Stone Tools and the Evolution of Human Cognition

5: How Levallois Reduction Is Similar to, and Not Similar to, Playing Chess

83 ABSTRACT Modern cognition is more than language and symbolism. One important component of modern thinking is expertise, exemplified best in expert performances in the arts, craft production, sport, medicine, and games such as chess. Expertise is driven by a cognitive system known as long-term working memory, in which retrieval structures held in long-term memory are activated in working memory. Here they enable rapid access to large bodies of procedural and declarative knowledge that have been acquired over years of practice. Although expertise underpins many of our most esteemed accomplishments, it is not reliant on either symbols or language. In the following essay we analyze one example of prehistoric expertise —Marjorie’s core from Maastricht-Belvedere. From Nathan Schlanger’s (1996) description of the chaîne opératoire we have been able to identify many of the elements of the retrieval structure activated for knapping the core. In its overall organization this retrieval structure was no different from those deployed by modern artisans . With this analysis in hand we are then able to contrast this Levallois retrieval structure with one required for an earlier biface façonnage reduction, thereby tracing one link in the evolutionary sequence leading ultimately to modern expertise. F I V E Thomas Wynn and Frederick L. cooLidge UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO How Levallois Reduction Is Similar to, and Not Similar to, Playing Chess 84 T h o m a s W y n n a n d F r e d e r i c k L . c o o L i d g e INTRODUCTION In this chapter we argue that Levallois reduction is an example of expert performance , indistinguishable in its basic organization from expert performance in the modern world. As such, it relies on a cognitive ability known as longterm working memory, in which retrieval structures held in long-term memory , but activated in working memory, enable rapid access to larger bodies of procedural and declarative knowledge. We focus on Levallois for two reasons. First, through the work of Van Peer (1992, 1995), Boëda (1994, 1995), Chazan (1997), Schlanger (1990, 1996), and others, the chaînes opératoires of Levallois are now well-described and understood, providing comprehensive descriptions of a complex sequential activity amenable to cognitive interpretation. Second, the transition from the façonnage strategy of biface production to the débitage strategies of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age has long been recognized as an important change in technological evolution (Gamble 1999). By characterizing Levallois reduction in terms of long-term working memory, we are able to contrast it with the cognitive demands of biface reduction, which required fewer procedural subroutines and, more importantly, less working memory capacity. Finally, although Levallois reduction per se does not require Theory of Mind (ToM), we explore the possibility that learning Levallois reduction did. EXPERT PERFORMANCE The title of our chapter invokes chess because chess is a familiar example of expert performance. It is also the most studied. Imagine for a moment a chess master giving a blind chess demonstration. He or she is able to play several games simultaneously while blindfolded, winning every one. How is this possible ? Does he or she maintain a picture, a “mental template” if you will, of every board, with the positions of every piece? This would be an astounding feat, far beyond the human brain’s normal capacity to generate and hold a mental image. Somehow the chess master is able to rapidly encode, store, and retrieve complex bodies of information. Expert performance is not limited to chess. It is the basis for the impressive improvisational abilities of jazz and classical musicians , athletic performance, acting ability, and even medical diagnosis, to mention examples commonly encountered in psychological literature on expertise. Cognitive psychologists have long been interested in expert performance and have identified its more salient cognitive features: 1. The expert performs tasks quickly with few or no errors. 85 How Levallois Reduction Is Similar to, and Not Similar to, Playing Chess 2. The expert can perform in-depth assessments of task problems with little apparent effort. 3. Expertise is largely automatic, and once initiated, it requires little in the way of active attention. 4. Expert performance is resistant to fading; the elements and sequences do not lose coherence over time. 5. The expert can be interrupted and return to the task with little or no loss of information. 6. The expert is able...