The evolution of social learning mechanisms and cultural phenomena in group foragers

BMC Evolutionary Biology

Research Article

Kevin N. Laland¹  Daniel J. van der Post¹  Mathias Franz² 

[1]Center for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Biology, St Andrews University, Harold Mitchell Building, KY16 9TH, St Andrews, UK

[2]Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Straße 17, 10315, Berlin, Germany

关键词: Multi-scale approach;    Agent-based model;    Mechanism specificity;    Traditions;    Cumulative culture;    Self-organization;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12862-017-0889-z

 received in 2016-07-08, accepted in 2017-01-18,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAdvanced cognitive abilities are widely thought to underpin cultural traditions and cumulative cultural change. In contrast, recent simulation models have found that basic social influences on learning suffice to support both cultural phenomena. In the present study we test the predictions of these models in the context of skill learning, in a model with stochastic demographics, variable group sizes, and evolved parameter values, exploring the cultural ramifications of three different social learning mechanisms.ResultsOur results show that that simple forms of social learning such as local enhancement, can generate traditional differences in the context of skill learning. In contrast, we find cumulative cultural change is supported by observational learning, but not local or stimulus enhancement, which supports the idea that advanced cognitive abilities are important for generating this cultural phenomenon in the context of skill learning.ConclusionsOur results help to explain the observation that animal cultures are widespread, but cumulative cultural change might be rare.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2017

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