TALK: Jerald Kralik (KAIST - Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)

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Determining the fundamental cognitive abilities underlying human  high-level cognition remains elusive. An examination of the main  activities of our first Homo sapiens ancestors offers a normative  approach. Because shelter building was critical for a nomadic  hunter-gatherer and required comprehension and manipulation of the  knowledge for predicting, controlling and creating, I examined shelter  building. I first conducted a theoretical analysis of the necessary  steps to imagine and then construct a temporary shelter in the African  savanna, including the underlying cognitive abilities to do so. I then  compared the results to a case study of grass-hut building by a  modern-day San tribe community in Botswana, Africa. The analysis  provides a set of core cognitive abilities required for shelter  building, which may represent the core cognition underlying our physical  intelligence. Future examination of the other primary activities of our  first ancestors should help produce a complete list of our fundamental  high-level cognitive abilities.