Evolutionary transitions in learning and cognition
Open accessAbstract
We define a cognitive system as a system that can learn, and adopt an evolutionary-transition-oriented framework for analysing different types of neural cognition. This enables us to classify types of cognition and point to the continuities and discontinuities among them. The framework we use for studying evolutionary transitions in learning capacities focuses on qualitative changes in the integration, storage and use of neurally processed information. Although there are always grey areas around evolutionary transitions, we recognize five major neural transitions, the first two of which involve animals at the base of the phylogenetic tree: (i) the evolutionary transition from learning in non-neural animals to learning in the first neural animals; (ii) the transition to animals showing limited, elemental associative learning, entailing neural centralization and primary brain differentiation; (iii) the transition to animals capable of unlimited associative learning, which, on our account, constitutes sentience and entails hierarchical brain organization and dedicated memory and value networks; (iv) the transition to imaginative animals that can plan and learn through selection among virtual events; and (v) the transition to human symbol-based cognition and cultural learning. The focus on learning provides a unifying framework for experimental and theoretical studies of cognition in the living world. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Basal cognition: multicellularity, neurons and the cognitive lens’.
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The priority placed on adaptive explanations goes back to Darwin's time and persists today.
“The priority placed on adaptive explanations goes back to Darwin’s time, with Darwin’s protegee, J. G. Romanes, writing:”
From Consciousness at sea (2025) · cites this paper as [20]
Ginsburg and Jablonka's account of the emergence of more sophisticated forms of consciousness as major evolutionary transitions does not fit the major transitions model.
“However, while these events may have been monumental from the standpoint of both biology and morality, and though they may be of great personal significance to human beings, they do not fit the major transitions model.”
From Consciousness at sea (2025) · cites this paper as [20]
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List of Abbreviations Used in Book
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- Authors
- Ginsburg, S., & Jablonka, E.
- Affiliations
- Open University of Israel (IL)
- Tel Aviv University (IL)
- Corresponding author
- Ginsburg, Simona
- Venue
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2021-02-08
- Volume
- 376
- Issue
- 1821
- Pages
- 20190766-20190766
- ISSN
- 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2970
- PMC
- PMC7935133
- OpenAlex
- W3126647909
- Cited by
- 98
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 9
- FWCI
- 6.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- Locations
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Cognitive Science and Education Research
- Keywords
- evolutionary transitions, learning, cognition, associative learning, sentience, memory, value networks, planning, cultural learning, brain evolution, animal cognition
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cognition, Biological Evolution, Learning, Phylogeny
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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