Selected Articles - Dr. Merlin W. Donald

Selected Articles 

• Donald, M.,2010. The Exographic Revolution: Neuropsychological Sequelae. In Malafouris L. & Renfrew C. (eds) The Cognitive Life of Things: Recasting the boundaries of the mind. Cambridge, UK: McDonald Institute Monographs, pp.71-79. [PDF format]
• Donald, M. The definition of human nature, in the context of modern neurobiology. In D. A.Rees and S. P. R. Rose, eds, The new brain sciences: Perils and prospects. Cambridge,UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 34-58. [PDF format]
• Donald, M. The slow process: A hypothetical cognitive adaptation for distributed cognitive networks. Journal of Physiology (Paris), 2007, 101:214-222. [PDF format]
• Donald, M. How culture and brain mechanisms interact in decision making. In C. Engel and W. Singer, Better than conscious? Decision-making, the Human Mind, and Implications for institutions. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2008, 191-225. [PDF format]
• Boyd, R., Cohen, J, Donald, M., Guth, W., Johnson, E., Kurzban, R., Schooler, L,J., Schooler, J, Spelke, E., & Trommershauser, J. Explicit and implicit strategies in decision making. In C. Engel and W. Singer, Better than conscious? Decision-making, the Human Mind, and Implications for institutions. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2008, 225-258. [PDF format]
• Donald, M. A view from cognitive science. In D. Genten, V. Gerhardt, J.-C. Heilinger and J. Nida-Rumalin, eds, What is a human being?, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008, 45-49. [PDF format]
• Donald, M. The sapient paradox: Can cognitive neuroscience solve it? Brain, December 2, 2008, doi: 10.1093/brain/awn290 [PDF format]
• Consciousness and Governance: From embodiment to enculturation - an interview. In L. Andreassen, L. Brandt, & J. Vang, (Eds.) Cognitive Semiotics. 2007, 68-83. [PDF format]
• Evolutionary Origins of the Social Brain. In O. Vilarroya, & F.F i Argimon, (Eds.) Social Brain Matters: Stances on the Neurobiology of Social Cognition. Rodopi, 2007, 18: 215-222. [PDF format]
• Art and Cognitive Evolution. In M. Turner, (Ed.) The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity. Oxford University Press, 2006, 1:3-20. [PDF format]
• Imitation and Mimesis. In S. Hurley, & N. Chater, (Eds.) Perspectives on Imitation: From Neuroscience to Social Science, Volume 2: Imitation, Human Development, and Culture. MIT Press, 2005, 14:282-300. [PDF format]
• The Application of Ideomotor Theory to Imitation. In. S. Hurley, & N. Chater, (Eds.) Perspectives on Imitation: From Neuroscience to Social Science, Volume 1: Mechanisms of Imitation and Imitation in Animals. MIT Press, 2005, 8: 217-218. [PDF format]
• The Relation between Language and (Mimetic) Culture. Morten H. Christiansen on Donald. Perspectives on Imitation: From Neuroscience to Social Science, Volume 2: Imitation, Human Development, and Culture. MIT Press, 2005, 19:390-398 [PDF format]
• Is a Picture Really Worth a 1,000 Words? Review essay of David S. Staley, Computers, Visualization and History: How New Technology Will Transform Our Understanding of the Past. History and Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History, 43:3, 379-385, 2004.[PDF format]
• The Primacy of Motor Evolution and The Mimetic Origins of Language. ( translated in Japanese). In Kaguku (Science), A. Iriki, ed, Special Issue on the Origins of Language, 74:7, 878-881, July 2004. [PDF format]
• The virtues of rigorous interdisciplinarity. In  J.M. Lucariello, J.A. Hudson, R. Fivush & P.J. Bauer (Eds.) The Development of the Mediated Mind Development, Ch.12,. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. [PDF format]
• Il tessuto dei sensi: Ordito della cultura, la trama della mente. (translated into Italian). In Le tattiche dei sensi, Antomarini A., Biscuso M., and Traversa, A., eds, I libri di Montag, 85-93, 2001.[PDF format]
• Memory Palaces: The Revolutionary Function of Libraries. Queen's Quarterly 108/4 (Winter 2001) pp. 559-572.   [PDF format]
• Towards a new agenda for neurolinguistics. Review of Philip Lieberman's Human Language and our Reptilian Brain: The subcortical Bases of Speech, Syntax and Thought. Cortex, 2001, XXXVII:2, 279-283. [PDF format]
• Cognitive Evolution and the Definition of Human Nature. Philosophy of Science Monographs, Morris Foundation, Little Rock, Arkansas, 2000, 31pp. [Abstract]     [PDF format]
• The central role of culture in cognitive evolution: a reflection on the myth of the 'isolated mind'. In L. Nucci, ed. Culture, Thought and Development, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000, 19-38.   Abstract    [PDF format]
• Preconditions for the evolution of protolanguages. In The Descent of Mind, Ed. M.C.Corballis & I.Lea. Oxford University Press, 1999, 355-365. [Abstract]     [PDF format]
• The Widening Gyre: Religion, Culture and Evolution. Science & Spirit, 10:2, 22-30, July/August 1999. [PDF format]
• Hominid enculturation and cognitive evolution. In C. Renfrew, P. Mellars, & C. Scarre, eds. Cognition and Material Culture: the archaeology of external symbolic storage. Cambridge, U.K., The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 1998, 7-17.  [PDF format]
• Material Culture and Cognition: Concluding Thoughts. In C. Renfrew & C. Scarre (Eds) Cognition and Material Culture: the Archaeology of Symbolic Storage.Cambridge, U.K., The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 1998, 181-187.   [PDF format]
• Mimesis and the Executive Suite: missing links in language evolution. In J. R. Hurford. M.Studdert-Kennedy, & C. Knight, eds. Approaches to the Evolution of language: social and cognitive bases. Cambridge University Press, 1998, 44-67. [Abstract]  [PDF format]
• The mind considered from a historical perspective: human cognitive phylogenesis and the possibility of continuing cognitive evolution. In D. Johnson & C. Ermeling (Eds.) The Future of the Cognitive Revolution, Oxford University Press, 1997, 478-492.   [PDF format]
• Précis of Origins of the Modern Mind (3) Continuing Commentary,   Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1996, 19: 155-164.     [PDF format]
• The neurobiology of human consciousness: an evolutionary approach. Neuropsychologia,1995, 33:1087-1102.  [PDF format]
• Human cognitive evolution: what we were, what we are becoming, Social Research, 1993, 60: 143-170.   [PDF format] #1
• Précis of Origins of the Modern Mind with multiple review and author's response. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16: 737-791, 1993.  Part A PDF format       Part B PDF format