TopiCS publishes commentary by Tamás Biró

A short piece of commentary written by lecturer Tamás Biró to appear in Topics in Cognitive Science (TopiCS) is now available online. His essay, “A biological/ computational approach to culture(s) is cognitive science,” is one of a series of responses to Beller, Bender, and Medin (2012), who take up the issue of whether anthropology should be part of cognitive science. Tamás argues that top-down models in particular are well-suited to bridge the gap between cognitive and non-cognitive approaches to the study of cultural phenomena, citing studies (including some of his own work) that have used Optimality Theory to explain kinship terminology, sleeping arrangements, and religion.