{{short description, Concept of how the people’s culture understands nature, contrasting with the operational environment Cognized environment is a concept first introduced by the late

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

Roy Rappaport Roy A. Rappaport (1926–1997) was an American anthropologist known for his contributions to the anthropological study of ritual and to ecological anthropology. Biography Rappaport received his Ph.D. at Columbia University and held a tenured posi ...

(1968), in contrast to what he called the ''operational environment'' (see Rappaport 1979:97-144, 1984:337-352). Rappaport was an ecological anthropologist, like

Andrew P. Vayda Andrew P. "Pete" Vayda (December 7, 1931 – January 15, 2022) was a Hungarian-born American anthropologist and ecologist who was a distinguished professor emeritus of anthropology and ecology at Rutgers University. Biographical background Vayd ...

, and wished to contrast the actual reality and adaptations (the operational environment) within a people's

ecological niche In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. Three variants of ecological niche are described by It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (for ...

– say, the existence of

tsetse flies Tsetse ( , or ) (sometimes spelled tzetze; also known as tik-tik flies), are large, biting flies that inhabit much of tropical Africa. Tsetse flies include all the species in the genus ''Glossina'', which are placed in their own family, Glos ...

and their role in causing

sleeping sickness African trypanosomiasis, also known as African sleeping sickness or simply sleeping sickness, is an insect-borne parasitic infection of humans and other animals. It is caused by the species ''Trypanosoma brucei''. Humans are infected by two typ ...

among humans – with how the people’s culture understands nature (the cognized environment) – say, the belief that

witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of Magic (supernatural), magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In Middle Ages, medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually ...

es live in those areas that science knows is the habitat of the tsetse. Rappaport’s principal concern was the role of ritual in mediating the cognized and operational environments. Another group of anthropologists later took up the use of Rappaport’s concepts and applied them toward developing a school of

neuroanthropology Neuroanthropology is the study of the relationship between culture and the brain. Overview Neuroanthropology explores how the brain gives rise to culture, how culture influences brain development, structure and function, and the pathways followed ...

called

biogenetic structuralism Charles D. Laughlin, Jr. (born 1938) is a neuroanthropologist known primarily for having co-founded a school of neuroanthropological theory called " biogenetic structuralism." Laughlin is an emeritus professor of anthropology and religion at Car ...

(see Laughlin and Brady 1978: 6, d'Aquili, Laughlin and McManus 1979: 12ff, Rubinstein, Laughlin and McManus 1984: 21ff, and Laughlin, McManus and d'Aquili 1990:82-90). According to this group, all properties and qualities of experience are mediated by our body’s

neuroendocrine system Neuroendocrinology is the branch of biology (specifically of physiology) which studies the interaction between the nervous system and the endocrine system; i.e. how the brain regulates the hormonal activity in the body. The nervous and endocrine ...

s. These systems function individually and collectively to model reality. The sum total of these models in the brain is the cognized environment. The operational environment refers to the actual niche in which the human or other animal with a brain dwells and adapts. The operational environment is the real world that is modelled by our cognized environment.

References

*D'Aquili, Eugene G., Charles D. Laughlin and John McManus (1979) ''The Spectrum of Ritual''. New York: Columbia University Press. *Laughlin, C.D. and I.A. Brady (1978) ''Extinction and Survival in Human Populations''. New York: Columbia University Press. *Laughlin, Charles D., John McManus and Eugene G. d'Aquili (1990) ''Brain, Symbol and Experience: Toward a Neurophenomenology of Consciousness''. New York: Columbia University Press. *Rappaport, R.A. (1968) ''Pigs for the Ancestors''. New Haven: Yale University Press. *Rappaport, R.A. (1979) ''Ecology, Meaning and Religion''. Richmond: North Atlantic Books. *Rappaport, R.A. (1984) ''Pigs for the Ancestors''. 2nd edition. New Haven: Yale University Press. *Rappaport, R.A. (1999) ''

Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, ...

''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Rubinstein, R.A., C.D. Laughlin and J. McManus (1984) ''Science As Cognitive Process''. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Anthropology Environmental social science

See also

References