Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ethology
Date:         Wed, 30 Dec 1992 20:27:10 EST
From:         Stevan Harnad <harnad@PRINCETON.EDU>
Subject:      Origin of Mind: BBS Call for Book Reviewers
Comments: To: Richard Thorington Am Soc Mammalogists <MNHVZ049@SIVM.BITNET>,
          behavioral ecology group <b-e-group@forager.unl.edu>,
          ethology@finhutc.BITNET, James Ha/Absnet <jcha@u.washington.edu>,
          Morphometrics List <morphmet@cunyvm.BITNET>

Below is the abstract of a book that will be accorded multiple book
review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international,
interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on
important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and
cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or
nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a reviewer
of this book, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for
information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to:

harnad@clarity.princeton.edu  or harnad@pucc.bitnet        or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542  [tel: 609-921-7771]

To help us put together a balanced list of reviewers, please give some
indication of the aspects of the book's subject matter on which you
would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you are selected as a
reviewer. Please also indicate whether or not you already have a
copy of the book.

(If you are selected as reviewer and you do not have a copy, we will
send you one. In replying, please indicate whether or not you will
need a copy of the book if you are selected to review it.)
____________________________________________________________________
                BBS Multiple Book Review of:

                ORIGINS OF THE MODERN MIND:
        THREE STAGES IN THE EVOLUTION OF CULTURE AND COGNITION

                Merlin Donald
                Department of Psychology
                Queen's University
                Kingston, Ontario
                Canada K7L 3N6

        Publisher: Harvard University Press 1991 383 pp.

KEYWORDS: cognition, cultural evolution, distributed representations,
evolution, external memory, human evolution, knowledge, language
origins, mimesis, motor skill, neuropsychology, symbols, working memory.

ABSTRACT: This book proposes a theory of human cognitive evolution,
drawing from paleontology, linguistics, anthropology, cognitive
science, and especially neuropsychology. The properties of humankind's
brain, culture and cognition have co-evolved in a tight loop; the main
event in human evolution has occurred at the cognitive level, however,
mediating change at the anatomical and cultural levels. During the past
two million years humans have passed through three major cognitive
transitions, each of which has left the human mind with a new way of
representing reality and a new form of culture. Modern humans
consequently have three systems of memory representation that were not
available to our closest primate relatives: mimetic skill, language,
and external symbols. These three systems are supported by new types of
"hard" storage devices, two of which (mimetic and linguistic) are
biological, one technological. Full symbolic literacy consists of a
complex of skills for interacting with the external memory system. The
independence of these three uniquely human ways of representing
knowledge is suggested in the way the mind breaks down after brain
injury and confirmed by various other lines of evidence. Each of the
three systems is based on an inventive capacity: and the products of
those capacities--such as languages, symbols, gestures, social rituals
and images--continue to be invented and vetted in the social arena.
Cognitive evolution is not yet complete: the externalization of memory
has altered the actual memory architecture within which humans think.
This is changing the role of biological memory and the way in which the
human brain deploys its resources; it is also changing the form of
modern culture.
______________________________________________________________________
           Information about BBS Multiple Book Reviews

The BBS book review procedure is very similar to the BBS commentary
procedure except that it is the book itself, not a target article, that
is under review. (A Precis summarizing the book co-appears with the
reviews and the Author's Response, to permit BBS readers who have not
read the book to assess the exchange, but the reviews address only the
book, not the Precis.)

Reviewers from the United States will be asked to submit a 1000-word
review of the book by February 15 1993 (the BBS schedule allows one
additional week for non-US and overseas reviewers only, i.e., Feb. 23).

           CONTENT AND STYLE REQUIREMENTS:

Your review should not exceed 1000 words; it should have an overall
title (keyword-indexable and substantive, reflecting the content of
your review).

Three double-spaced hard copies must be received by the deadline.
In addition, an email ascii version would be very helpful in addition
to the hard copies. (If this is not possible, a disk with an ascii
version of the text would also be helpful.)

In addition to the indexable title, the commentary should have your
full name and institutional address, as well as your email address. The
hard copies must be double-spaced.

Please leave ample margins (approx 1 inch).

Always double-space references as well as text.

Make sure all names are spelled correctly, authors are listed in proper
order, and dates are correct so that there is no discrepancy.

BBS's address is:
                     Behavioral and Brain Sciences
                     20 Nassau Street, Room 240
                     Princeton NJ 08542

All contributions will be reviewed. Most are accepted for publication,
but publication cannot be guaranteed. Reviews that are received late or
exceed the length limits also run the risk of not being included in the
first round.

Stevan Harnad
Editor, BBS
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Subject: (no subject given)