Overview
Understanding the evolution of cooperation, which is collectively beneficial but individually costly, is a major focus of research in a wide range of fields including economics,
psychology, computer science, and evolutionary biology. To that end, a great deal of work has illuminated various mechanisms which can promote the evolution of cooperative
behavior. Here we use evolutionary game theory and focus on the cognitive processes
underlying cooperative or non-cooperative choices. We explore cognition using the
“dual-process” framework, in which decisions are made based on two different cognitive
processes: (1) Automatic, intuitive and relatively effortless yet inflexible processes; versus (2) controlled, deliberate and relatively effortful but flexible processes. We investigate
coevolution of cooperation and cognition in structured population and determine conditions under which costly deliberation is favored over intuition, as well as when cooperation is
favored over selfish response.