ABSTRACT
Bayesianism is a philosophical view regarding the nature of evidence in theory confirmation. The nature of observational evidence for confirmation may constitute a range of factors, dependent on the nature of the hypothesis. If the scientific theory is about culture, then the evidence will constitute a range of mental and physical states. Bayesian approaches to cultural neuroscience demonstrate a pathway of theory confirmation under conditions of uncertainty across multiple units of analysis. The interplay of environmental and cultural determinants of behavior presents an ecocultural theoretical approach in cultural neuroscience. Ecocultural theories that relate conditions of uncertainty may benefit from models that determine directionality and standard of relation. Cultural evolution models of social learning suggest specialized neural machinery for cultural acquisition of social norms. Bayesian models may be particularly effective at testing hypotheses regarding neural systems of cultural learning. Bayesian approaches to brain-based models of culture demonstrate a method for identifying patterns of brain activity predictive of culture.
