We implemented two instance-based learners, the K-Nearest Neighbors model and the Generalized Context Model, and a rule-based learner, the Minimal Generalization Learner, adapted for linguistic data. We fit these on three distinct, variable patterns of word variation in Hungarian: paradig- matic leveling and vowel deletion in verbs and vowel har- mony in nouns. We tested their predictions using a Wug task. The best learners were combined into an ensemble model for each pattern. All three learners explain variation in the test data. The best ensemble models of inflectional variation in the data combine instance-based and rule-based learners. This result suggests that the best psychologically plausible learn- ing model of morphological variation combines instance-based and rule-based approaches and might vary from case to case.

We address competing perspectives on how social-indexicalmeaning is learned in language, using data from artificial lan-guage learning experiments and two studies in small-scalesocieties. Our results indicate that learning social-indexicalmeaning is primarily allocentric as opposed to egocentric:speaker success in learning a social-indexical meaning patterndepends on overall exposure to the pattern more than the pat-tern’s relative importance to the speaker. We base these claimson data from American English-speaking adults, Datooga-speaking children, as well as adults and children speakingMurrinhpatha. The results highlight the importance of widen-ing the sample of methods and data sources in studying howvariation in language is learned and maintained.

Anthropology was a founding member of cognitive science(Bender et al., 2010; Gardner, 1985), sharing with othercognitive disciplines a deep interest in thinking and behav-ior. With its unique expertise in the cultural content, con-text, and constitution of cognition, it would still be essentialto any comprehensive endeavor to explore the human mind(Bloch, 2012), but rather has turned into cognitive science’s“missing discipline” (Boden, 2006), thus leaving importantquestions unanswered or even unasked. Given that substan-tial shares of knowledge are implicit and that cognition issituated, distributed, embodied, and grounded in variousother ways, anthropological approaches provide privilegedaccess to investigation: for arriving at reasonable hypothe-ses, ensuring ecological validity, and even for coming upwith new research questions and paradigms (Astuti &Bloch, 2012; Hutchins, 2010; Nersessian, 2006).In line with recent calls for rapprochement in Topics inCognitive Science (Bender et al., 2012; Beller & Bender,2015), our symposium brings together scholars that repre-sent different branches of contemporary anthropology withdistinct perspectives—including ‘traditional’ social anthro-pology, cognitive anthropology and ethno-linguistics, cogni-tive ecology, evolutionary anthropology, and archaeology—to present what they consider to be indispensable contribu-tions to cognitive science.With our selection of authors, we hope to demonstrate thevalue of anthropological approaches for cognitive science aswell as the potential benefits of cross-disciplinary collabora-tion. Cognitive archaeologist Overmann discusses a theo-retical perspective on how mind, behavior, and materialartifacts interact to shape human cognition. Combining theirexpertise in linguistics and evolutionary anthropology, Ráczand Jordan investigate the design principles of kinship sys-tems as near-universal conceptual tools. With his back-ground in (ethno-)linguistics and cognitive anthropology,Le Guen uses Yucatec Maya sign languages to illustrate theimportance of cultural practices for shaping cognitive be-havior. Based on Hutchins’ cognitive ecology approach,Solberg speaks to questions at the intersection of anthropol-ogy and philosophy of science by illuminating the culturalframework of science production in a biology lab. And so-cial anthropologist Astuti concludes by taking a bird’s eyeview on how efforts to understand the human mind cruciallybenefit from acknowledging its historical origins and fromtaking the specific sociocultural contexts into consideration.Based on work some of which is published in high-qualityjournals (such as Science, Nature, PNAS, BBS, TiCS, Cur-rent Anthropology, or Cognition), these participants willoffer invaluable contributions to a more diverse, more inclu-sive, and hence more comprehensive cognitive science.