From an ethological and evolutionary perspective, ritualization is a selective process by which an original pattern of behavior is functionally modified and co-opted (exapted) for a different use than the original one and in a different context. Ritualized, repetitive and rigid forms of actions are evident both in social or non-social environmental contexts, representing an ubiquitous phenomenon in animal life, including human individuals and cultures. Moreover, formal features of rituals appear to be highly conserved along phylogeny (with a circular and spatio-temporal structure, built on the repetition of non-functional acts and loss of automaticity). A continuity, based on highly conserved cortico-striatal loops, can be traced from animal rituals to human individual and collective rituals with psychopathological compulsions at the crossing point. As far as its adaptive significance, ethological comparative studies show that the tendency to ritualization is driven by the unpredictability of social or non-social environmental stimuli. In this perspective, rituals may have a "homeostatic" function on the environment under conditions of unpredictability. Finally, within human eco-cultural niches, a circular loop may have occurred among ritual practices and symbolic activity, which emphasized the drive to ritualization, to face the “emergent” problem of ordering a novel cultural-mediated world. Actually, human mind represents a unique and emergent phenomenon due to its extended, embodied and cultural mediated character, underpinned by the biological constraints of its long evolutionary history. What is presently missing is a systematic attempt to bridge the gap between the different fields in the study of rituals in order to depict a broader cross-disciplinary framework of human behaviour. Therefore, the present contribution was aimed to investigate a possible continuity between biological and cultural rituals from an evolutionary perspective and through the lens of an integrated approach. The first chapter presents an animal model of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). We conducted an ethological analysis of the “marble burying” test in rodents to investigate the formal structure of animal compulsive-like behaviour. Our findings confirm the ethological model of compulsions as inappropriate release of fixed-action patterns, conserving the formal structure of ritual behavior. The second chapter focuses on psychopathological compulsions in OCD. The first objective was to investigate the psychopathological variables associated to the loss of insight in OCD compulsions. Then, we conducted an ethological analysis on videotape recordings of OCD compulsions compared to physiological acts of healthy individuals, to investigate the formal structure of compulsions and to assess whether it might vary according to psychopathological variables and/or childhood trauma experiences. Our results indicate that: 1) the main factor of poor insight in compulsions is OCD severity; 2) psychopathological compulsions conserve the specific, invariant formal structure of ritual behaviour; regardless to OCD psychopathology; 3) underlying schizotaxic vulnerability and childhood trauma are associated to a more complex structure of compulsions. Altogether, these results would confirm the “homeostatic” function of rituals, directed to an underlying biological or higher-order level disorganizing process. The third chapter concerns cultural rituals. In this study, we compared the videotapes of different cultural practices to analogous OCD compulsions. No differences were found in formal structure between cultural and psychopathological rituals, thus corroborating the hypothesis of an evolutionary continuity between biological and cultural rituals.

Il rituale in etologia implica un processo evoluzionistico per il quale un pattern di comportamento viene modificato nella sua funzione originaria e cooptato per altri scopi e in altri contesti. Comportamenti rituali, ripetitivi e fortemente invarianti, sono presenti sia in ambito individuale che collettivo, apparendo come fenomeno ubiquitario nel mondo animale, inclusi l’uomo e ogni sua espressione culturale. Inoltre le caratteristiche formali del rituale risultano altamente conservate nella filogenesi (mantenendo una struttura circolare entro precisi parametri spazio-temporali, con ripetizione di atti non funzionali e perdita di automaticità dell’azione). E’ possibile pertanto ipotizzare una continuità, sottesa da circuiti cortico-striatali altamente conservati, tra comportamento rituale animale e rituali umani, individuali e culturali, con le compulsioni psicopatologiche come elemento di intersezione. Riguardo al significato adattativo del rituale, studi di etologia comparata evidenziano come condizioni di non-predicibilità dell’ambiente sociale o non-sociale favoriscano la ritualizzazione del comportamento, che pertanto rivelerebbe una specifica funzione “omeostatica”. Nicchie eco-culturali umane posso inoltre aver rappresentato un terreno favorevole per l’innesco di un rapporto circolare tra rituale e sviluppo delle capacità simboliche esitato in una ulteriore spinta alla ritualizzazione culturale. La mente umana è un fenomeno emergente per le sue caratteristiche estese, incarnate e culturali, sottese dai condizionamenti biologici della nostra storia evolutiva. Lo studio del rituale risente tuttavia di limitati tentativi di contaminazione interdisciplinare. Pertanto, lo scopo primario del presente contributo è quello di indagare i rapporti di continuità-discontinuità tra rituale biologico e culturale secondo una prospettiva evoluzionistica ed un approccio interdisciplinare. Il primo capitolo illustra un modello animale di Disturbo Ossessivo-Compulsivo (DOC). In particolare, è stata condotta una analisi etologica del test “marble burying”, al fine di indagare la struttura formale di un comportamento simil-compulsivo nei roditori. I risultati confermano il modello etologico di compulsione come rilascio inappropriato di “moduli fissi d’azione”, conservando la specifica struttura del comportamento rituale. Il secondo capitolo riguarda lo studio dei rituali compulsivi nel DOC. Il primo obiettivo era quello di valutare le possibili variabili psicopatologiche associate alla perdita di insight. Quindi, è stata condotta una analisi etologica su registrazioni filmate di atti compulsivi confrontati con corrispondenti atti fisiologici di controlli sani al fine di indagare la struttura formale delle compulsioni e se questa sia modificata da variabili psicopatologiche e/o esperienze traumatiche infantili. I nostri risultati indicano che: 1) il principale fattore nel predire la perdita di insight è la gravità del DOC; le compulsioni conservano la specifica struttura del comportamento rituale, indipendentemente da altre variabili psicopatologiche del DOC; 3) una vulnerabilità schizotassica e traumi infantili sono associati ad una più complessa struttura del rituale compulsivo. Questi risultati confermerebbero l’ipotesi di una funzione omeostatica del comportamento rituale, diretta ad una sottostante processualità biologica o evolutiva. Il terzo capitolo riguarda i rituali culturali. Sono state confrontate registrazioni di pratiche rituali di differenti culture con corrispondenti comportamenti compulsivi di pazienti affetti da DOC. I comportamenti rituali culturali e psicopatologici non differivano per le caratteristiche formali, avvalorando pertanto l’ipotesi di una continuità evoluzionistica tra rituali biologici e culturali.

La "mente rituale": una prospettiva interdisciplinare / Matteo Tonna , 2020 Mar 19. 32. ciclo, Anno Accademico 2018/2019.

La "mente rituale": una prospettiva interdisciplinare

TONNA, MATTEO
2020

Abstract

From an ethological and evolutionary perspective, ritualization is a selective process by which an original pattern of behavior is functionally modified and co-opted (exapted) for a different use than the original one and in a different context. Ritualized, repetitive and rigid forms of actions are evident both in social or non-social environmental contexts, representing an ubiquitous phenomenon in animal life, including human individuals and cultures. Moreover, formal features of rituals appear to be highly conserved along phylogeny (with a circular and spatio-temporal structure, built on the repetition of non-functional acts and loss of automaticity). A continuity, based on highly conserved cortico-striatal loops, can be traced from animal rituals to human individual and collective rituals with psychopathological compulsions at the crossing point. As far as its adaptive significance, ethological comparative studies show that the tendency to ritualization is driven by the unpredictability of social or non-social environmental stimuli. In this perspective, rituals may have a "homeostatic" function on the environment under conditions of unpredictability. Finally, within human eco-cultural niches, a circular loop may have occurred among ritual practices and symbolic activity, which emphasized the drive to ritualization, to face the “emergent” problem of ordering a novel cultural-mediated world. Actually, human mind represents a unique and emergent phenomenon due to its extended, embodied and cultural mediated character, underpinned by the biological constraints of its long evolutionary history. What is presently missing is a systematic attempt to bridge the gap between the different fields in the study of rituals in order to depict a broader cross-disciplinary framework of human behaviour. Therefore, the present contribution was aimed to investigate a possible continuity between biological and cultural rituals from an evolutionary perspective and through the lens of an integrated approach. The first chapter presents an animal model of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). We conducted an ethological analysis of the “marble burying” test in rodents to investigate the formal structure of animal compulsive-like behaviour. Our findings confirm the ethological model of compulsions as inappropriate release of fixed-action patterns, conserving the formal structure of ritual behavior. The second chapter focuses on psychopathological compulsions in OCD. The first objective was to investigate the psychopathological variables associated to the loss of insight in OCD compulsions. Then, we conducted an ethological analysis on videotape recordings of OCD compulsions compared to physiological acts of healthy individuals, to investigate the formal structure of compulsions and to assess whether it might vary according to psychopathological variables and/or childhood trauma experiences. Our results indicate that: 1) the main factor of poor insight in compulsions is OCD severity; 2) psychopathological compulsions conserve the specific, invariant formal structure of ritual behaviour; regardless to OCD psychopathology; 3) underlying schizotaxic vulnerability and childhood trauma are associated to a more complex structure of compulsions. Altogether, these results would confirm the “homeostatic” function of rituals, directed to an underlying biological or higher-order level disorganizing process. The third chapter concerns cultural rituals. In this study, we compared the videotapes of different cultural practices to analogous OCD compulsions. No differences were found in formal structure between cultural and psychopathological rituals, thus corroborating the hypothesis of an evolutionary continuity between biological and cultural rituals.
The “ritual mind”: an interdisciplinary perspective
19-mar-2020
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