In the comments of the last post, Dr. Pat expands my thinking about bunnies notably. On the other hand, I’m not willing to step away from my explanation just yet. Here’s my “just so story”.
Most people have a group of 5 bunnies that are rather muscular bunnies that focus on group dynamics, group belonging, etc. Their preferences are aligned enough that they usually pull in the same direction. In practice, this means that in conflicts, this particular group of bunnies gets their way most of the time. There is also another bunny who is usually weak and sickly (or a frog) who checks for ideational consistency. That frog usually moves backwards.
In some rare folks, the frog is unusually muscular. Not a normal frog or even a bullfrog, but a big-ass pixie frog who eats rats. He gets what he wants a little bit. Or he has a buddy: 2 giant pixie frogs. These people would land in what Simon Baron Cohen (autism researcher) talks about as high on the systematizing scale. Now, some other rare folks would have group bunnies that were sick...they had polio as baby bunnies. One of the 5 died. The other 4 are crippled and can’t walk effectively.
If you run into a person who (a) has crippled group bunnies, and (b) has giant pixie-frogs...then you get a different approach to cognition than you see in most.
That doesn’t say it’s better.
FWIW, the book that most informed my thinking on Rabbit-Brains is “Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite” by Robert Kurzban. Fabulous book. Rabbits are my wording.
As a note, there is a followup post on the next day which I’ve posted below:
http://aretae.blogspot.no/2012/10/responding-on-rabbits.html