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The coevolution of cognition and sociality

Luca G. Hahn Orcid Logo, Andoni S. E. Sergiou Orcid Logo, Josh J. Arbon Orcid Logo, Ines Fuertbauer Orcid Logo, Andrew King Orcid Logo, Alex Thornton Orcid Logo

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Volume: 380, Issue: 1929

Swansea University Authors: Ines Fuertbauer Orcid Logo, Andrew King Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1098/rstb.2024.0110

Abstract

Cognition serves to resolve uncertainty. Living in social groups is widely seen as a source of uncertainty driving cognitive evolution, but sociality can also mitigate sources of uncertainty, reducing the need forcognition. Moreover, social systems are not simply external selection pressures, but ra...

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Published in: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
ISSN: 0962-8436 1471-2970
Published: The Royal Society 2025
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa68338
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Moreover, social systems are not simply external selection pressures, but rather arise from the decisions individuals make regarding who to interact with and how to behave. Thus, an understanding of how and why cognition evolves requires careful consideration of the co-evolutionary feedback loop between cognition and sociality. Here, we adopt ideas from information theory to evaluate how potential sources of uncertainty differ across species and social systems. Whereas cognitive research often focuses on identifying human-like abilities in other animals, we instead emphasise that animals need to make adaptive decisions to navigate socio-ecological trade-offs. These decisions can be viewed as feedback loops between perceiving and acting on information, which shape individuals&#x2019; immediate social interactions, and scale up to generate the structure of societies. 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spelling 2025-07-11T14:39:34.7192338 v2 68338 2024-11-26 The coevolution of cognition and sociality f682ec95fa97c4fabb57dc098a9fdaaa 0000-0003-1404-6280 Ines Fuertbauer Ines Fuertbauer true false cc115b4bc4672840f960acc1cb078642 0000-0002-6870-9767 Andrew King Andrew King true false 2024-11-26 BGPS Cognition serves to resolve uncertainty. Living in social groups is widely seen as a source of uncertainty driving cognitive evolution, but sociality can also mitigate sources of uncertainty, reducing the need forcognition. Moreover, social systems are not simply external selection pressures, but rather arise from the decisions individuals make regarding who to interact with and how to behave. Thus, an understanding of how and why cognition evolves requires careful consideration of the co-evolutionary feedback loop between cognition and sociality. Here, we adopt ideas from information theory to evaluate how potential sources of uncertainty differ across species and social systems. Whereas cognitive research often focuses on identifying human-like abilities in other animals, we instead emphasise that animals need to make adaptive decisions to navigate socio-ecological trade-offs. These decisions can be viewed as feedback loops between perceiving and acting on information, which shape individuals’ immediate social interactions, and scale up to generate the structure of societies. Emerging group-level characteristics such as social structure, communication networks, and culture in turn produce the context in which decisions are made and so shape selection on the underlying cognitive processes. Thus, minds shape societies and societies shape minds. Journal Article Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 380 1929 The Royal Society 0962-8436 1471-2970 cognition, coevolutionary feedback loop, information, sociality, socio-ecological trade-off, uncertainty 26 6 2025 2025-06-26 10.1098/rstb.2024.0110 COLLEGE NANME Biosciences Geography and Physics School COLLEGE CODE BGPS Swansea University Another institution paid the OA fee L.G.H. was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council-funded South West Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP3: BB/T008741/1). A.T. was supported by a Leverhulme Trust grant (RGP-2020-170). 2025-07-11T14:39:34.7192338 2024-11-26T09:13:41.9518935 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences Luca G. Hahn 0000-0002-5187-1039 1 Andoni S. E. Sergiou 0000-0002-8663-2791 2 Josh J. Arbon 0000-0002-8509-4362 3 Ines Fuertbauer 0000-0003-1404-6280 4 Andrew King 0000-0002-6870-9767 5 Alex Thornton 0000-0002-1607-2047 6 68338__34746__127d9fccbbbf4592bc072b509a510306.pdf 68338.VoR.pdf 2025-07-11T14:34:19.8902097 Output 677514 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2025 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title The coevolution of cognition and sociality
spellingShingle The coevolution of cognition and sociality
Ines Fuertbauer
Andrew King
title_short The coevolution of cognition and sociality
title_full The coevolution of cognition and sociality
title_fullStr The coevolution of cognition and sociality
title_full_unstemmed The coevolution of cognition and sociality
title_sort The coevolution of cognition and sociality
author_id_str_mv f682ec95fa97c4fabb57dc098a9fdaaa
cc115b4bc4672840f960acc1cb078642
author_id_fullname_str_mv f682ec95fa97c4fabb57dc098a9fdaaa_***_Ines Fuertbauer
cc115b4bc4672840f960acc1cb078642_***_Andrew King
author Ines Fuertbauer
Andrew King
author2 Luca G. Hahn
Andoni S. E. Sergiou
Josh J. Arbon
Ines Fuertbauer
Andrew King
Alex Thornton
format Journal article
container_title Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
container_volume 380
container_issue 1929
publishDate 2025
institution Swansea University
issn 0962-8436
1471-2970
doi_str_mv 10.1098/rstb.2024.0110
publisher The Royal Society
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
document_store_str 1
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description Cognition serves to resolve uncertainty. Living in social groups is widely seen as a source of uncertainty driving cognitive evolution, but sociality can also mitigate sources of uncertainty, reducing the need forcognition. Moreover, social systems are not simply external selection pressures, but rather arise from the decisions individuals make regarding who to interact with and how to behave. Thus, an understanding of how and why cognition evolves requires careful consideration of the co-evolutionary feedback loop between cognition and sociality. Here, we adopt ideas from information theory to evaluate how potential sources of uncertainty differ across species and social systems. Whereas cognitive research often focuses on identifying human-like abilities in other animals, we instead emphasise that animals need to make adaptive decisions to navigate socio-ecological trade-offs. These decisions can be viewed as feedback loops between perceiving and acting on information, which shape individuals’ immediate social interactions, and scale up to generate the structure of societies. Emerging group-level characteristics such as social structure, communication networks, and culture in turn produce the context in which decisions are made and so shape selection on the underlying cognitive processes. Thus, minds shape societies and societies shape minds.
published_date 2025-06-26T05:24:01Z
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