The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition - Michael Tomasello

Tomasello rocks!

Excellent book for anyone with a interest in the mechanisms behind why we think and act the way we do. Also provides insights into developmental issues that still resonates with the current research in the field.

Essential

Essential reading for all fans of the human brain, especially for those who think it's sufficient to read Steven Pinker on the subject.

Poorly thought out... to say the least.

I read this book as a course requirement for a Developmental Psychology class while at university. I was heavily critical of it, and as a result got off to a bad start with the professor.

Tomasello's inability to write engaging and manageable prose is his first problem (his over use of the word "conspecific" was such that I wanted to slit my own wrists everytime I read it). The second more important is that this book fails to answer the most fundamental of the questions which it addresses. That question being, what is the spark? The catalyst? Or as he refer's to it "the magic bullet". Simply, what was it that promted social learning in primitive ancestral human societies, and peer groups? In the beginning chapters, he writes as though this book is the definitive answer and then forgets about it past chapter 1. If you'll forgive the pun, he dodges the bullet completely and leaves us exactly where we started.

Those being the two major issues I had with the book are reason enough to recommend that you not read it, unless otherwise forced to by professors who thinks the sun shine's out of Tomasello's hind end. The other problems include narrow views of certain questions, and failing to address alternative answers.

Trust me, there are much better Evolutionary Psychology books available. This one needs to be placed in the 'Useless' section right along with "Dianetics".

Cutting-edge evolutionary psychology

This book is marvellous, and is now being used in more recent work on the evolutionary origins of language and social institutions. Tomasello has done an enormous amount of empirical research to support his points, and also has a good theory background (Vygotsky's ideas on the social nature of learning, for example). More recent work in this field often either uses Tomasello's work or parallels his ideas--see for example Terrence W. Deacon's book The Symbolic Species or Greenspan and Shanker's book The First Idea. Tomasello's book does an excellent job of debunking older ideas that the human mind MUST be hardwired for language and other aspects of culture (e.g., Stephen Mithen's ideas of cognitive modules in the phylogenesis of religion). A splendid book, and not difficult at all to read.

The Essential Ingredient

This is the best account of cognitive development in human beings I've read, and as a psychoanalyst I've read quite a few. Tomasello focuses on the essential difference between human children and our closest relatives among the great apes. This is the ability to imagine that another creature has a mind with intentions and with plans to fulfill those intentions. From this capability follows the human infant's unique capacity to track the behavior of adults and to reconstruct their thoughts and intentions from their observed actions. Apes can make accurate predictions by watching what other apes do. They can emulate those actions in a general way, but they cannot imagine what the other ape is trying to do, or that there might in fact be other ways of doing whatever that is. As Tomasello shows, without a model of the other creature's intentions,it is impossible to appreciate and imitate the fine details of his actions. It is also impossible to build a cumulative model that relates one set of actions with another to form a larger scheme of mental activity.

Tomasello shows how the entire structure of shared ideas and artifacts that we call culture rests on this uniquely human cogitive achievement. His descriptions of the steps and stages in the evolving interaction between the child and its caretakers make this progressive development crystal clear. His account of languge acquisition is unusually good. He shows, for example, that words do not simply label objects but identify them through the particular aspects they display in a variety of meaningful contexts. Language introduces perspective, allowing the infant to see the world without the exclusive bias of his own immediate needs.

Tomasello's writing doesn't waste any words, but maintains a tone of empathy and understanding that makes the book a pleasure to read. I think it will prove invaluable to any educator or clinician concerned with understanding the receptivity to learning of either children or adults.