Human cognitive uniqueness is often defined in terms of cognitive abilities such as introspection, imitation and cooperativeness. However, little is known about how those traits vary in populations or correlate across individuals. Here we test whether those three cognitive domains are correlated manifestations of an underlying factor, analogous to the psychometric ‘g’ factor, or independent ‘behavioural phenotypes’, analogous to the ‘Big-Five’ personality components. We selected eight variables measuring introspection and extraversion, verbal and physical imitation, cooperation and punishment, and evaluated their individual variability, domain-consistency and sub-structuring in a sample of 84 individuals. Results show high variation and limited clustering into three independent ‘behavioural phenotypes’ of introspection, imitation and cooperation. Only one significant correlation was identified (between two measures of extraversion), while other within-domain measures (introspection vs. extraversion, verbal vs. physical imitation, and cooperation vs. punishment) were not associated. Finally, no between-domain association was identified either through correlations or factor analysis. Overall, the results do not lend support to the hypothesis of a general ‘behavioural phenotype’ underlying individual behaviour. The independence of behaviours of introspection, imitation and cooperation may be the reason why individuals are able to adopt different behavioural strategies (combinations of behavioural phenotypes) and play distinct roles in the maintenance of human distinctive features such as hyper-cooperation and cumulative culture.

中文翻译：

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行为表型和人类认知的结构。

人们的认知唯一性通常是根据诸如内省，模仿和合作等认知能力来定义的。但是，人们对这些特征在人群中如何变化或在个体之间的相关性知之甚少。在这里，我们测试这三个认知领域是否是潜在因素的相关表现，类似于心理计量“ g”因子，还是独立的“行为表型”，类似于“大五”人格成分。我们选择了八个变量来衡量内省和外向，口头和身体的模仿，合作与惩罚，并在一个由84个人组成的样本中评估了它们的个体变异性，领域一致性和子结构。结果表明，内省，模仿和合作的三个独立的“行为表型”变异性高，聚类有限。仅有一种显着的相关性（在两种外向性测量之间），而其他域内测量（内省与外向性，言语对身体模仿，合作与惩罚）没有关联。最后，通过相关性或因素分析都没有发现域间关联。总体而言，这些结果并不能支持有关个人行为的一般“行为表型”假说。内省，模仿和合作行为的独立性可能是个人能够采用不同的行为策略（行为表型的组合）并在维持人类独特的特征（如过度合作和累积文化）中发挥独特作用的原因。