Introduction to topiCS Volume 18, Issue 2

This issue of Topics in Cognitive Science hosts two exceptional selections, both arising from presentations at the Annual Meetings of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci: a selection of outstanding individual presentations from last year, and a topic arising from a symposium on a key theme in cultural evolution 2 years earlier. The topiCS team wishes to take this opportunity to congratulate these authors for their awards! The second topic in this issue, “Marks and Meanings: New Perspectives on the Evolution of Human Visual Culture,” is devoted to the question of when and why our species began to use material marks endowed with meaning. It assembles six contributions that bridge a wide spectrum of disciplines, from archaeology and primatology to cognitive and neuroscience. The topic's editors, Izzy Wisher (Aarhus University, Denmark) and Michelle C. Langley (Griffith University, Australia), offer a great overview of the field in general and of the individual contributions in their Editors’ Introduction (Wisher, Langley, & Tylén (2026)). In so doing, they also honor the memory of the person who initiated the endeavor, but sadly did not live to see it finalized: Kristian Tylén, a young and highly promising professor in Cognitive Science at Aarhus University and its Interactive Minds Centre, combined a keen interest in the origins of a uniquely human behavior with experimental and dynamical systems approaches to language, cognition, and interaction (e.g., Pagnotta et al., 2026a, b; Tylén et al., 2020; Wisher & Tylen, 2025). In 2022, he was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for his project on the “Evolution of Early Symbolic Behavior,” and both the CogSci symposium and his proposal for a topic in this journal were aimed at advancing the field by stimulating cross-disciplinary dialogue and integration. Only a few months after it was accepted, Kristian passed away. But with their dedication to see this topic through, Izzy and Michelle have crafted a lasting tribute to Kristian's creativity and vision. topiCS encourages letters and commentaries on all topics, as well as proposals for new topics. Letters are not longer than two published pages (ca. 400–1000 words). Commentaries (between 1000 and 2000 words) are often solicited by Topic Editors prior to the publication of their topic, but they may also be considered after publication. Letters and commentaries typically come without an abstract and with few references, if any. The Executive Editor and the Senior Editorial Board (SEB) are constantly searching for new and exciting topics for topiCS. Feel free to open communications with a short note to the Executive Editor ([email protected]) or a member of the SEB (for a list, see the publisher's homepage for topiCS: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/17568765/homepage/editorialboard.html).