specifically on work in sociocultural arenas, mental and behavioral health, and political‐economic influences on human functioning. This special issue together with a new edited volume (Lende and Downey 2012), indicate how rapidly this field is growing (see also Campbell and Garcia 2009; Domínguez et al 2010; Northoff 2010; Raybeck and Ngo 2011; Reyna 2012a; Roepstorff et al 2010; Seligman and Brown 2010). 1 We are particularly excited that applied work is playing a formative role in the early stages of neuroanthropological thought.…”