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This edited collection presents an agenda for the interdisciplinary study of anthropology and cognitive science. It consists of fifteen chapters written by international experts on the relationship between culture and cognition. This volume is unique in that it includes both inside (i.e., shared mental templates) and outside (i.e., extended, embedded, enactive and ecological) theories of cognition. The contributors come from the diverse disciplinary fields of anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, and cognitive science. The aim is to investigate the mental production of shared knowledge, goals, and desires around which human social life revolves. The coverage spans cultural and linguistic evolution, the importance of local histories, and the role of cultural models to understand and interact with the world.
Drawing on cultural model theory, this volume is an invaluable resource for linguists, cognitive scientists, anthropologists, and other social scientists willing to explore and understand how the sharedness of culture can bond us all together across relative cultural differences and (mis)perceived divisions.
List of contents
1. Introduction. Giovanni Bennardo, Victor C. De Munck, and Stephen Chrisomalis.- Part 1 - Cultural Model Theory.- 2. Cultural Models Theory: The Mental Life of Culture - Giovanni Bennardo.- 3. Affordances, Culture, and the Self: Constituting a New Cognitive-Behavioral Paradigm - Victor de Munck.- 4. Cultural Models: A Constructed Reality - Dwight Read.- Part 2. Defining Cultural Models.- 5. What is (and is not) a Cultural Model - Claudia Strauss.- 6. Cultural Models are Intrinsically Normative - Renatas Berniunas.- 7. Thinking while Doing: Active Cognition in Bartending - John Gatewood.- Part 3. Cultural Consensus Theory.- 8. Validating Cultural Models with Cultural Consensus Theory - Susan C. Weller, Jeff Johnson, and William Dressler.- 9. Measuring Shared Collective Knowledge and Belief Systems - Kateryna Maltseva.- 10. Cultural Consonance: Extending Cultural Consensus Theory - William Dressler.- Part4. Cultural Models: Evolution, History, and Development.- 11. Culture as Cognitive Technology: An Evolutionary Perspective - Steven C. Levinson.- 12. Products, not Prerequisites: The Becoming of Cultural Models - Miriam Haidle.- 13. Relying on Grandma's Mushrooms: How Cultural Models Affect Appraisals of Edibility - Andrea Bender and Åge Oterhals.- 14. Learning Moral Norms: "Cultural Models" in Children's Eyes - Jing Xu.- Part 5. Cultural Models and Language.- 15. The Linguistic Encoding and Verification of Cultural Models - Stephen Chrisomalis.- 16. Cultural Concepts of Person and Social Relationships in Tongan Language and Cultural Practices - Svenia Völkel.- 17. Conclusion - Victor C. de Munck.
About the author
Giovanni Bennardo is a Board of Trustees Professor and Distinguished Research Professor in the department of Anthropology and the Cognitive Science Initiative at Northern Illinois University, USA. His research interests focus on linguistic, psychological, and anthropological perspectives to cognitive science. With six book publications to his credit, he also edited two special issues for
World Cultures and
Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science.
Victor de Munck is a Professor of Anthropology at Vilnius University, Lithuania. His current research focuses on changes in love, marriage, and family cultural models as they affect decisions to marry and have children. He is also interested in the effect of technology on these important modes of intimacy as they have been central to the reproduction and maintenance of the species and the idea of a meaningful life. This project has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania, Grant S-MIP-21-47 awarded to Victor C. de Munck (P-MIP-21-258).
Stephen Chrisomalis is a Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit, USA. His previous books include
Numerical Notation: A Comparative History (Cambridge, 2010),
Human Expeditions: Inspired by Bruce Trigger (Toronto, 2013), and
Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition, and History (MIT, 2020). He is President of the Society of Anthropological Sciences, a section of the American Anthropological Association.
