Abstract
Metacognition – the ability to represent, monitor and control ongoing cognitive
processes – helps us perform many tasks, both when acting alone and when
working with others. While metacognition is adaptive, and found in other animals,
we should not assume that all human forms of metacognition are gene-based
adaptations. Instead, some forms may have a social origin, including the
discrimination, interpretation, and broadcasting of metacognitive representations.
There is evidence that each of these abilities depends on cultural learning
and therefore that cultural selectionmight shape humanmetacognition. The cultural
origins hypothesis is a plausible and testable alternative that directs us towards a
substantial new programme of research.