Papers by Larissa Mendoza Straffon
Cognitive Development, 2024
Learning to draw is an important developmental milestone that most children achieve during their ... more Learning to draw is an important developmental milestone that most children achieve during their preschool years. Primary caregivers play a significant role in supporting this process, which may affect the pace of acquisition and subsequent unfolding of drawing ability. In this study, we aimed to investigate parental support in the context of children's drawing activity, complemented by quantifying the effects of four individual factor constructs of parental support for drawing. Our sample comprised 68 parent-child dyads with children aged 3.0-6.9 years. Parents completed an online survey about actions related to promoting the drawing abilities of their child, while children's drawing skill was measured with the Beery-Buktenica Test of Visual-Motor Integration. Contrary to our initial prediction, we found that parental support as a construct had no significant effect on children's drawing skill. However, the component Scaffolding was positively associated with enhanced drawing skill. These results have important theoretical implications for understanding skill development within a cultural learning framework, and open up practical applications for art education and developmental studies.
Journal of Human Evolution, 2018
License: Article 25fa pilot End User Agreement This publication is distributed under the terms of... more License: Article 25fa pilot End User Agreement This publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act (Auteurswet) with explicit consent by the author. Dutch law entitles the maker of a short scientific work funded either wholly or partially by Dutch public funds to make that work publicly available for no consideration following a reasonable period of time after the work was first published, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication of the work. This publication is distributed under The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) 'Article 25fa implementation' pilot project. In this pilot research outputs of researchers employed by Dutch Universities that comply with the legal requirements of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act are distributed online and free of cost or other barriers in institutional repositories. Research outputs are distributed six months after their first online publication in the original published version and with proper attribution to the source of the original publication. You are permitted to download and use the publication for personal purposes. All rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyrights owner(s) of this work. Any use of the publication other than authorised under this licence or copyright law is prohibited. If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons.
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2022
We investigated visual attentional biases towards self-made artworks. Self-made objects tend to b... more We investigated visual attentional biases towards self-made artworks. Self-made objects tend to be favoured, remembered, valued, and ranked above and beyond objects that are not related to the self. On this basis, we set out to test whether the effects of self-relevance would apply to visual art, and via what mechanisms. In three studies, participants created abstract paintings which were then incorporated in a dot-probe task, pairing self-made and other-made stimuli. Our findings confirm that attention and preference are higher for self-made (vs. other-made) artworks. Furthermore, we show that visual attention assessed by a dot-probe task constitutes a reliable measure of preference for art.
Most well-accepted models of cognitive evolution define the modern human mind in terms of an amal... more Most well-accepted models of cognitive evolution define the modern human mind in terms of an amalgamation of species-specific cognitive mechanisms, many of which are described as adaptive. Likewise, these models often use the rich archaeological record of Homo sapiens to illustrate how 'uniquely human' mental abilities gave our species an evolutionary advantage over extinct hominins. Recent evidence from various fields, however, indicates that closely related species, particularly Neanderthals and Denisovans, likely had cognitive capacities very similar to ours, and that several key aspects of 'modern' cognition are not exclusive to our lineage. The sum of these data therefore requires a timely revision of human cognitive evolution models. On the one hand, claims of species-specific cognitive mechanisms have been weakened. On the other hand, there are tangible differences among extinct and extant humans that call for an explanation. One way to accommodate these diffe...
This book explores the potential and challenges of implementing evolutionary phylogenetic methods... more This book explores the potential and challenges of implementing evolutionary phylogenetic methods in archaeological research, by discussing key concepts and presenting concrete applications of these approaches. The volume is divided into two parts: The first covers the theoretical and conceptual implications of using evolution-based models in the sociocultural domain, illustrates the sorts of questions that these methods can help answer, and invites the reader to reflect on the opportunities and limitations of these perspectives. The second part comprises case studies that address relevant empirical issues, such as inferring patterns and rates of cultural transmission, detecting selective pressures in cultural evolution, and explaining the nature of cultural variation. This book will appeal to archaeologists interested in applying evolutionary thinking and inferential methods to their field, and to anyone interested in cultural evolution studies
Enculturing cognition: integrating material culture in human cognitive evolution
Prehistoire Art Et Societes Bulletin De La Societe Prehistorique De L Ariege, 2010
From an evolutionary perspective, three theories account for the emergence of the visual arts. Th... more From an evolutionary perspective, three theories account for the emergence of the visual arts. The first states that visual art, like the peacock's tail, arose as a sexual strategy to acquire mates. The second, sees visual art as a communal practice, originated in ritual ceremony. The third theory contemplates a neurocognitive change that allowed modern humans to conceive visual art at some point during the late Pleistocene. While all three explanations raise interesting points, a reassessment is clearly needed. As an alternative, I suggest exploring the role of visual art in evolution as a communicative signal and an instance of human material culture.
Throughout its own history, cognitive science has paid little interest to the historical dimensio... more Throughout its own history, cognitive science has paid little interest to the historical dimension of its key topic. Most cognitive scientists tended to treat cognition as if it always and everywhere were the same (Bender, 2019). But present-day cognition in humans (as well as in any other species for that matter) is a product of evolution – sometimes of different kinds of evolution – and has been subject to substantial change (Heyes, 2018). About 6 million years ago, the human line dissociated from its closest relatives, setting off on a different evolutionary track. Several hundred thousand years ago, early Homo sapiens learned to control fire, invented complex compound tools such as bow and arrow, and began to use abstract symbols and language (Wadley, 2013). Even today, these achievements strike us as truly impressive, yet they also raise tantalizing questions: What made them possible? Did they emerge all of a sudden, subsequent to genetic mutations, or did they emerge gradually...
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
The fact that world-over people seem inexplicably motivated to allocate time and effort to appare... more The fact that world-over people seem inexplicably motivated to allocate time and effort to apparently useless cultural practices, like the arts, has led several evolutionary scholars to suggest that these might be costly Zahavian signals correlated with genetic fitness, such as the infamous peacock's tail. In this paper, I review the fundamental arguments of the hypothesis that art evolved and serves as a costly Zahavian signal. First, I look into the hypothesis that humans exert mate choice for indirect benefits and argue that the data supports mate choice for direct benefits instead. Second, I argue that art practice may well be a costly signal, however not necessarily related to good genes. Third, I suggest that Thorstein Veblen's original concept of conspicuous signals as social tools to obtain and convey prestige provides a better account than the Zahavian model for the evolution and function of art in society. As a Veblenian signal, art could still have many of the effects suggested for visual art as a Zahavian signal, except not for the indirect benefits of optimal offspring, but for the direct benefits of acquiring and conveying social status.
Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology. A.Prentiss (Ed.), 2019
In recent decades, phylogenetic methods originated in evolutionary biology have been put forward ... more In recent decades, phylogenetic methods originated in evolutionary biology have been put forward as fruitful strategies to trace and reconstruct the origin, development, distribution, and interrelatedness of archaeological artifacts and traditions. Artifact phylogenies are increasingly being used by archaeologists to infer, develop, and test hypotheses about the processes that originate and shape material culture sets, as well as to study the extent and rates of cultural innovation, borrowing, diffusion, convergence, and loss. As an analytical tool, cultural phylogenetics can also be used to test hypotheses about the emergence, change, and exchange of artifact types, thereby allowing researchers to make inferences about temporal and regional behavioral patterns. This chapter will review some basic concepts of cultural phylogenetics, discuss its applications in archaeology, and reflect on some of the main challenges and prospects faced by the field.
Handbook of Evolutionary Research in Archaeology. A. Prentiss (Ed.), 2019
Over the past three decades, hypotheses that aim at explaining the origins of art from an evoluti... more Over the past three decades, hypotheses that aim at explaining the origins of art from an evolutionary perspective have thrived. Proving particularly popular are those which put forward sexual selection, social cohesion, or cognitive enhancement as the primary selective contexts in which visual art prospered throughout human evolution. Such proposals, while interesting in themselves, have seldom been assessed in terms of their fit with the archaeological record. In this chapter, I look at each of these hypotheses’ key predictions and compare them to the evidence of early art available from archaeology. The analysis shows that there is an overall discrepancy between the hypotheses and the archaeological data, generating some reflections on the future of Pleistocene art research.
El presente trabajo reúne diversas manifestaciones rupestres de la sierra de San Francisco (penín... more El presente trabajo reúne diversas manifestaciones rupestres de la sierra de San Francisco (península de Baja California, México), con el objetivo de exponer algunos ejemplos de la temática vinculada al ámbito astronómico (cosmogónico). En 1981, al iniciar nuestras visitas por esta área del noroeste mexicano, nos percatamos de contenidos astronómicos, un cliché que comúnmente se halla relacionado con sociedades agrícolas-ganaderas y de escasa relevancia, aparentemente, para los grupos de cazadores-pescadoresrecolectores.
Sin embargo, las evidencias han puesto de relieve el interés que tenían sus autores por plasmar marcadores astronómicos y algunos cuerpos estelares en sus murales. Importantes conjuntos sudcalifornianos como las cuevas de La Pintada, El Ratón, Las Flechas, La Serpiente, La Clarita, El Palmarito I, La Cuevona, Mono Alto, San Casimiro y el Porcelano, entre otras, ostentan connotaciones de carácter astral.
Espacio Tiempo y Forma. Serie I, Prehistoria y Arqueología, 2017
A partir del análisis de contextos arqueológicos con restos humanos y las manifestaciones rupestr... more A partir del análisis de contextos arqueológicos con restos humanos y las manifestaciones rupestres del Paleolítico Superior europeo, se proponen dos principales formas de tratamiento mortuorio; uno dirigido a la dispersión y eventual desaparición de los difuntos y otro centrado en su preservación y retención. En el primero se observa una tendencia a la difuminación de las diferencias sociales y, en el segundo, se nota una distinción en función del grupo de edad y género. Tras el cambio climático y de patrones de asentamiento en el paso del Gravetiense al
Magdaleniense y Epigravetiense, se percibe que, hasta cierto punto, las formas en que se inhumaban los diversos sectores sociales se tornaron más homogéneas. Pero, reconociendo constantes, se concluye que las concepciones paleolíticas de la muerte conformaron un fenómeno de larga duración en el que, pese a la existencia de modificaciones superficiales, pudieron mantenerse una serie de elementos más centrales.
The emotions originated in the aesthetic experience, i.e. observing and assessing an artwork, are... more The emotions originated in the aesthetic experience, i.e. observing and assessing an artwork, are often described as object-related, as opposed to emotions evoked by outcomes. There is, however, little understanding across disciplines of what these constitute, what mechanisms support them, and how they should be studied. In this paper, I suggest that research on social emotions may throw some light on these issues. I propose that the emotions, feelings, and judgements used to engage socially with others have been co-opted in the appraisal of visual art. That is, aesthetic emotions may derive from social emotions, which in turn co-evolved with human social behaviours and cooperative strategies. This supports the notion that aesthetic emotions are not 'objective' or independent emotions arising from the observed object but emerge from the interaction of subject, context, and object, and are highly influenced by the subject's knowledge and previous experience. A social cognition approach offers a new framework for empirical and theoretical research on the evolution and function of aesthetic emotions.
El presente trabajo realizado por un grupo de investigadores, expone las características técnicas... more El presente trabajo realizado por un grupo de investigadores, expone las características técnicas y temáticas de diversos abrigos con manifestaciones gráfico rupestres de la zona de Cucurpe, Sonora, México, presentado en el XIX Congreso Internacional de IFRAO en Cáceres, España en septiembre de 2015.
Cultural Phylogenetics: Concepts and Applications in Archaeology (2016)
Inferring and explaining cultural patterns and the ways in which human groups relate and interact... more Inferring and explaining cultural patterns and the ways in which human groups relate and interact over large spans of time or space is one of the biggest challenges for archaeologists. When dealing with either the remote past or the present , researchers struggle to learn about the conditions and mechanisms by which cultural traits originate, move, change, and disappear. The use of phylogenetic methods, originated in evolutionary biology to measure relatedness between species , can help to make signifi cant advances toward those aims. This introduction maps the fi eld of cultural phylogenetics, considers its potential for archaeological research, and summarizes the proposals laid out by the contributors of this book.
isbn 978 90 272 1203 0 (e-book)
En este estudio se plantea una serie de interpretaciones en torno a uno de los conjuntos rupestre... more En este estudio se plantea una serie de interpretaciones en torno a uno de los conjuntos rupestres más enigmáticos y sugestivos del Gran Mural, situado en Baja California Sur, México. El sitio es conocido como Cueva de la Serpiente y se ubica en el arroyo del Parral en la Sierra de San Francisco. Tanto la temática como la paleta de color y la orientación empleadas en el conjunto son indicadores esenciales en la búsqueda de sentido; sin embargo, nuestro énfasis se centra en el análisis de los elementos principales: dos ofidios con cabeza de venado. La propuesta parte de la analogía etnográfica y del análisis contextual de estas figuras, y establece, de una manera hipotética, sus posibles significados. A lo largo del trabajo se muestra que estos elementos se encuentran vinculados a mitos creacionistas de muerte y renovación de la vida, los hombres y las estaciones. Estos animales constituyen un símbolo casi panamericano que prevalece en la cosmovisión de distintos pueblos de América, y es a través de algunas narraciones míticas que proponemos acercarnos a su significado.
Arqueología (2009), No. 40
https://revistas.inah.gob.mx/index.php/arqueologia/article/view/3559
Rock Art in the Americas: Mythology, Cosmogony & Rituals, BAR International Series , 2012
"In this paper we offer several interpretations of a Great Mural rock art panel in Baja Californi... more "In this paper we offer several interpretations of a Great Mural rock art panel in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Known as Cueva de la Serpiente, the painted rock shelter is found in Arroyo del Parral, within the San Francisco Sierra. The panel composition, thematic, color pallet, and site orientation are all important indicators when attempting interpretation; however, our emphasis lies on the site’s content analysis. Based on ethnographical analogy and the contextual examination of the pictographs, we hypothesize some possible meanings. Throughout our study, we indicate that the motifs shown on the site’s rock art are associated with concepts that refer to creation myths; death and the cyclical renewal of life and the seasons. The central figure of the horned serpent is present nearly all over the American continent and prevails in the worldview of several native cultures, whose myths allow us to approach the meaning of the panel."
Dimension Antropológica Año 18 Vol. 53, Sep 2011
U no de los episodios más curiosos de la historia del arte pa rietal prehistórico es el hecho de ... more U no de los episodios más curiosos de la historia del arte pa rietal prehistórico es el hecho de que, tras su descubrimiento en 1879, los especialistas hayan tardado cerca de veinticinco años en admitir su autenticidad. Más allá de lo anecdótico del even to, es notable que uno de los argumentos para aceptar la posibi lidad de que los antiguos cazadores hubieran hecho arte proviniera justa mente de la analogía etnográfica; indudablemente, el hecho de que Spencer y Gillen 1 hubieran visto con sus propios ojos a los aus tra lia nos pintando sobre las rocas tuvo gran impacto en estos pri me ros arqueólogos.
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Papers by Larissa Mendoza Straffon
Sin embargo, las evidencias han puesto de relieve el interés que tenían sus autores por plasmar marcadores astronómicos y algunos cuerpos estelares en sus murales. Importantes conjuntos sudcalifornianos como las cuevas de La Pintada, El Ratón, Las Flechas, La Serpiente, La Clarita, El Palmarito I, La Cuevona, Mono Alto, San Casimiro y el Porcelano, entre otras, ostentan connotaciones de carácter astral.
Magdaleniense y Epigravetiense, se percibe que, hasta cierto punto, las formas en que se inhumaban los diversos sectores sociales se tornaron más homogéneas. Pero, reconociendo constantes, se concluye que las concepciones paleolíticas de la muerte conformaron un fenómeno de larga duración en el que, pese a la existencia de modificaciones superficiales, pudieron mantenerse una serie de elementos más centrales.
Arqueología (2009), No. 40
https://revistas.inah.gob.mx/index.php/arqueologia/article/view/3559