Predator–prey interactions as drivers of cognitive evolution

With the continuous expansion of user scale on social media platforms, WeChat Moments, as a core social scene for Chinese users, has become a key issue in privacy management and user experience optimization due to the dynamic monitoring of interface blocking behavior and the analysis of generational differences. Current research faces three limitations: Firstly, traditional object detection techniques struggle to meet the real-time requirements of dynamic interface operations, especially in the detection of small targets, resulting in significant accuracy losses. Secondly, existing behavior analysis methods rely on log statistics and questionnaire surveys, lacking the ability to model multimodal interactive behavior in both time and space. Thirdly, user portrait construction is mostly based on static attribute classification, failing to effectively capture the dynamic differences in privacy strategy selection among generational groups. To address these challenges, this study proposes a multimodal collaborative analysis framework that integrates an improved YOLOv5 architecture with dynamic portrait generation. At the methodological level, a three-level collaborative computing architecture is designed. A lightweight YOLOv5-GhostNet model is deployed on mobile devices, achieving cross-modal feature decoupling of text, image, and video blocking behavior through a multi-scale dilated convolution pyramid and dynamic weight fusion mechanism. The detection accuracy reaches 93.2%, an improvement of 8.1% over the baseline model. Secondly, a dynamic threshold algorithm with composite elastic windows is proposed, combining event density perception and dual attenuation factors to reduce the false trigger rate to 4.2%, while simultaneously optimizing the real-time response delay to 105ms. Furthermore, an orthogonal constrained multimodal fusion strategy is introduced, utilizing KL divergence feature selection and an XGBoost clustering model to construct generational sensitive behavior fingerprints. This reveals behavioral patterns such as Generation Z users preferring fine-grained permission control (58.3% partial visibility) and low complexity in operation paths (single session duration of 1.5s), forming a significant differentiation from Generation X users' dominant strategy of complete blocking (68.7%). Experiments show that the system maintains a false trigger rate of only 5.1% under adversarial attack scenarios and maintains a clustering accuracy of 83.4% even with 30% data loss. The research conclusion points out that a technical path based on dynamic feature optimization and spatiotemporal correlation modeling can effectively break through the real-time bottleneck of social interface behavior analysis. The generation of generational portraits requires the integration of cross-modal semantic decoupling and incremental learning mechanisms to cope with the coupled effects of user cognitive evolution and system iteration. This achievement provides theoretical support and technical paradigms for the optimization of privacy management strategies on social platforms. Its lightweight architecture design (model parameter count of 1.2M) and multimodal decoupling method have universal reference value for intelligent human-computer interaction systems.

Spatial memory is a fundamental cognitive process that allows animals to navigate and interact with their environment effectively. While extensively studied in mammals and birds, the mechanisms underlying spatial cognition in reptiles remain less understood. In this study, we investigated spatial learning and the influence of behavioural lateralization in the common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis). We examined whether lizards could develop short-term spatial memory and whether lateralization affected their navigation in a complex maze. Experimental lizards received 3 days of training without reinforcement, while control lizards had no prior experience. We found that trained lizards learnt to navigate the maze rapidly, reaching a goal shelter faster and more reliably than controls. Additionally, strongly lateralized individuals took longer to reach the goal during training, but this did not impair escape performance once the route had been learned. Our study reports novel evidence on the role of lateralization during spatial exploration in lizards. Lateralization is hypothesized to enhance information processing, but our data suggest no benefit or cost of lateralization after a route was learnt. Our study contributes to a broader understanding of cognitive evolution across vertebrates and emphasizes the importance of reptiles as models for comparative cognition research.

Airport digital transformation is commonly approached through technological integration and data-driven optimization, yet such perspectives provide limited insight into system-level reasoning and governance. This paper introduces the cognitive airport paradigm (CAP) as a mathematically grounded framework that models the airport as a domain-specific cognitive digital twin within a complex aviation ecosystem. Methodologically, the study follows a conceptual–analytical and design-science research approach, combining system analysis, conceptual modeling, ontology engineering, and formal mathematical representation of cognitive transitions and governance constraints. CAP represents airport cognition as an explicit state space characterized by cognitive maturity, governance integrity, and semantic stability. Analytical reasoning, adaptive learning, and orchestration mechanisms are formalized through instrument dominance profiles and cognitive performance functionals, enabling analytical comparison of airport configurations and identification of cognitive regimes. The results include (i) a formalization of airports as cognitive digital twins with measurable cognitive and governance properties; (ii) quantitative indices such as the cognitive readiness index, governance integrity index, and ethical alignment coefficient supporting structured evaluation of airport cognitive maturity; and (iii) illustrative expert-based parameterizations and a geometric interpretation in a cognitive simplex demonstrating that governance-oriented orchestration stabilizes airport cognition under increasing system complexity. Airport development is interpreted as continuous cognitive evolution rather than discrete stages of digitalization. The paper further proposes a cognitive roadmap for guiding airport evolution through structured cognitive rebalancing. The framework contributes to the theoretical foundations of cognitive digital twins and is transferable to other safety-critical and institutionally governed socio-technical systems.

Chemical identification of adhesive remains on prehistoric stone tools is of great interest for archaeologists, as the residues contain interesting information on tool use and the exploitation of natural resources by hominins. Adhesives were used to form a wrapping around the stone tool to protect the hand from the sharp edges and improve grip, or to secure a handle out of organic material to the stone tool. This invention, of adding a handle to a stone tool, marks a fundamental change in prehistoric technology. Adhesives can be manufactured from readily available exudates, like pine resin, but could also be man-made, in the case of birch tar that is obtained by dry distillation of birch bark. The glueing properties of the adhesives could be enhanced with the addition of an additive (e.g. charcoal, ochre, beeswax). Given that adhesive manufacture is considered to indicate planning abilities and complex thought, its identification in archaeological assemblages is important for understanding the evolution of human cognition. However, given long-term burial, organic residues on stone tools are generally significantly degraded, which raises numerous chemical challenges and interpretative difficulties that need to be tackled through close collaboration between archaeologists and chemists. Without this interaction between two vastly different research fields, studies can suffer from an overinterpretation of analytical data or a lack of understanding of the archaeological context. This review discusses the main pitfalls encountered in the chemical analysis of prehistoric adhesives and offers analytical recommendations to avoid them. Applying the analytical practices as proposed here will increase the reliability and credibility of the analytical results and allow a strong chemical foundation for the archaeological interpretations. The main focus is on the use of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry for the chemical identification of prehistoric adhesives; however, other commonly used analytical techniques are also briefly discussed.

Documenting the extent of social knowledge across primates is critical to understanding the evolution of complex social cognition. While decades of field and experimental research have explored the depth and breadth of social knowledge in catarrhine primates, comparable insights into platyrrhines remain limited. This review synthesizes the current state of knowledge about social cognition in platyrrhine monkeys-a socially, behaviorally, and ecologically highly diverse taxa-integrating observational and experimental work in both field and captive studies to evaluate evidence across four key domains: individual and intergroup recognition, kinship, dominance, and transient social relationships. We assess the presence of egocentric, allocentric, and triadic awareness within each domain, using these frameworks to interpret behavioral data from across the platyrrhine radiation. Although direct tests of social knowledge are rare, emerging evidence from all platyrrhine subfamilies suggests that complex social cognition-such as recognition of third-party relationships and strategic coalition formation-is not exclusive to catarrhines. Playback experiments, relationship-based decision-making, and long-term observational studies indicate that some platyrrhines possess sophisticated social knowledge, though its expression varies with social structure and ecological context. We highlight methodological challenges specific to arboreal taxa and propose future research directions, including the use of emerging technologies and experimental designs tailored to the behavioral ecology of platyrrhines. Our review reveals a field still in its early stages, but one with significant potential to reshape comparative frameworks in primate cognition. By advancing research in underrepresented taxa, we can refine theories of cognitive evolution and better understand the convergent and divergent trajectories of primate social intelligence.

Adaptive job recrafting of gig workers: Concept, measurement, and validation of its impact on job satisfaction.

Insights into the Cognitive Evolution of Genus Homo: Eye-Tracking Analysis of Stone Tool Recognition in Trained versus Novice Modern Humans

As studies aimed at clarifying the evolution of cognition in animals accumulate, some non-human primates are widely considered to be the most cognitively advanced species after humans. Cognitive processes related to social interaction and emotional responsiveness may also play a role in primates' responses to death and dying; however, how social complexity might influence animals' understanding of death remains under-explored. Here, we connect evolutionary development and social systems to death cognition, and establish a five-dimensional framework for comparative purposes, based on existing thanatological studies. Of 135 species included in the analysis, dolphins, elephants and chimpanzees-species with highly complex societies-were shown to have a more advanced death understanding than other taxonomically close species. Focusing on a multilevel society primate, the golden snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus roxellana), we present five death-related case studies involving behavioral, physiological, and social responses to dead conspecifics. Despite evolving on an older phylogenetic branch than that leading to modern hominids, these monkeys display prolonged dead-infant carrying, care/caretaking, silence and compassion, and revisitation of corpses at levels comparable to those seen in chimpanzees, more than other, non-multilevel society primates. In addition to introducing a novel approach to the comparative and evolutionary study of death-related behavior, we suggest that social complexity can exert a modulatory influence on phylogenetic factors that constrain the baseline cognitive architecture, allowing more nuanced expressions of death cognition.

This paper examines the cognitive stylistic perspectives of Arya Stark’s mental models construction in the series of A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF). It investigates how the linguistic and stylistic cues externalize Arya’s evolving awareness, identity, and morality. Drawing on frameworks from cognitive stylistics, particularly Stockwell’s (2020) model of mind-modelling and Johnson-Laird’s (1980) theory of mental models, the analysis investigates Arya’s chapters across five novels of the series. The paper identifies how the cognitive representations of selfhood are constructed, revised, updated, and disrupted through language, narrative perspectives, and embodied metaphors. This is accomplished through attentive reading and cognitive stylistic analysis. The results demonstrate that Arya’s cognitive trajectory progresses from a conflict schema of gender and identity to adaptive survival cognition and moral reconstruction. Each stage of her cognitive development is marked by a particular mental model, such as the mental model of “sword identity, wolf assassin, and no one” identities. The constructed mental models reveal a deep cognitive interplay among past trauma, disguise, and self-awareness. The analysis shows that Martin’s linguistic style and narrative framing guide readers to engage in complex mind-reading processes that mirror Arya’s internal shift in self-perception. The constructed mental models demonstrate that Arya’s cognitive evolution reflects the integration of identity, morality, and survival in narrative cognition, underscoring the role of fiction as a simulation of human mental life. The findings contribute to cognitive stylistic scholarship by demonstrating how readers’ construction of mental models parallels a character's evolving consciousness, offering insight into the cognitive realism and emotional depths of Martin’s narrative craft.

Taking the history of English travel novels as the research object, this paper analyzes the relationship between the development of English travel literature and cognitive evolution from the perspectives of cognitive science theory, spatial theory and evolutionary theory, and constructs a set of cognitive evolution model throughout the history of English travel literature. This model reveals the deep relationship between the internal spatial representation of the text and human cognitive mechanism, and understands the evolution of the history of English travel novels as a cultural map from "embodied existence" to "cognitive evolution", covering embodied practice, social mind, psychological internalization and planetary scale expansion. By analyzing Canterbury Tales, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels and other works, this paper points out that travel novels not only record the cognitive changes of human beings in space, self and ‘other’, but also continuously push the boundary between literature and cultural thinking to the future, thus providing a new research path for understanding the dynamic relationship between literature and human cognitive system.

This paper discusses how media narratives translate miracles into scientificized “unknowns” in two cultural traditions. Ancient myths in two cultural traditions made the incomprehensible divine will–Nuwa’s creation of humanity, Pangu’s separation of heaven and earth, Genesis, and Prometheus?thus locating mystery in the position of sacred authority. In contemporary techno-narratives Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, Luc Besson’s Lucy, and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar made the incomprehensible higher-dimensional physics or cognitive evolution, thus locating awe in the position of sacred authority, while also placing it in the position of scientific authority. Analysis demonstrates that atheism’s denial of the unknown renders it a form of idealism; true materialism is in the position of humble recognition of what is unknown.

A psychological model of the cognitive processes regulating exploratory behavior in animals.

This study presents the first large‐scale empirical analysis of how ghosts and spirits were debated during China's early twentieth‐century secular transformation. Using a novel dataset of over 2000 digitized texts—including newspapers, periodicals, and essays from 1890 to 1949—we combine close reading, AI‐assisted annotation, and statistical modeling to examine rhetorical strategies surrounding supernatural belief. We find a clear asymmetry: critics emphasized theoretical arguments (e.g., science, rationality, education), while defenders relied more on empirical or anecdotal evidence. These patterns reflect broader institutional and cognitive shifts, including the rise of science as a dominant epistemology and the increasing use of psychological explanations to pathologize belief. While reformist elites often cast ghost belief as superstition, we also identify agnostic, cautious, and reconciliatory positions. By situating these debates within the broader context of Chinese cultural modernization, the study sheds new light on how supernatural belief became a contested domain and offers fresh tools for studying the cultural evolution of religious cognition.

The article is devoted to understanding the phenomenon of artificial intelligence and its role in the development of highly developed information societies, their scientific, educational and other systems, and humanity as a whole. Artificial intelligence is considered as a new technology that has emerged in response to the global challenges of the digital age and has an extremely large potential to influence all aspects of human life. Attention is drawn to the fact that there is currently no unambiguous opinion of the academic community on the nature and functionality of artificial intelligence, and the opinions of experts are mainly polarized around two positions: 1) it is a meta-tool created by humanity that will lead humanity onto the path of evolution through the flowering of collective intelligence; 2) it is a rather dangerous tool that poses a hidden threat and is capable of causing the involutional development of humanity, directing it onto the path of selfish economy of mental effort, intellectual deactivation, and cognitive simplification. It is shown that the strategy of turning to artificial intelligence is of great importance in humanity's choice of an evolutionary or involutionary path of its development: a binary strategy of selfish use as a «tool for oneself» or a strategy of self-development through appeal to the collective mind. These strategies are based on two basic explanatory paradigms – binary («consciousness – matter») and trinitarian, or the paradigm of self-development («consciousness – carrier of consciousness – matter»). It is argued that the binary paradigm fails to adequately assess the place of artificial intelligence in the evolution of man and human cognition, reducing the analysis to a technocratic agenda and anthropomorphization of digital technologies. Instead, an alternative approach is proposed in the paradigm of self-development, where artificial intelligence is proposed to be considered as a unique technological opportunity for the creation of alternative models of consciousness, which in the times of the modern technological revolution can become an answer to the global information challenge and the risk of cognitive collapse. Within the self-development paradigm, the carrier of artificial intelligence is not a technical system, but a joint product of a team of developers, who are attributed with the signs of subjectivity and intelligence, since this product provides an opportunity to solve intellectual problems of the highest level of complexity. As for the subjectivity attributed to artificial intelligence, in the opinion of the authors of the article it is nothing more than a reflection of the user's own subjectivity, or «mirror subjectivity». Thus, artificial intelligence is understood not as independent of the subject, such as is exclusively a product of high technology, but as a product of the collective activity of developers and users and a catalyst for further joint intellectual activity. Unlike the binary methodology, where natural and artificial intelligence are in opposition to each other, in the methodology of self-development, the main ones are the individual and collective subjects of knowledge, which interact in the technological space of artificial intelligence, which gives grounds to speak of the coevolution of collective intelligence and technology in the name of the evolution of humanity on humanistic principles.

From cognitive gap to innovation synergy: public cognitive evolution law and implications in the new unmanned-driven business model

This study aims to reveal the pedagogical thinking patterns, intuitive orientations toward learning theories, and professional identity formation of prospective Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge (RCMK) teachers by analyzing their cognitive representations of the concept of “learning” through drawing-based visual data. The research is grounded in the assumption that learning is a multilayered experience intertwined with meaning-making, value construction, and identity formation, extending beyond the acquisition of knowledge. In this respect, it is assumed that visual representations, similar to verbal narratives, offer rich and often implicit indicators of how individuals conceptualize learning; therefore, the drawings produced by the participants in response to the prompt “Can you draw learning?” were treated as a qualitative data source for uncovering their mental models. The research was designed qualitatively, employing participant drawings as the data collection tool and applying thematic analysis based on document analysis. The study group consists of first-year prospective RCMK teachers enrolled at the Faculty of Theology, Kırşehir Ahi Evran University. At the beginning of the 2024–2025 academic year, each participant was asked to produce a single drawing representing “learning,” resulting in 70 visual artifacts. Sixteen drawings that did not meet eligibility and interpretability criteria were excluded, and the final analysis was conducted on 54 drawings (analytical dataset, n=54). Following preliminary coding, the coding framework was refined, and thematic classifications were structured under three overarching categories: “Traditional,” “Modern,” and “Hybrid,” with all percentages reported based on the analytical dataset. Bruner’s cognitive representation theory and Kolb’s experiential learning cycle jointly informed the interpretive framework. The findings show that 59.3% of the participants conceptualize learning within a traditional teacher-centered and knowledge-transmission-oriented paradigm; 31.5% adopt hybrid patterns that combine traditional and contemporary indicators; and 9.3% demonstrate a modern approach emphasizing experience, interaction, and contextual sensitivity. Traditional representations predominantly included books, libraries, classroom-board arrangements, and teacher figures, visualizing learning as an accumulative and transmissive process. Modern representations highlighted nature/environment, social interaction, play/collaboration, and everyday life contexts, positioning learning as a multi-actor, affective process that transcends classroom boundaries. Hybrid representations reflected a transitional mindset wherein classical elements such as classrooms and books coexist with technology, collaboration, and experiential motifs, indicating the gradual evolution of pedagogical cognition. The study integrates visual data with descriptive quantitative indicators (frequency–percentage) and in-depth content-symbol analyses, thereby presenting an intensive mixed-qualitative thematic approach. Codes, themes, and decision rules were connected to an audit trail; boundary cases and operational definitions were refined through peer debriefing, thus enhancing credibility, dependability, and confirmability. Ethical approvals were secured, informed consent was obtained, and all visual materials were anonymized and used solely for scientific purposes. Overall, the results demonstrate that while text- and teacher-centered assumptions remain dominant in the mental learning maps of prospective teachers, hybrid representations indicate a meaningful potential for renewal through the incorporation of interaction, nature/context, collaboration, and technology. The findings emphasize the need to systematically structure experiential, visual, and creative activities (e.g., metaphor/drawing workshops, rubric-based drawing analysis, micro-teaching modules aligned with Kolb’s cycle) within teacher education. The study acknowledges its limitations, including a homogeneous sample from a single institution and context-dependent interpretations of visual data; transferability rather than generalizability is emphasized. The research ultimately contributes to strengthening the use of visual data in religious education studies, offering both theoretical implications and practical insights for future teacher education design.

Episodic memory involves remembering the what, when, and where components of an event. It has been observed in humans, other vertebrates, and the invertebrate cuttlefish. In clever behavioral experiments, cuttlefish have been shown to have episodic-like memory, where they demonstrate the ability to remember when and where a preferred food source will appear. The present work replicates this behavior with a parsimonious model of episodic memory. To further test this model and explore episodic-like memory, we introduce a predator-prey scenario in which the agent must remember what creatures (e.g. predator, desirable prey, or less desirable prey) appear at a given time and region of the model environment. This simulates similar situations that cuttlefish face in the wild. They will typically hide when predators are in the area, and hunt for prey when available. When the memory model is queried for an action (e.g., hunt or hide), the cuttlefish agent hunts for preferred food, like shrimp, when available, and hides at other times when a predator appears. When the memory model is queried for a place, the cuttlefish agent acts opportunistically, seeking less-preferred food (e.g., crabs) if it is located farther from a predator. These differences show how behavior can be altered depending on how memory is accessed. Querying the model over time might mimic mental time travel, a hallmark of episodic memory. Although developed with cuttlefish in mind, the model shares similarities with the hippocampal indexing theory and captures aspects of vertebrate episodic memory. This suggests that the underlying mechanisms supporting episodic-like behavior in the present model may be an example of convergent cognitive evolution.

In an information-driven society, digital transformation is vital for the survival of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing upon the Job Characteristics Theory and Cognitive Evolution Theory, this study has developed a novel model that incorporates direct, mediating, moderating, and mod-mediating effects to empirically examine an effective workflow and validate the factors (including job-related, personal, and contextual factors) that influence individual innovative behaviour within the digital workplace. Subsequently, employees from three top-ranked media institutions in China were chosen as the research subjects, 392 valid questionnaires were confirmed, and analysis was conducted by SmartPLS 4.0. The results demonstrate the significant influence and predictive role of digital autonomy on the generation of innovative behaviour among employees in the behaviour industry. Intrinsic motivation significantly mediates the relationship between digital autonomy and employee innovative behaviour. The study further substantiated that employees’ perceived organisational innovation climate moderates both (a) the direct association between intrinsic motivation and innovative behaviour, and (b) the indirect pathway linking digital autonomy to innovative behaviour through motivational affections. This study not only proposes a new framework based on existing theories to enrich theoretical exploration but also provides practical insights for industry development, helping to optimise employee innovative behaviour and effectively unleash their potential, thereby promoting corporate innovation and development in the digital era.

Female preference for males with enhanced cognitive abilities has been reported in many species, but it remains unclear which sexual signals reflect such skills. We hypothesized that male dance performance is correlated with cognitive performance, body condition and increased attractiveness in zebra finches (Taeniopygia castanotis). We collected dance behaviours from 164 male displays and assessed male condition, attractiveness and performance in four cognitive tasks: associative learning, motor learning, spatial learning and inhibitory control. Variance in male displays was mainly explained by two independent features: dance duration and dance complexity. Dance duration was not correlated with male cognitive performance, body condition or attractiveness, while dance complexity was significantly linked with body condition and attractiveness and marginally linked with motor learning performance. While our findings suggest that male dance attributes are unlikely to serve as indicators of general cognition in zebra finches, dance complexity might reflect general health and may be used by females as a mate-choice criterion. Despite the need for replication, our findings do not support the idea that intersexual selection based on male dance displays shapes the evolution of general cognition.