Helena Miton

All Publications

• Cognitive Technologies and Their Histories. Topics in cognitive science Chrisomalis, S., Miton, H. 2025

  Abstract

  Cognitive technologies are socially shared and culturally evolved systems whose function is principally cognitive. Throughout human history and prehistory, they have aided in classifying, organizing, or managing information and knowledge, including ideas, language, and material culture. They range in scope from the highly artifactual (e.g., maps, scientific instruments, weights and measures) to the more abstract and conceptual (e.g., taxonomies, linguistic frameworks). Cognitive technologies thus scaffold many of the complex activities common to all human societies. Because they are both dynamic and culturally embedded, cognitive technologies, therefore, have histories, and are thus amenable not only to contemporary experimental methods, but also a range of historical and evolutionary approaches, including those from outside disciplines traditionally considered parts of cognitive science, such as classics and other humanistic disciplines. While the study of cognitive technologies is hardly new, many pre-existing studies can now be brought together under this framework in recognition that the field has been insufficiently integrated. This issue brings together a disciplinarily diverse range of scholars whose work employs the methods and concepts of specific disciplines while orienting itself around contemporary cognitive-scientific frameworks. The value of this integrative approach is to form a nexus around which a broader range of future interdisciplinary cognitive scholarship can coalesce, in which humanists and scientists have much to learn from one another through collaboration and shared concepts.

  View details for DOI 10.1111/tops.70035

  View details for PubMedID 41308175

• Complex technology requires cultural innovations for distributing cognition. Trends in cognitive sciences Miton, H., Jackson, J. C. 2025

  Abstract

  Over the last decade, new research has shown how human collectives can develop technologies that no single individual could discover on their own. However, this research often overlooks how technology can become so complex that individuals cannot operate it on their own. At this level of technological complexity, distributing cognition is a necessary process for reducing cognitive load on individuals. Yet distributing cognition also imposes coordination costs as technological systems become larger and the individuals in these systems become more specialized. We describe a sprawling set of cultural innovations that facilitate cognitive distribution by reducing cognitive load, reducing coordination costs, or doing both. Preliminary evidence suggests that these cultural innovations co-evolve with technological complexity.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.tics.2025.08.003

  View details for PubMedID 40914646

• Information architectures: a framework for understanding socio-technical systems. Npj complexity Smaldino, P. E., Russell, A., Zefferman, M. R., Donath, J., Foster, J. G., Guilbeault, D., Hilbert, M., Hobson, E. A., Lerman, K., Miton, H., Moser, C., Lasser, J., Schmer-Galunder, S., Shapiro, J. N., Zhong, Q., Patt, D. 2025; 2 (1): 13

  Abstract

  A sequence of technological inventions over several centuries has dramatically lowered the cost of producing and distributing information. Because societies ride on a substrate of information, these changes have profoundly impacted how we live, work, and interact. This paper explores the nature of information architectures (IAs)-the features that govern how information flows within human populations. IAs include physical and digital infrastructures, norms and institutions, and algorithmic technologies for filtering, producing, and disseminating information. IAs can reinforce societal biases and lead to prosocial outcomes as well as social ills. IAs have culturally evolved rapidly with human usage, creating new affordances and new problems for the dynamics of social interaction. We explore societal outcomes instigated by shifts in IAs and call for an enhanced understanding of the social implications of increasing IA complexity, the nature of competition among IAs, and the creation of mechanisms for the beneficial use of IAs.

  View details for DOI 10.1038/s44260-025-00037-z

  View details for PubMedID 40255931

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC12006018

• The phonology of letter shapes: Feature economy and informativeness in 43 writing systems JOURNAL OF MEMORY AND LANGUAGE Kim, Y., Allassonniere-Tang, M., Miton, H., Morin, O. 2025; 142

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104620

  View details for Web of Science ID 001421032300001

• Zipf's Law of Abbreviation holds for individual characters across a broad range of writing systems COGNITION Koshevoy, A., Miton, H., Morin, O. 2023; 238: 105527

  Abstract

  Zipf's Law of Abbreviation - the idea that more frequent symbols in a code are simpler than less frequent ones - has been shown to hold at the level of words in many languages. We tested whether it holds at the level of individual written characters. Character complexity is similar to word length in that it requires more cognitive and motor effort for producing and processing more complex symbols. We built a dataset of character complexity and frequency measures covering 27 different writing systems. According to our data, Zipf's Law of Abbreviation holds for every writing system in our dataset - the more frequent characters have lower degrees of complexity and vice-versa. This result provides further evidence of optimization mechanisms shaping communication systems.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105527

  View details for Web of Science ID 001040672900001

  View details for PubMedID 37364507

• Statistical signals of copying are robust to time- and space-averaging EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES Youngblood, M., Miton, H., Morin, O. 2023; 5: e10

  Abstract

  Cattle brands (ownership marks left on animals) are subject to forces influencing other graphic codes: the copying of constituent parts, pressure for distinctiveness and pressure for complexity. The historical record of cattle brands in some US states is complete owing to legal registration, providing a unique opportunity to assess how sampling processes leading to time- and space-averaging influence our ability to make inferences from limited datasets in fields like archaeology. In this preregistered study, we used a dataset of ~81,000 Kansas cattle brands (1990-2016) to explore two aspects: (1) the relative influence of copying, pressure for distinctiveness and pressure for complexity on the creation and diffusion of brand components; and (2) the effects of time- and space-averaging on statistical signals. By conducting generative inference with an agent-based model, we found that the patterns in our data are consistent with copying and pressure for intermediate complexity. In addition, by comparing mixed and structured datasets, we found that these statistical signals of copying are robust to, and possibly boosted by, time- and space-averaging.

  View details for DOI 10.1017/ehs.2023.5

  View details for Web of Science ID 000983068100001

  View details for PubMedID 37587938

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC10426036

• Graphic complexity in writing systems COGNITION Miton, H., Morin, O. 2021; 214: 104771

  Abstract

  A writing system is a graphic code, i.e., a system of standardized pairings between symbols and meanings in which symbols take the form of images that can endure. The visual character of writing implies that written characters have to fit constraints of the human visual system. One aspect of this optimization lays in the graphic complexity of the characters used by scripts. Scripts are sets of graphic characters used for the written form of one language or more. Using computational methods over a large and diverse dataset (over 47,000 characters, from over 133 scripts), we answer three central questions about the visual complexity of written characters and the evolution of writing: (1) What determines character complexity? (2) Can we find traces of evolutionary change in character complexity? (3) Is complexity distributed in a way that makes character recognition easier? Our study suggests that (1) character complexity depends primarily on which linguistic unit the characters encode, and that (2) there is little evidence of evolutionary change in character complexity. Additionally (3) for an individual character, the half which is encountered first while reading tends to be more complex than that which is encountered last.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104771

  View details for Web of Science ID 000678531500009

  View details for PubMedID 34034009

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC8346946