Emiliano Bruner, a paleoneurologist at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), has just edited the academic book Cognitive Archaeology, Body Cognition, and the Evolution of Visuospatial Perception, published by Elsevier/Academic Press, on human evolution and visuospatial perception, which considers different cognitive abilities associated to the body and vision.

The first part is dedicated to the cognitive sciences, and includes chapters on somatic perception, touch and action, space and perception, body maps, technological extension and body-tool integration. The second part focuses on paleontological and archaeological issues relating to the evolution of the parietal lobes, working memory, experimental neuroarchaeology, visual and haptic attention, and psychometry.

“There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that our perceptive abilities are a key factor in our mental capacities. The capacity to perceive and integrate body and environment, in space and in time, must have played a fundamental role in the evolution of our species, both at the level of technology and in the development of a complex and flexible consciousness”, says Bruner. 

This academic text, to which more than twenty authors from institutions in Spain, France, the UK, the USA and Italy contributed, is the third Bruner has edited, the two earlier volumes being Human Paleoneurology (Springer, 2015) and Digital endocasts, from skulls to brains (Springer, 2018).