Assessing the Relevance of Non-molecular Prognostic Systems for Myelodysplastic Syndrome in the Era of Next-Generation Sequencing.

Background: The Molecular International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS-M) has improved the prediction of clinical outcomes for myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). The Artificial Intelligence Prognostic Scoring System for MDS (AIPSS-MDS), based on classical clinical parameters, has outperformed the IPSS, revised version (IPSS-R). For the first time, we validated the IPSS-M and other molecular prognostic models and compared them with the established IPSS-R and AIPSS-MDS models using data from South American patients.

The dual role of culture for reconstructing early sapiens cognition.

Questions on early sapiens cognition, the cognitive abilities of our ancestors, are intriguing but notoriously hard to tackle. Leaving no hard traces in the archeological record, these abilities need to be inferred from indirect evidence, informed by our understanding of present-day cognition. Most of such attempts acknowledge the role that culture, as a faculty, has played for human evolution, but they underrate or even disregard the role of distinct cultural traditions and the ensuing diversity, both in present-day humans and as a dimension of past cognition.

The different paths to cultural convergence.

Morin envisions the adaptive landscape of graphic codes as an unfertile valley where writing rises as an isolated peak that humans managed to reach only on four occasions throughout all of history. By exploring the different paths to cultural convergence, we suggest an alternative landscape occupied by a mountain range of visual art systems. We conclude that graphic communication through visual art worked well enough to render writing contingent but not necessary in most cases.

Toward Greater Integration: Fellows Perspectives on Cognitive Science.

Cognitive science is a multidisciplinary field. Whereas debates on whether this is beneficial continue to spring up, this multidisciplinarity comes with at least one obvious challenge, namely, safeguarding an increasing integration across its subfields. The new and open-ended topic preluded here attempts to address this challenge by pursuing a multilayered agenda: to introduce the Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society and earn them the recognition and profile they deserve; to furnish a platform for reflection on cognitive science from a bird's eye view; and to present role models for younger generations.

Knowledge belief - and shaped by culture.

Phillips and colleagues claim that the representation of knowledge is more basic than the representation of belief, presupposing them to be categorically distinct mental states with distinct evolutionary purposes. We argue that the relationship between the two is much more complex, is further shaped by culture and language, and leaves its mark on manifestations of theory of mind and teaching.

A Scientific Marketplace.

Cognitive science thrives on the diversity of its (sub-)disciplines, and topiCS is the ideal journal for bringing the diversity to bear. In this welcome address as its incoming Executive Editor, I outline my view of the journal and my vision for how to sustain its inviting and integrative power.

Being In Front Is Good-But Where Is In Front? Preferences for Spatial Referencing Affect Evaluation.

Speakers of English frequently associate location in space with valence, as in moving up and down the "social ladder." If such an association also holds for the sagittal axis, an object "in front of" another object would be evaluated more positively than the one "behind." Yet how people conceptualize relative locations depends on which frame of reference (FoR) they adopt-and hence on cross-linguistically diverging preferences.

The sense of obligation is culturally modulated.

Tomasello argues in the target article that, in generalizing the concrete obligations originating from interdependent collaboration to one's entire cultural group, humans become "ultra-cooperators." But are all human populations cooperative in similar ways? Based on cross-cultural studies and my own fieldwork in Polynesia, I argue that cooperation varies along several dimensions, and that the underlying sense of obligation is culturally modulated.

Editors' Review and Introduction: The Cultural Evolution of Cognition.

This topic addresses a question of key interest to cognitive science, namely which factors may have triggered, constrained, or shaped the course of cognitive evolution. It highlights the relevance of culture as a driving force in this process, with a special focus on social learning and language, conceptual tools, and material culture. In so doing, the topic combines two goals: to provide an overview of current empirical and theoretical work leading this field, tailored for a wider cognitive science audience, and to investigate the potential for integrating multiple perspectives across several timescales and levels of analysis, from the microlevel of individual behavior to the macrolevel of cultural change and language diversification.

What Early Sapiens Cognition Can Teach Us: Untangling Cultural Influences on Human Cognition Across Time.

Evidence of cultural influences on cognition is accumulating, but untangling these cultural influences from one another or from non-cultural influences has remained a challenging task. As between-group differences are neither a nor a indicator of cultural impact, cross-cultural comparisons in isolation are unable to furnish any cogent conclusions. This shortfall can be compensated by taking a diachronic perspective that focuses on the role of culture for the emergence and evolution of our cognitive abilities.

What Is Causal Cognition?

While gaining an understanding of cause-effect relations is the key of causal cognition, its are less clearly delineated. Standard approaches in the field focus on how individuals detect, learn, and reason from statistical regularities, thereby prioritizing cognitive processes over content and context. This article calls for a broadened perspective.

The Cultural Fabric of Human Causal Cognition.

Causal cognition emerges early in development and confers an important advantage for survival. But does this mean that it is universal in humans? Our cross-disciplinary review suggests a broad evolutionary basis for core components of causal cognition but also underlines the essential role of culturally transmitted content as being uniquely human. The multiple ways in which both content and the key mechanisms of cultural transmission generate cultural diversity suggest that causal cognition in humans is not only colored by their specific cultural background but also shaped more fundamentally by the very fact that humans are a cultural species.

The Value of Diversity in Cognitive Science.

A recent article (Núñez et al., 2019) claims that cognitive science, while starting off as a multidisciplinary enterprise, has "failed to transition to a mature inter-disciplinary coherent field." Two indicators reported in support of this claim target one of the two journals of the Cognitive Science Society, Cognitive Science, depicting cognitive science as an increasingly monodisciplinary subfield which is dominated by psychology.