Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 15, 2026

Assessing the Multiple Dimensions of Engagement to Characterize Learning: A Neurophysiological Perspective
Published on: July 1, 2015
Evolutionary psychology: new perspectives on cognition and motivation
1Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences and Center for Evolutionary Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA. cosmides@psych.ucsb.edu
Abstract:
Evolutionary psychology is the second wave of the cognitive revolution. The first wave focused on computational processes that generate knowledge about the world: perception, attention, categorization, reasoning, learning, and memory. The second wave views the brain as composed of evolved computational systems, engineered by natural selection to use information to adaptively regulate physiology and behavior. This shift in focus--from knowledge acquisition to the adaptive regulation of behavior--provides new ways of thinking about every topic in psychology. It suggests a mind populated by a large number of adaptive specializations, each equipped with content-rich representations, concepts, inference systems, and regulatory variables, which are functionally organized to solve the complex problems of survival and reproduction encountered by the ancestral hunter-gatherers from whom we are descended. We present recent empirical examples that illustrate how this approach has been used to discover new features of attention, categorization, reasoning, learning, emotion, and motivation.
More Related Videos
09:43A Fully Automated Rodent Conditioning Protocol for Sensorimotor Integration and Cognitive Control Experiments
Published on: April 15, 2014
06:42Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses
Published on: September 28, 2018
Related Concept Videos
Evolutionary Psychology
Criticisms of the Evolutionary Perspective
Evolutionary psychology provides one explanation for these findings, suggesting...
Cognitivism
Previously dominated by behaviorism, which prioritized observable behaviors and largely ignored mental processes, psychology transformed in the 1950s. Cognitive psychologists argue that understanding how we think and process information is...
Contemporary Psychology
Biopsychology
Biopsychology, also known as biological psychology or behavioral neuroscience, focuses on the biological underpinnings of behavior and mental processes. It...
Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition
Introduction to Motivation and Emotion