3 Matching Annotations
  1. Dec 2023
  2. Sep 2016
    1. In our view, cross­cultural psychological research con­firms anthropological findings of the universality of basic cognitive capaci­ties. All culture groups thus far studied have demonstrated the capacity to remember, generalize, form concepts, operate with abstractions, and reason logically.

      Also, connecting to Chomsky, all culture groups have the capacity to learn language (innate linguistic ability), which is imperative for the ability to remember, think abstractly, reason logically, etc.

    1. Ama-zonian groups, such as the Piraha, whose languages do not include numerals above three, are worse at distinguishing large quan-tities digitally than groups using extensive counting systems, but are similar in their abil-ity to approximate quantities.

      This reminds me of a similar study on language with the Vai in Liberia (Scribner and Cole 1981) which suggests that formal literacy schooling in English does not give learners higher intelligence or better abstract reasoning skills, only the ability to talk about those skills in "contrived situations." So even though the numerical/literacy system one grows up with influences the way one thinks, it doesn't mean that one system can be prioritized over the other as "better" or "more intelligent."