In their recent target article, Ko and Neuberg offer an intriguing integration of the ecological affordances framework with life history theory, arguing that individuals will perceive and engage with affordances flexibly depending on their goals and life history stages. As a philosopher working at the intersection of the cognitive sciences and evolutionary biology, I found their proposal both illuminating about human flexibility and deeply consonant with my own work on life history complexity and goal-directedness (Veit Reference Veit2023; Veit, Gascoigne, & Salguero-Gomez, Reference Veit, Gascoigne and Salguero-Gomez2025). I particularly welcome their insistence that affordances are not static features of the environment but are dynamically shaped by an individual’s shifting priorities. However, I do not consider this a unique feature of human life histories since animal life histories can be similarly complex. Accordingly, my goal in this brief commentary will be to attempt to expand the proposals by Ko and Neuberg toward a more general ecological framework. While I don’t think that Ko and Neuberg would necessarily object to such an extension, I will simply proceed here by juxtaposing their arguments to the animal case.
First, Ko and Neuberg emphasize that humans face trade-offs in the allocation of time, energy, and other resources during their life stages. But this is, of course, not unique to our species. Indeed, this is a feature of all life, including bacteria and plants, and what we should instead focus on are differences in the complexity of these strategic trade-offs of species-specific life history strategies, which can in turn be measured (Veit, Gascoigne, & Salguero-Gomez, Reference Veit, Gascoigne and Salguero-Gomez2025).
Second, it is unlikely that the human species is unique in having specialized adaptations to flexibly deal with changing life history priorities across life stages. That these trade-offs change across time was the ultimate motivation behind life history theory to begin with. While humans have cognitive processes to detect operational sex ratios, other species also appear to show sensitivity to operational sex ratios which may not be surprising given its importance in changing the fitness of alternative strategies (Kappeler et al., Reference Kappeler, Benhaiem, Fichtel, Fromhage, Höner, Jennions and Goymann2023). These points similarly apply to physical violence and genetic relatedness.
Third, I did not find their claim that “earlier life-history goals are not replaced by later-stage goals but continue to operate alongside them” (sect. 2.2, para. 1) very compelling, since goals with a priority of 0 or a very low importance, may effectively not exist. I believe it to be conceptually cleaner to clarify that while goals may change in their priority, some life stages also see the creation of new goals and the cessation of some older ones, for example, further growth after reaching adulthood. Emphasizing goal prioritization alone, it appears to me, needlessly restricts their framework.
Fourth, it is useful to emphasize that ecological affordances are a fundamental feature of the interaction between biological systems and their environments. In my own work, I have argued that the primary goals of animals, such as thirst, hunger, and damage, would have led to the evolution of the first subjective experiences in the form of simple affective states to enable animals to more effectively deal with trade-offs in their decision-making (Veit Reference Veit2023). But my thesis linking properties of the mind to life history complexity (or as I called it “pathological complexity”) was more broadly intended to offer a useful ecological framework for the study of animal minds. Indeed, not only do I see Ko and Neuberg’s proposal as also providing a useful ecological framework, I think that they could constitute a useful complement in terms of a broader life history framework that emphasizes not only the “complexities of ecological affordances in diverse environments and cultures, advancing our understanding of the dynamic interplay between human development and ecological navigation” (Ko and Neuberg, sect. 6, para. 3), but also of animal development and ecological navigation more generally. This would also allow them to draw on significantly more empirical data in support of their framework and guidance for the discovery of similarities and differences between how different species deal with affordance management.
Finally, I want to emphasize again that my contribution here is less a critique than an extension. Ko and Neuberg’s framework is a valuable step toward understanding how humans manage ecological affordances across life stages. I have suggested that its true potential lies in extending it to animal life histories more broadly. Doing so would help us to not only understand the complexity of human life history strategies but also provide a comparative foundation for studying how different species perceive, prioritize, and navigate their environments. In this way, their proposal and my own work on life history complexity may jointly contribute to a general ecological framework for cognition and behavior across the living world.
Edward Baggs
[Opens in a new window]Edward Baggs
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In their recent target article, Ko and Neuberg offer an intriguing integration of the ecological affordances framework with life history theory, arguing that individuals will perceive and engage with affordances flexibly depending on their goals and life history stages. As a philosopher working at the intersection of the cognitive sciences and evolutionary biology, I found their proposal both illuminating about human flexibility and deeply consonant with my own work on life history complexity and goal-directedness (Veit Reference Veit2023; Veit, Gascoigne, & Salguero-Gomez, Reference Veit, Gascoigne and Salguero-Gomez2025). I particularly welcome their insistence that affordances are not static features of the environment but are dynamically shaped by an individual’s shifting priorities. However, I do not consider this a unique feature of human life histories since animal life histories can be similarly complex. Accordingly, my goal in this brief commentary will be to attempt to expand the proposals by Ko and Neuberg toward a more general ecological framework. While I don’t think that Ko and Neuberg would necessarily object to such an extension, I will simply proceed here by juxtaposing their arguments to the animal case.
First, Ko and Neuberg emphasize that humans face trade-offs in the allocation of time, energy, and other resources during their life stages. But this is, of course, not unique to our species. Indeed, this is a feature of all life, including bacteria and plants, and what we should instead focus on are differences in the complexity of these strategic trade-offs of species-specific life history strategies, which can in turn be measured (Veit, Gascoigne, & Salguero-Gomez, Reference Veit, Gascoigne and Salguero-Gomez2025).
Second, it is unlikely that the human species is unique in having specialized adaptations to flexibly deal with changing life history priorities across life stages. That these trade-offs change across time was the ultimate motivation behind life history theory to begin with. While humans have cognitive processes to detect operational sex ratios, other species also appear to show sensitivity to operational sex ratios which may not be surprising given its importance in changing the fitness of alternative strategies (Kappeler et al., Reference Kappeler, Benhaiem, Fichtel, Fromhage, Höner, Jennions and Goymann2023). These points similarly apply to physical violence and genetic relatedness.
Third, I did not find their claim that “earlier life-history goals are not replaced by later-stage goals but continue to operate alongside them” (sect. 2.2, para. 1) very compelling, since goals with a priority of 0 or a very low importance, may effectively not exist. I believe it to be conceptually cleaner to clarify that while goals may change in their priority, some life stages also see the creation of new goals and the cessation of some older ones, for example, further growth after reaching adulthood. Emphasizing goal prioritization alone, it appears to me, needlessly restricts their framework.
Fourth, it is useful to emphasize that ecological affordances are a fundamental feature of the interaction between biological systems and their environments. In my own work, I have argued that the primary goals of animals, such as thirst, hunger, and damage, would have led to the evolution of the first subjective experiences in the form of simple affective states to enable animals to more effectively deal with trade-offs in their decision-making (Veit Reference Veit2023). But my thesis linking properties of the mind to life history complexity (or as I called it “pathological complexity”) was more broadly intended to offer a useful ecological framework for the study of animal minds. Indeed, not only do I see Ko and Neuberg’s proposal as also providing a useful ecological framework, I think that they could constitute a useful complement in terms of a broader life history framework that emphasizes not only the “complexities of ecological affordances in diverse environments and cultures, advancing our understanding of the dynamic interplay between human development and ecological navigation” (Ko and Neuberg, sect. 6, para. 3), but also of animal development and ecological navigation more generally. This would also allow them to draw on significantly more empirical data in support of their framework and guidance for the discovery of similarities and differences between how different species deal with affordance management.
Finally, I want to emphasize again that my contribution here is less a critique than an extension. Ko and Neuberg’s framework is a valuable step toward understanding how humans manage ecological affordances across life stages. I have suggested that its true potential lies in extending it to animal life histories more broadly. Doing so would help us to not only understand the complexity of human life history strategies but also provide a comparative foundation for studying how different species perceive, prioritize, and navigate their environments. In this way, their proposal and my own work on life history complexity may jointly contribute to a general ecological framework for cognition and behavior across the living world.
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