Adaptive Trade-offs in the use of Social and Personal Information

In this chapter we review the redictions arising from theoretical models and outline the current empirical support for several social learning strategies, focusing largely on our own experimental studies and other recent work (Laland 2004; Kendal et al. 2005; Galef 2006). We draw attention to adaptive trade-offs in the use of social and personal information. Laland (2004) distinguished between two classes of social learning strategy, “when” strategies, which dictate the circumstances under which individuals copy others, and “who” strategies which specify from whom individuals learn. We address each in turn

Influence of personality, age, sex, and oestrus state on chimpanzee problem-solving success

Despite the importance of individual problem solvers for group- and individual-level fitness, the correlates of individual problem-solving success are still an open topic of investigation. In addition to demographic factors, such as age or sex, certain personality dimensions have also been revealed as reliable correlates of problem-solving by animals. Such correlates, however, have been little-studied in chimpanzees. To empirically test the influence of age, sex, estrous state, and different personality factors on chimpanzee problem-solving, we individually tested 36 captive chimpanzees with two novel foraging puzzles. We included both female (N = 24) and male (N = 12) adult chimpanzees (aged 14–47 years) in our sample. We also controlled for the females’ estrous state—a potential influence on cognitive reasoning—by testing cycling females both when their sexual swelling was maximally tumescent (associated with the luteinizing hormone surge of a female’s estrous cycle) and again when it was detumescent. Although we found no correlation between the chimpanzees’ success with either puzzle and their age or sex, the chimpanzees’ personality ratings did correlate with responses to the novel foraging puzzles. Specifically, male chimpanzees that were rated highly on the factors Methodical, Openness (to experience), and Dominance spent longer interacting with the puzzles. There was also a positive relationship between the latency of females to begin interacting with the two tasks and their rating on the factor Reactivity/Undependability. No other significant correlations were found, but we report tentative evidence for increased problem-solving success by the females when they had detumescent estrous swellings

Animal ‘Culture Wars’; Evidence from the Wild?

If we observe orang-utans blowing raspberries before bedtime, what does this mean? And why should psychologists, with their focus on human behaviour, be interested? This article looks at what constitutes evidence for ‘culture’ in animals, and why the findings from long-term field studies are giving us valuable insight into the underlying cognitive processes, evolutionary bases and welfare implications for animals and humans alike

Social learning and culture in non-human organisms

The article reviews the field of animal social learning and culture, covering how and why it is studied in both captive and wild animals, by researchers with often differing agendas. Our increasing understanding of the adaptive value of social learning and culture is discussed as well as the new avenues for research this opens. The interdisciplinary nature of the field is emphasized, which, among other areas, influences theories regarding modularity in the brain, the evolution of social intelligence, and animal conservation and welfare

The Evolution of Human Behaviour.

Humans share 95–99% of DNA sequences with chimpanzees, our closest living relative. Yet there are obviously huge differences in behaviour, including our capacity for remarkable technological advances, our development of social institutions and our use of language and social norms. The result is our unparalleled construction of tools (for example for hunting, farming, communication, transportation and medical treatments), unique social groupings (tribes and nation states with their own laws and customs), and social institutions (schools, hospitals, governments and markets). So how did humans develop such a unique and complex culture

Quantifying and modeling social learning processes in monkey populations

Putative traditions in animal opulations remain unsubstantiated in the absence of methods to isolate the mechanisms of social transmission in social groups. Here we address this problem by quantifying the effect of two social learning processes, namely stimulus enhancement and observational learning, on the adoption of a novel extractive foraging behavior in groups of callitrichid monkeys. We simulate the effect of these processes in a model for the spread of a novel behaviour and also select which model-parameters provide the best fit to the monkey data. Our analysis reveals evidence for asocial processes and stimulus enhancement but not observational learning. The latency to solve the tasks co-varied with the strength of the asocial, but not social, processes. Further, only asocial parameters were required for the model to fit the data. Both model and monkey diffusion data exhibited deceleratory diffusion curves. We discuss the relationship between both the asocial and social processes and the diffusion dynamics