Shrunken social brains? a minimal model of the role of social interaction in neural complexity.
Open accessAbstract
The social brain hypothesis proposes that enlarged brains have evolved in response to the increasing cognitive demands that complex social life in larger groups places on primates and other mammals. However, this reasoning can be challenged by evidence that brain size has decreased in the evolutionary transitions from solitary to social larger groups in the case of Neolithic humans and some eusocial insects. Different hypotheses can be identified in the literature to explain this reduction in brain size. We evaluate some of them from the perspective of recent approaches to cognitive science, which support the idea that the basis of cognition can span over brain, body, and environment. Here we show through a minimal cognitive model using an evolutionary robotics methodology that the neural complexity, in terms of neural entropy and degrees of freedom of neural activity, of smaller-brained agents evolved in social interaction is comparable to the neural complexity of larger-brained agents evolved in solitary conditions. The nonlinear time series analysis of agents' neural activity reveals that the decoupled smaller neural network is intrinsically lower dimensional than the decoupled larger neural network. However, when smaller-brained agents are interacting, their actual neural complexity goes beyond its intrinsic limits achieving results comparable to those obtained by larger-brained solitary agents. This suggests that the smaller-brained agents are able to enhance their neural complexity through social interaction, thereby offsetting the reduced brain size.
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Agents with relatively small brains can through social interaction achieve a level of behavioral performance comparable to larger-brained but solitary agents.
“Using a multidisciplinary modeling approach, Reséndiz-Benhumea et al. (2021) indeed demonstrated that agents with relatively small brains can through social interaction achieve a level of behavioral performance comparable to those of larger-brained but solitary agents.”
From When and Why Did Human Brains Decrease in Size? A New Change-Point Analysis and Insights From Brain Evolution in Ants (2021) · cites this paper as Reséndiz-Benhumea et al., 2021
The Abstract and Discussion report that smaller-brained social agents achieved neural complexity comparable to larger-brained solitary agents. But Methods §2.1.3 defines performance as neural entropy, and the Discussion says the agents had no specific task to solve. The paper therefore does not demonstrate comparable behavioral performance. (LLM, conf=0.89)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredGroup-level cognition may select for reduced brain size and/or adaptive brain size variation.
“Computational models (e.g., Feinerman and Traniello, 2016;Reséndiz-Benhumea et al., 2021) and patterns in some ant clades (Muscedere and Traniello, 2012;Riveros et al., 2012;Muratore et al., 2021) suggest that group-level cognition may select for reduced brain size and/or adaptive brain size variation.”
From When and Why Did Human Brains Decrease in Size? A New Change-Point Analysis and Insights From Brain Evolution in Ants (2021) · cites this paper as Reséndiz-Benhumea et al., 2021
The Discussion (page not available) reports that smaller-brained social agents achieved neural complexity comparable to larger-brained solitary agents, supporting the possibility that social interaction permits smaller brains. But it also says brain sizes were set in separate evolutionary runs, so the model did not test whether group-level cognition selects for reduced brain size or adaptive variation in brain size. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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- Authors
- Reséndiz-Benhumea, G. M., Sangati, E., Sangati, F., Keshmiri, S., & Froese, T.
- Affiliations
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Reséndiz-Benhumea, Georgina Montserrat
- ORCID
- Venue
- Frontiers in Neurorobotics
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2021-06-11
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 634085
- Pages
- 634085-634085
- ISSN
- 1662-5218 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8226032
- OpenAlex
- W3165932997
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 3
- FWCI
- 2.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Frontiers in Neurorobotics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Institutional Repositories DataBase (IRDB) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Greater South Information System
- Funders
- South Carolina Department of Agriculture
- Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Systems and Dynamics
- Keywords
- social brain hypothesis, brain size reduction, social interaction, neural complexity, neural entropy, degrees of freedom, evolutionary robotics, eusocial insects, nonlinear time series analysis, brain-body-environment interaction
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