The adaptive nature of the human neurocognitive architecture: an alternative model

The model of the human neurocognitive architecture proposed by evolutionary psychologists is based on the presumption that the demands of hunter-gatherer life generated a vast array of cognitive adaptations. Here we present an alternative model. We argue that the problems inherent in the biological markets of ancestral hominids and their mammalian predecessors would have required an adaptively flexible, on-line information-processing system, and would have driven the evolution of a functionally plastic neural substrate, the neocortex, rather than a confederation of evolutionarily prespecified social cognitive adaptations. In alignment with recent neuroscientific evidence, we suggest that human cognitive processes result from the activation of constructed cortical representational networks, which reflect probabilistic relationships between sensory inputs, behavioral responses, and adaptive outcomes. The developmental construction and experiential modification of these networks are mediated by subcortical circuitries that are responsive to the life history regulatory system. As a consequence, these networks are intrinsically adaptively constrained. The theoretical and research implications of this alternative evolutionary model are discussed.