ABSTRACT
Humans differ from other animals in many ways, but perhaps the most important is in terms of our cognition. Humans can think about the past, anticipate the future, represent social relationships, imagine things they have never experienced before, and adapt to a wide variety of environments, both physical and social. We are not the only thinking animal, but Homo sapiens’ intellectual accomplishments dwarf those of even the most intelligent of other species, accounting for humans’ ecological dominance. Most importantly for this book, humans’ unique and impressive cognition develops, emerging over infancy and childhood and becoming adapted to the specific cultural context in which children grow up.
