We support the idea of applying cultural evolution theory to the study of storytelling, and fiction in particular. However, we suggest that a more plausible link between real and imaginary worlds is the feeling of “presence” we can experience in both of them: we feel present when we are able to correctly and intuitively enact our embodied predictions.

I highlight and amplify three central points that McKay & Dennett (M&D) make about the origin of failures to perform biologically proper functions. I question whether even positive illusions meet criteria for evolved misbelief.

The groundbreaking, viewpoint theory of Merker et al. explains several properties of the conscious field, including why the observer cannot directly apprehend itself. We propose that viewpoint theory might also provide a progressive, constitutive marker of consciousness and shed light on why most of the contents of consciousness are encapsulated.

Evolutionary theory and methods are central to understanding the design of organisms, including their brains. This book does much to demonstrate the value of evolutionary neuroscience. Further work is needed to clarify the ways that neural systems evolved in general (specifically, the interaction between mosaic and coordinated evolution of brain components), and phylogenetic methods should be given a more prominent role in the analysis of comparative data.

Michael Tomasello explains the human sense of obligation by the role it plays in negotiating practices of acting jointly and the commitments they underwrite. He draws in his work on two models of joint action, one from Michael Bratman, the other from Margaret Gilbert. But Bratman's makes the explanation too difficult to succeed, and Gilbert's makes it too easy.

Evidence Van de Vliert draws on is more consistent with the idea that settlement in the frontier encourages independent mentality and individualistic social institutions. This cultural system can sometimes flourish, generating both wealth and power, but clearly not always. In our view, wealth is, for the most part, a measure of success of any given cultural group, and climate is important to the extent that it plays a role in creating rugged lands of frontier.

“Challenging the utility of polygenic scores for social science” is a compelling but limited critique. Phenotypic development is sensitive to both initial conditions and all subsequent states – from conception to senescence. Thus, gene-centric analyses are misleading (and often meaningless) because gene products are transformed, and their phenotypic ‘effects' combined and attenuated with successive propagations from molecular and cellular contexts to organismal and social environments.

Tomasello et al. provide a convincing account of the origins of cultural cognition. I highlight how emotionally grounded sharing of experiences (not merely or predominantly intentions) is critical for the development of interpersonal understanding and perspective-sensitive thinking. Such sharing is specifically human in quality as well as motivation, and entails forms of self–other connectedness and differentiation that are essential to communication and symbolic functioning.

Strong social identity does not lead to lack of accountability and “bad” behavior in groups and crowds but rather causes group behavior to be driven by group norms. The solution to problematic group behavior is therefore not to individualize the group but rather to change group norms, as underlined by the relational dynamics widely studied in the SIDE tradition.

In the fearful ape hypothesis, Grossmann argues that heightened fearfulness increases human-unique cooperation. We suggest that this conclusion, however, may be premature. In particular, we question Grossmann's singling out of fear as the affective trait that enhances cooperative care. Additionally, we problematize the extent to which heightened fearfulness in humans, and its association with human-unique cooperation, are supported empirically.

The target article offers a game-theoretical analysis of primitive intergroup aggression (i.e., raiding) and discusses difficulties in achieving peace. We argue the analysis does not capture the actual strategy space, missing out “do-nothing.” Experimental evidence robustly shows people prefer doing nothing against out-group members over cooperating with/attacking them. Thus, the target article overestimates the likelihood of intergroup aggression.

Ivancovsky et al. explore the relationship between curiosity and creativity, by suggesting they align through novelty-seeking mechanisms. We argue that a general mechanism linking both capacities together is question-asking: Curiosity drives question-asking that leads to creative problem solving. Yet, current findings from our lab suggest that question complexity relates to creativity, but not necessarily to curiosity, warranting further investigation.

We agree with Heintz & Scott-Phillips that pragmatics does not supplement, but is prior to and underpins, language. Indeed, human non-linguistic communication is astonishingly rich, flexible, and subtle, as we illustrate through the game of charades, where people improvise communicative signals when linguistic channels are blocked. The route from non-linguistic charade-like communication to combinatorial language involves (1) local processes of conventionalization and grammaticalization and (2) spontaneous order arising from mutual constraints between different communicative signals.

It is uncontroversial that humans are extremely social, and that cultures have changed over time. But, the evidence shows that much of the social psychology underlying these phenomena (1) predates the agricultural transition, and (2) is not the result of group selection. Instead, this psychology appears intricately designed to capture social gains when possible in our complex ancestral social ecology.

We argue that How Foraging Works sketches a good foundational model, but it needs expanding to incorporate hierarchical and multiscale conceptions of uncertainty and to incorporate inference of environmental controllability. Most pressingly, its algorithmic implementation needs to be better justified in terms of its functional forms and, ultimately, to be more heavily constrained by survival optimality.

The target article interprets women's lower competitiveness than men's as evidence of adaptation to help women avoid physical conflicts and stay alive. This commentary advances the additional hypothesis that strategically suppressing competitiveness, thus signaling egalitarian intentions, could be an adaptation to catalyze cooperative behavior from males and females, turning natural competitors (other women) into allies and men into supportive partners.

New knowledge about the sexual differentiation of the brain profoundly changes our understanding of basic topics in brain development such as the false dichotomy between long-lasting and transient effects of hormones on neural activity, the importance of ovarian hormones in brain development, the plasticity of neural structures throughout the life span, and the way measurement issues affect research conclusions.

E-Z Reader's account of the interaction between oculomotor and cognitive processes depends critically on distinguishing between early and late stages of lexical processing, because this distinction allows saccadic programming to be decoupled from shifts of attention. Precisely specifying the nature of this distinction has important implications both for current models of lexical retrieval and for the development of E-Z Reader 8.