Play is an adaptation of human brain evolution and development, and the foundation of human intelligence
Dr. Aaron Blaisdell, UCLA
About the seminar
The importance of play in human childhood is finally receiving serious recognition in both the academic community and more broadly in society. What is human play for? I marshal evidence supporting an evolutionary framework that play is a specialized adaptation designed to guide proper cognitive development in human children. In support, I review evidence from anthropology, human evolution, genetics, developmental biology, and psychology placing play as a central behavioral mechanism of human brain and cognitive development. Human evolution documents the evolutionary trends of increased brain size and tool complexity in genus Homo. These changes occurred in response to a shift in human life strategy of increased carnivory that contrasts markedly with the more plant-based ecology of the African great apes. Human brain development (Homo sapiens) is marked by strong heterochronic shifts relative to other primates, including our closest extant relative, the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). Critical gene duplication events are tied to these heterochronic changes in brain development. These gene-developmental changes, in turn, are accompanied by the extension of stages of childhood found in other great apes as well as the emergence of a completely new stage found only in humans. The protracted and protected ontogenetic niche of human childhood provides the context for play to shape brain and cognitive development. Early in childhood, children already display sophisticated reasoning processes, akin to scientific reasoning, and play is the key behavior that guides brain and intellectual development. The result is an intelligent human animal, able to represent the world in more abstract terms than any other extant species. Unlike most animals, play continues to play a central role in modern hunter gatherer society, as well as in the development of art, science, and other creative acts in modern society. Although play has been seminal in the emergence of the human species, play is serving an increasingly limited role in human childhood in modern industrial society. I discuss the consequence to this shift in terms of mental health and cognitive development, and suggest that more emphasis should be placed on the important role play in modern society.
About the speaker
Dr. Blaisdell is a Professor in Learning & Behavior and Behavioral Neuroscience in the UCLA Psychology Department. He presides over the Comparative Cognition Lab, studying cognitive processes in rats, pigeons, hermit crabs, and humans. He received an MS in Anthropology at Kent State University and a Ph.D. in Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at SUNY Binghamton. This was followed by a brief stint as an NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow in Avian Cognition at Tufts University. In addition to comparative cognition, Dr. Blaisdell studies the interaction between diet and cognition. He is a founding member and Past President of the Ancestral Health Society, Past President of the International Society for Comparative Psychology, an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Evolution and Health, and a member of the Brain Research Institute, the Integrative Center for Learning & Memory, and the Evolutionary Medicine program all at UCLA.
For more information, contact:
David Sloan Wilson, Director
Susan Ryan, EvoS Coordinator
evos @binghamton.edu