Globalization and the rise and fall of cognitive control

This paper uses an evolutionary game theory model to explore how the scale of interaction affects the evolution of cognition, focusing on the balance between automatic and controlled cognitive processing. The model simulates agents making decisions using these processing modes, interacting, and influencing the environment. Results show that globalization of direct contact can favor or disfavor control depending on whether controlled agents are harmed or helped by automatic agents; globalized environments disfavor control; and globalized learning homogenizes the population. The study emphasizes the impact of interaction scale on cognitive evolution.

Mohsen Mosleh, Katelynn Kyker, Jonathan D. Cohen, David G. Rand