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Technical Intelligence Hypothesis, The

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

  • 205 Accesses

Synonyms

The extractive foraging hypothesis

Definition

The need to efficiently organize behaviors requiring a high number of sequential operations leads to selection for increased intelligence.

Introduction

The technical intelligence hypothesis is one of the most popular explanations for the evolution of human intelligence. It posits that the need to efficiently organize behaviors requiring a high number of operations led to the evolution of increased intelligence (Whiten and Byrne 1997). The hypothesis was first proposed by Byrne and Whiten as an alternative to the social intelligence hypothesis (cf. Byrne and Whiten 1989; Whiten and Byrne 1997), as within primates, great apes appeared to show certain cognitive skills that could not be explained by differences in social organization.

How to Test for the Technical Intelligence Hypothesis?

Testing the validity of the technical intelligence hypothesis is challenging. It first requires to define what we mean by intelligence. Second, it...

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Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Louis Lefebvre for suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript, and the Spanish project CGL2013-47448-P for financial support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CREAF, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, 08193, Spain

    Simon Ducatez, Ferran Sayol & Daniel Sol

  2. Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205, Avenue Docteur Penfield, H3A 1BA, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Simon Ducatez

  3. CSIC, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, 08193, Spain

    Daniel Sol

Authors
  1. Simon Ducatez
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  2. Ferran Sayol
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  3. Daniel Sol
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Simon Ducatez , Ferran Sayol or Daniel Sol .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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Ducatez, S., Sayol, F., Sol, D. (2016). Technical Intelligence Hypothesis, The. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3103-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3103-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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