Abstract
Empirical evidence is reviewed indicating that the extraordinary aspects of the human mind are due to our species’ ability to go beyond simple “dyadic associations” and to process the relations among three items of information simultaneously. Classic explanations of the “triadic” nature of human skills have been advocated by various scholars in the context of the evolution of human cognition. Here I summarize the core processes as found in (i) the syntax of language, (ii) tool-usage, and (iii) joint attention. I then review the triadic foundations of two perceptual phenomena of great importance in human aesthetics: (iv) harmony perception and (v) pictorial depth perception. In all five subfields of human psychology, most previous work has emphasized the recursive, hierarchical complexity of such “higher cognition,” but a strongly reductionist approach indicates that the core mechanisms are triadic. It is concluded that the cognitive skills traditionally considered to be “uniquely” human require three-way associational processing that most non-Primate animal species find difficult or impossible, but all members of Homo sapiens – regardless of small cultural differences – find easy and inherently intriguing.
Highlights
The big psychological question in evolutionary theory remains as perplexing and as unanswered today as in Darwin’s lifetime: How can Homo sapiens be biologically so similar to other animal species and yet cognitively1 so different? In the 21st century, there has been a flood of books and articles on this topic
Triadic Cognition one of the biggest obstacles in evaluating hypotheses concerning the human mind lies in the fact that human cognitive skills have blossomed into such complex behaviors that the “core” cognitive talents are far from obvious
Human beings normally and habitually empathize with other human beings by “reading their minds,” speculating on the other’s motivations, and acting (Tomasello, 1999, 2003; Gomez, 2004; Saxe et al, 2004; Tomasello et al, 2005; Saxe, 2006; Baron-Cohen et al, 2013). The elements of these social interactions have been studied primarily in developmental psychology under the label of “joint attention,” where it is found that, from an early age, human infants follow the parental gaze in search of a topic for interaction
Summary
The big psychological question in evolutionary theory remains as perplexing and as unanswered today as in Darwin’s lifetime: How can Homo sapiens be biologically so similar to other animal species and yet cognitively so different? In the 21st century, there has been a flood of books and articles on this topic. While I am unaware of any academic work that has argued explicitly against the triadic hypothesis, the vast majority of theorizing on the evolution of human cognition does not focus on “triads” – and, in that regard, the present work represents a personal “Opinion” that may or may not withstand the test of time In any case, it may inspire further debate on the topic of “What Makes Us Human.”. There may be other fundamental cognitive realms where human capabilities are qualitatively different (dance, cuisine, sports?), 2The difficulty of defending a thesis concerning the importance of triadic vs dyadic processes is that arguments need to be developed in the most controversial fields concerned with human behavior – where debate is most intense, empirical research is most abundant, and, correspondingly, theoretical stances are most staunchly defended. But the following are well documented in the literature on human evolution
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